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The PGA Tour’s Fall Series is back from a quick respite for match play. The PGA Tour heads to the Black Desert Resort in Utah for the Bank of Utah Championship. A field of 135 players will converge, each eager to jockey for position and secure status for the upcoming 2027 PGA Tour season.
Joining the PGA Tour’s fall schedule in 2024, the first two years of this event have been very kind to longshots. Matt McCarty and Michael Brennan each picked up their first career PGA Tour wins here, wasting no time in their 2nd and 1st career PGA Tour starts, respectively. So far, this has been an event decided by elite off-the-tee and putting performance. It’s unusual to see off-the-tee play trump approach in importance, which creates some interesting opportunities to exploit value at this event.
In this article, we’ll look for diamonds in the rough ahead of the 2026 Bank of Utah Championship.
Bank of Utah Championship Odds
Black Desert Resort Course Introduction
Black Desert Resort Golf Course in Ivins, Utah is acclaimed by Golf Digest as one of (if not the) nicest courses in the state. Its unique agronomy places this stunning landscape atop a bed of black lava rock with panoramic views of Utah’s red rock mountains.
Like other desert-style courses we’ve grown accustomed to seeing in the Scottsdale, Las Vegas, and Palm Springs regions, Black Desert Resort is a firm and fast course played at elevation, which will mitigate the advantage of pure bombers and the constant threat of natural hazards neighboring each fairway. Instead, Black Desert Resort expects to favor top total drivers who can consistently find the fairway with driver in hand.
Standing at 7,421, a par-71 with four par-3s and three par-5s, Black Desert Resort will actually play considerably shorter than the scorecard suggests after accounting for elevation. At about 3,000 feet above sea level, Black Desert Resort is not quite Castle Pines, but will still give an added boost to shorter hitters in the field. For that reason, I’ll give a slight edge to players who have proven to adjust well to controlling their yardages at altitude.
Bank of Utah Championship Course Specs
For a deeper dive into the course, read my Bank of Utah Championship preview.
Bank of Utah Championship Golf DFS Picks & Longshot Bets
To identify “value” any given week on the PGA Tour, I find it’s best first to understand the consensus key stat profile. Then, take a stance on the elements of the tournament that may go overlooked. At the Bank of Utah Championship, Recent Form, SG: APP, and Birdies or Better Gained are consensus key areas factored into each player’s price.
From a golf DFS picks perspective, I will take a stance primarily on the importance of Prox: 125-200, Comp Course History, and SG: OTT. Desert golf is a unique test, so identifying players who elevate their play in firm and fast conditions at elevation, where Total Driving skill is rewarded as a clear path to identify value players in fantasy formats this week. And with many of the players in this field having only teed it up once since the Wyndham Championship nearly 2 months ago, this is an interesting opportunity to look beyond recent form in favor of long-term performance on relevant comp courses.
Below, find my favorite value PGA golf fantasy picks and longshots for the 2026 Bank of Utah Championship. Stats pulled across the Last 36 Rounds unless otherwise noted. Their odds of winning the event are also shown.
Kevin Yu
We’ll be calling this the Bank of Yu-Tah Championship if it’s Kevin who cashes in on the $1.08M top prize. Yu checks all the boxes I’m looking for from both a statistical profile and narrative standpoint. He ranks No. 2 overall in my model this week, a tremendous value for this price, as a credit to his top-10 ranks in SG: T2G, SG: OTT, SG: Ball Striking, and Comp Course History. Yu also ranks No. 1 overall in the field in Birdie or Better Percentage, and he continues to play his best golf in the easiest scoring conditions. It’s no coincidence then that Yu’s first career PGA Tour win came in the Fall at the 2024 Sanderson Farms Championship.
It’s Yu’s familiarity with desert golf that draws me to him most of all this week. Yu is an Arizona State University graduate who plays out of Scottsdale, racking up plenty of experience navigating natural hazards at elevation. That has translated to success on desert courses too, as Yu finished T15 at this event last year, and T16 at Tom Weiskopf’s TPC Scottsdale in his most recent appearance there as well. With five consecutive top-30 finishes leading in, including a 4th place finish at the Wyndham Championship, Yu is trending at the right time as he heads to this ideal course fit.
Chris Kirk
The veteran plodder has gone overlooked in this weaker Fall Series field. A six-time PGA Tour winner with two top-10s over his last three starts, Kirk’s combination of form, fit, and experience is hard to pass up at this price. Never the longest hitter on Tour, Kirk has always managed to separate on positional courses like this, which place a premium on accurate ball striking.
While a poor putter has held him back this season, the rest of Kirk’s game looks as sharp as ever. He ranks top-10 in SG: T2G, SG: APP, and SG: Ball Striking over the last 36 rounds. That tee-to-green form did not skip a beat to start his fall campaign, as he finished T10 in his latest start at the Biltmore Championship Asheville, where he ranked 3rd in the field in SG: T2G and 6th in SG: APP. A competent putter will be required for Kirk to seriously contend at Black Desert Resort, but it is nonetheless encouraging that he still possesses legitimate top-10 upside with an ice-cold putter.
Haotong Li +7000
Longshots in great form are hard to come by during the Fall Series, but they have a pretty stellar track record at this event when you can find them. Haotong would continue a trend of first-time PGA Tour winners crowned at the Bank of Utah Championship, though the 31-year-old does have eight career international wins under his belt.
Li will enter this week with great momentum, finishing T18, T14, and T10 over his last three starts across the DP World Tour and PGA Tour. His T10 came in his most recent start at the Biltmore Championship Asheville, which similarly rewarded total driving, birdie-making, and navigating elevation change. Though making his Bank of Utah Championship debut this week, Li has proven his game translates well in the desert, finishing T8 at The American Express earlier this season. Always known as an aggressive ball-striker, that bold approach is what’s required to contend at Black Desert Resort.
Gordon Sargent
The talent pool in this Fall Series event is not the most enticing when it comes to deep longshot hopefuls, but in an event that has crowned a couple of out-of-nowhere winners already, I’m going to take a shot on the raw talent that Gordon Sargent possesses. Volatile players who play boldly off the tee have been rewarded here when the driver is on, and that happens to be the strength of Sargent’s game. He ranks top-15 in SG: OTT, Driving Distance, Par-5 Scoring, and Birdie or Better Percentage over the last 36 rounds.
Like former winners Matt McCarty and Michael Brennan, Sargent was a standout athlete in college, though he has taken more time to acclimate to PGA Tour competition. His performance at the Biltmore Championship Asheville was a very encouraging step in the right direction, though, where he finished T33. Sargent played well in enough from tee-to-green to win that tournament, ranking 1st in SG: OTT, 2nd in SG: T2G, and 3rd in SG: Ball Striking. If he can maintain that tee-to-green form and get some more putts to drop, he’s a very appealing value at this price with top-20 upside.
Best of luck if you choose to roster these Bank of Utah Championship golf DFS picks!
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Photo Credit: REUTERS
