A week after picking up his first PGA Championship and third career Major Championship win, Scottie Scheffler is back as the PGA Tour heads to Texas for the Charles Schwab Challenge. The World number is joined by Hideki Matsuyama and Tommy Fleetwood as the only three players ranked inside the Top 10 when looking at the DataGolf world rankings. After that top tier, it is actually a pretty decent field with 49 of the Top 100 players in the rankings teeing it up at Colonial Country Club.
This event has changed names more times than I count, but Colonial has an extensive history on the PGA Tour. Going all the way back to 1946, it is second behind only Augusta for a course to be used annually on the tour at the same event. The course was renovated after the 2023 tournament, which was mostly focused on drainage and irrigation, which was getting very outdated.
Let’s jump in and take a look at the course, top stats, and some best bets for this week.
The Course: Colonial Country Club
Colonial is a Par 70 listed at 7,289 yards on the scorecard and is ranked inside the Top 10 in terms of scoring difficulty for regular PGA Tour events. Three of the four par 3’s come in between 194 and 197 yards, with the Par 3 4th hole being the most difficult at 248 yards. The par 4’s are pretty standard with two under 400 yards, five between 400 and 450 yards, and five between 450 and 480 yards. The par 5’s are listed at 581 and a monstrous 639 yards. The winning score usually ranges from high single digits to mid-teens, which is very weather dependent, with wind and rain leading up to the event.
The course was once a very positional golf course but has recently seen more players gain advantages with length off the tee. Last year, each of the Top 4 finishers and six of the Top 8 gained strokes on the field when looking at driving distance. The rough is listed at just 2.5 inches high this year, so along with Total Driving, I will also be looking closely at Good Drive %. Historically, Colonial is about 3-4% below average when looking at average greens in regulation, which elevates the importance of approach shots, and that, with a hot putter, can send players leapfrogging their way up the leaderboard very quickly.
Key Stats:
- Strokes Gained: Approach
- Total Driving
- Good Drive %
- Strokes Gained: Putting
With all that said, here are the Top 10 in my overall model for this week:
- Scottie Scheffler
- Daniel Berger
- Tommy Fleetwood
- Jordan Spieth
- Maverick McNealy
- Aaron Rai
- Si Woo Kim
- Bud Cauley
- Keith Mitchell
- Alex Smalley
Best Bets: Tourney Name
Daniel Berger Outright (+2200)
No better place for Berger to get back into the winner’s circle than Colonial Country Club. He won here back in 2020 and followed that up with back-to-back Top 25 finishes at the course. He comes in with some good to excellent form, having made the cut in 10 straight events, including two Top 5’s, and eight Top 25 finishes. His iron game has been excellent lately as he has gained 4+ strokes on approach in three straight events while also gaining 6+ strokes tee to green in that same stretch. The issue lately has been the short game so he will need to get hot with the putter to contend this week, and I think he can do just that!
Alex Smalley Outright (+8000) / Top 10 (+550) / Top 20 (+280)
Smalley withdrew from this event last year after making the cut in his two previous trips to Colonial and is my favourite ladder bet of the week. He has been a bit inconsistent over the course of the 2025 season, making eight of 12 cuts, but has gone on some good runs, including a streak of four straight Top 25 finishes in February and March. He has also made the cut in two straight, coming in and checks a lot of boxes in my stats model. Over the last 24 rounds, he is the only player in this field to rank Top 25 in both driving distance and accuracy, is 8th in strokes gained: around the green, and 19th overall in strokes gained: tee to green. On the season, he is also 17th in good drive %, 2nd in par 4 scoring, 11th in bogey avoidance, and 19th in birdie or better. My favourite bets are the Top 10 and Top 20, and I will also sprinkle some on the longshot outright odds.
Jhonattan Vegas Outright (+12000) / Top 10 (+800) / Top 20 (+350)
Another longshot for the betcard this week. After starting the 2025 season with a Top 10 at the Sentry Tournament of Champions, he failed to tally another until last week at the PGA Championship, where he finished 5th. He also picked up a T13 at the CJ Cup event the week before that, and combined, had gained five strokes putting over those two events. He hasn’t played here in a few years and doesn’t have a very good course history, but I like the form, driving distance, and recent surge in short game. Like Smalley, I will be heaviest on the Top 10 and 20 this week, but will sprinkle some on the outright.
