BMW Championship Betting Picks: 3 Golf Bets to Make at Bellerive

Last week was the week Scottie Scheffler Got His Groove Back, except he never really lost his groove in the first place.

The best golfer in the world hadn’t won since January, but he kept getting close and collecting runner-up finishes, surely frustrating those who were betting him to win. His monstrous eight-shot win at the first leg of the FedEx Cup playoffs, the FedEx St. Jude Championship, signals that Scottie’s capable of going on a new tear akin to his 2025 season.

Just in time for the BMW Championship, I might add, a tournament he won last year. It’s one of the most intriguing weeks of the golf season, as the top 50 players in the FedEx Cup chase try to ensure their place in the top 30 to qualify for next week’s Tour Championship.

If you’re just going to bet Scheffler to win at hyper-short odds and call it a day, you wouldn’t have looked up this article. So let’s tackle three other betting picks for the week at Bellerive Country Club ahead of the tournament’s start Thursday.

Top UK and Ireland

In his old age (his 30s), when Rory McIlroy takes three weeks off from competition, it’s as though he has to start from scratch when he returns. He finished 66th of 68 at the St. Jude and never broke par, falling to 8 over for the week, then spoke about feeling “lost” with his golf swing.

To me, that’s not someone I want to place any amount of money on this week, six major titles or no. McIlroy leads the Top UK and Ireland odds boards and multiple books, so I believe there’s great value to be found just beneath him.

Tommy Fleetwood, lest we forget, is the reigning FedEx Cup champion. He hasn’t won anything of note since, but he’s shown up week after week regardless of course conditions. Here are his PGA Tour finishes since June: T4, T11, T11, T14, T13, T4, T7. The last two were the Open Championship and the St. Jude.

The pick: Tommy Fleetwood to be Top UK and Ireland finisher, +300 at FanDuel

Top 20

How much stock should we put in a major finish from eight years ago? That’s the last time any PGA Tour players competed at Bellerive in the St. Louis area, meaning most of the young guys have yet to go there and the data set will skew older. The top three at the 2018 PGA Championship there were none other than Brooks Koepka, Tiger Woods and Adam Scott.

Perhaps it will mean nothing all these years later, but Scott is an interesting player to watch this week for more than that reason. He has quietly rounded into form, tying for ninth at The Open and tying for 12th at the St. Jude. He’s on the top-30 bubble, 27th in the points standings, meaning he knows he needs to turn in another solid week to advance to East Lake.

And approach shots, particularly long ones, will be paramount at the 7,448-yard, par-70 Bellerive. Scott ranks 12th this season in strokes gained on approach, sixth on approaches from 175-200 yards and 10th on approaches from more than 200 yards away. There could be a lovely fit here, and we’re not asking him to win outright, just play well.

The pick: Adam Scott to finish Top 20, +125 on BetMGM

Tournament winner

Let’s call it the Tournament Winner: Non-Scheffler Division. After all, he’s back to having 2025-esque ridiculously short odds to win, in the +275 to +310 range. There’s little payoff to be had there.

One guy I feel we should be hearing more about is Xander Schauffele, in part because he always seems to play his best golf come the playoffs. A top-20 at The Open, runner-up finish at the Rocket Classic and T7 at the St. Jude show he’s in form.

I also like the fit. Bellerive is not only long but narrow, and Schauffele has been one of the best players off the tee, No. 10 on tour in total driving (his distance ranking plus his accuracy ranking). When he misses the green, he’s been one of the best scramblers on tour this year as well. It feels like a breakthrough waiting to happen for Schauffele’s first win of 2026.

The pick: Xander Schauffele to win the tournament at +1800, BetMGM