BMW Championship 2026 Tips: Niall Lyons Best Bets

The Fedex Cup reaches it's climax next week at East Lake but for now the top 50 in the standings head to Bellerive for the BMW Championship where those along the bubble around 30th place will face a nervous few days.

Bellerive was last seen for the 2018 PGA Championship won by Brooks Koepka. Back in 2008 the likes of Tim Clark, KJ Choi, Stephen Ames and Jim Furyk made the frame which suggests that length back then certainly wasn't a prerequisite. In 2018 we had a different type of leaderboard with Koepka, Woods, Scott, Rahm and Thomas all featuring in the top 10.

The game has changed a lot since 2008 though and I'd expect the bigger hitters to flourish here once again. These playoff events are notorious for repeat winners so it would be foolish to ignore the in form players irrespective of the venue. 

ODDS GRID WIDGET

For the first time ever in this column I put up a 6pt tip last week on Scottie Scheffler who ran away with the St Jude Championship last week.

What was probably most impressive about that was that he didn't look to have his best golf. He only hit 50% of fairways at Southwind, ranking 47th in driving accuracy. Long, fescue rough does await errant drives at Bellerive but looking back to the 2018 PGA Championship accuracy didn't matter all too much and the bombers prevailed. Scheffler isn't exactly a bomber off the tee but he really doesn't need to be.

Ranking 1st in putting last week meant nobody stood a chance and he if he manages a week half as good as that statistically on the greens then he will prove very tough to beat once again. His iron play last week was back to its spectacular best and that's what rescued him from the odd bad drive.

This championship golf course this week should do a good job in separating the field and I'd expect the big names and big hitters to dominate the leaderboard. Distance off the tee is the only slight doubt I have this week as there are longer golfers in the field here than Scheffler and that's possibly the only slight advantage they can gain on the world number one. 

Tip 1: Scottie Scheffler - 5pt Win

When Scheffler is hot it pays to stay on the bandwagon and I can't help but feel it would be foolish not to bet again this week given how much he wins when he's really on it.

On five separate occasions he was won in back to back starts and there have been multiple winners of more than one Fedex playoff event down the years.

Winning in this 3 week period seems to breed more winning and there's nobody better in that department than Scottie Scheffler.

Given I made him close to a 3/1 shot last week for the St Jude after an eight shot victory I simply can not turn down that price.

OFFER WIDGET

Tip 2: Jake Knapp - 1pt Each-Way (w/o Scheffler)

33/1 and five places available when publishing.

Following an injury which curtailed his season Jake Knapp came back in June and was faced with some tough tournaments to bed back in. The US Open, Scottish Open and Open Championship were three of his first four events when returning from the break. He missed three of those cuts but things have taken a turn since.

13th at the 3M Open and 7th last week at Southwind were sandwiched either side of a missed cut a the Rocket Classic. That missed cut was on the number and his long game looks to be nearing back to where it was at the beginning of the season.

Knapp's ball striking was tremendous last week and he ranked 3rd in the field from tee to green. 51st of 68 on the greens was the aspect of his game that let him down but the putter is one of his strengths and I'd imagine it won't be long before he gets back to his best in that department.

Knapp sits 35th in the Fedex rankings so needs a good week to get into the season ending Tour Championship next week so that extra bit of motivation should really help. I'll be backing him in the without Scheffler market as I'm bullish on the world number one once again.