Biltmore Championship Asheville Betting Guide: Odds, Picks and Best Bets for the Inaugural PGA Tour Event at The Cliffs at Walnut Cove
Jackson Koivun heads the odds board as the first PGA Tour stop near Asheville since 1942 tees off. Full betting breakdown, contenders table, value play and sleeper pick for the inaugural Biltmore Championship Asheville.
The PGA Tour has never played this course before, and that blank slate points straight at Jackson Koivun, the tournament favorite in the biggest week of his young career.
Quick take:
- Outright pick: Jackson Koivun +1300
- Why: He leads the field in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green over the last three months on a new course where recent ball-striking form matters more than history
- The number to watch: Davis Thompson’s +1.05 Strokes Gained: Approach over his last 24 rounds — tops in the field
The Biltmore Championship Asheville arrives as the first PGA Tour stop near Asheville since 1942, when Ben Hogan closed out the old Asheville Open, and it kicks off the FedExCup Fall with a 132-player field chasing a $5 million purse and 500 FedExCup points at The Cliffs at Walnut Cove. It’s an inaugural event, so there’s no course history or past-champion trend to lean on — just a Jack Nicklaus design playing to a par 71 at roughly 7,249 yards, sitting about 2,200 feet up in the Blue Ridge Mountains bordering Pisgah National Forest.
Justin Thomas withdrew late, thinning the star power slightly, but this is still a loaded field for a fall event — 59 past Tour winners combining for 134 career titles are entered. J.T. Poston, a North Carolina native and Western Carolina alum, gets a legitimate hometown angle as an already-confirmed 2026 winner, while Corey Conners carries the best odds among Presidents Cup International Team members in the field ahead of next week’s matches at Medinah.
Why the Betting Market Is Leaning on Recent Form, Not History
With zero course data to lean on, oddsmakers built this board almost entirely off recent play, and it shows. Koivun sits at the top around +1300 at DraftKings (+1200-1500 range across books), making him the betting favorite for the first time in his career. He won the 3M Open in July, earned a Presidents Cup captain’s pick from Brandt Snedeker, and made the cut in six of seven PGA Tour starts this season with every payday T31 or better. He also currently leads the field in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green over the last three months — exactly the kind of ball-striking form a brand-new, unscouted course rewards.
Jacob Bridgeman sits right behind him at +1800, and he arrives red-hot. The Genesis Invitational winner is the highest-ranked player in the field at world No. 28-29, and since his lone missed cut of the year at Aronimink, he’s finished inside the top 45 in every start — a run that includes a solo ninth at the BMW Championship and a T4 at the TOUR Championship in his last two events. Ben James (+2450), Doug Ghim (+2500) and Davis Thompson (+2500-2600) round out the next tier, with Rasmus Hojgaard, J.T. Poston and Corey Conners all sitting in the +2700-3200 range.
Contenders to Watch
| Player | Odds | Recent Form |
|---|---|---|
| Jackson Koivun | +1300 | Won 3M Open in July; 6-for-7 cuts made, all T31-or-better paydays this season |
| Jacob Bridgeman | +1800 | Top-45 in every start since Aronimink MC; solo 9th BMW, T4 TOUR Championship |
| Davis Thompson | +2500/+2600 | Leads field in SG: Approach last 24 rounds (+1.05) |
| Corey Conners | +2800/+3000 | Best odds among Presidents Cup International Team members in field |
Value Play and Sleeper Pick
The course setup itself is the key to finding value this week. Walnut Cove’s scorecard carries five par-3s ranging from 190 to 244 yards — an unusually heavy dose of one-shotters for a Tour stop — plus four reachable par-5s. That combination means bogeys will come disproportionately from the long par-3s and birdies will pile up on the par-5s, which puts a premium on iron play and Strokes Gained: Approach over raw driving distance. It also plays at roughly 2,200 feet of elevation, thinner air that helps the ball carry farther than the 7,249-yard scorecard suggests.
Davis Thompson leads every player in the field in Strokes Gained: Approach over his last 24 rounds at +1.05, with Blades Brown second at +0.94.
That stat makes Davis Thompson a strong top-10 value play at +2500/+2600 — he’s not just in form, he’s specifically built for what this course is going to demand this week. Marco Penge (+3300/+3500) is another name worth a look as an each-way play; Golf Channel and Golfshake both flagged him as a value pick, and a brilliant putter profile fits a course where the greens sit at dramatically different elevations from the tee.
For the sleeper, look to 19-year-old Blades Brown at +4000/+4100. His +0.94 Strokes Gained: Approach over his last 24 rounds ranks second in the field, and his season-long approach numbers (0.555 average, jumping to 0.914 over his last five starts) show a player trending in exactly the right direction heading into an approach-heavy test.
This Week’s Best Bets
Koivun’s recent tee-to-green form and course-agnostic upside make him the play at the top of the board, Thompson’s approach numbers point directly at what this course demands, and Brown offers real value as a rising ball-striker further down the list.
- Outright: Jackson Koivun +1300
- Top-10: Davis Thompson +2500
- Sleeper: Blades Brown +4000
With no course history to fall back on, this week rewards bettors who follow the strokes-gained data over the name recognition — and right now, that data points at Koivun, Thompson and Brown. Bettors chasing outright value should also check current numbers at the DraftKings promo code page before locking in a ticket.