Running with Rick: Teenager offers intriguing value at John Deere Classic

The John Deere Classic is a staple on the PGA TOUR schedule, as this tournament dates to the early 1970s and has always been well supported by the Quad Cities. The tournament has often been a launching point for young talent because of both its spot on the calendar and its willingness to invite the game’s budding stars.

Jordan Spieth won this event in 2013, becoming the youngest player to win a PGA TOUR event at just 19 years old. Spieth won again in 2015, and he’s back in the field for this year’s edition.

This is also a natural place for high-end collegiate talent to make professional debuts since it comes after the college golf season and the U.S. Open. We will see Jackson Koivun, the No. 1-ranked amateur in the world, drop his amateur status and play as a professional this week.

The course itself, TPC Deere Run, has been partial to accurate players off the tee. The list of winners is peppered with short hitters who will play out of the fairway. Brian Campbell, the TOUR’s shortest hitter, is the defending champion this week.

With an average winning score of 21 under across the last five years, it’s reasonable to think that this week’s winner will need to pile up birdies and avoid the dreaded par streaks. Here are some wagering options for this week’s John Deere, with odds via DraftKings Sportsbook.

Ben Kohles certainly doesn’t fit into the category of “young guns,” as he’s been a professional since 2012 and has more than 300 professional starts. However, during the course of that long career, he’s playing his best golf right now as we enter the John Deere.

Kohles won the BMW Charity Pro-Am presented by TD Synnex, a Korn Ferry Tour event, at the beginning of June. He went nuts that week, gaining 10.2 strokes on approach and marking the fifth Korn Ferry Tour win of his career. There was no rest for Kohles, who immediately flew to U.S. Open Final Qualifying and earned his spot in the U.S. Open, where he gained another 7.9 strokes on approach en route to a T23 finish.

In the middle of those two events, he finished T29 at the RBC Canadian Open and gained strokes on approach. Kohles is an accomplished ball-striker who is in complete control of his golf ball right now. His lack of distance off the tee is normally a concern, but not at TPC Deere Run, where the past champions’ list is full of short but accurate drivers. The course setup is ideal, and the timing is perfect for Kohles to win the John Deere Classic at +8800.

While Kohles certainly fits the mold of one type of past champion at TPC Deere Run, Blades Brown fits the other. The “other” mold is an immensely talented but raw star-to-be who is proving he can play at every single level.

Brown just turned 19 in May, and he’s already putting together an impressive professional resume. He already has 10 top-20 finishes in 2026, spread across both the Korn Ferry Tour and the PGA TOUR. His three podium finishes have come at the Puerto Rico Open, where he finished third; the Club Car Championship at The Landings Golf and Athletic Club, where he finished third; and the Tulum Championship at PGA Riviera Maya, where he finished second.

He’s clearly still raw as a player and needs work around the greens, but he’s amazingly consistent for a player of his age. He’s only missed three cuts in 17 starts this year, which is pretty remarkable for a player of his stature.

His Korn Ferry Tour experience this year has taught him one thing: go low. He’s sporting a 24.8% birdie-or-better percentage this year, which ranks highly against many of his peers. That’s exactly the type of skill set that will be valuable at TPC Deere Run, which is why I am deploying Brown in the top-10 market, where his odds can be found at +940.

Speaking of going low, that’s exactly what Carson Young did in the opening round of last week’s Memorial Health Championship presented by LRS. He fired a 61 with 11 birdies and a bogey. Young went on to finish T13, which continued a solid run of starts.

Young finished T8 at the OccuNet Classic presented by Amarillo National Bank and T17 at the BMW Charity Pro-Am in his two prior starts. That gives him four top-10 finishes this year. It’s worth noting that consistency is not a high priority for Young, who also has three missed cuts in his last nine starts. It’s worth deploying Young in formats where you are being rewarded for the risk. Many of his finishing position markets are appealing, but I’ve settled on the top-20 market at +430.

From a statistical standpoint, Christiaan Bezuidenhout is difficult to get a read on. He has four top-10 finishes globally this season, which account for 25% of his starts. However, it’s hard to predict how he’s going to beat his peers in a given week.

Still an accomplished putter, Bezuidenhout has been volatile on the greens. He lost four strokes putting in Canada but gained nearly six at Aronimink. His tee-to-green play has bounced back and forth from terrible to amazing, with really no signs of what is coming next.

However, if we zoom out a bit, Bezuidenhout is clearly having a great year. In fact, it’s one of the best years of his career, as he’s gained 0.65 strokes per round. He’s one of the shorter hitters on TOUR, but he makes up for it with accuracy – which is exactly what we are looking for here. He’s an accomplished “bonus putter,” which means he’s going to make plenty of putts outside of 20 feet. It’s a little uncomfortable, but I believe there’s plenty of value on Bezuidenhout to finish inside the top 10 at +395.

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