The PGA Tour is preparing for another event this weekend when the PGA Tour’s top players will descend on the TPC Deere Run for the next tournament of the year, the John Deere Classic. It is time to talk about who might be victorious this weekend and claim victory.

With this being just two weeks before the final major event of the calendar year, who will we see win this event? Will Davis Thompson repeat again in 2025?

Who will claim victory at the John Deere?

When it comes to making predictions/picks for golf, there is a method to my madness. The first step in the process is to take a look at the course, and past winners. Let’s see what the John Deere has in store for fans this weekend:

2025 John Deere Classic

TPC Deere Run, Par 71, 7,289 yards

Past Winners

2024: Davis Thompson

2023: Sepp Straka

2022: JT Potson

2021: Lucas Glover

From this point, we have to take a look at who the odds-on favorites are to win the tournament. Here are the Top 5 favorites to win, and these odds are courtesy of DraftKings Sportsbook:

Top 5 Odds

• Ben Griffin (+1600)
• Jason Day (+2500)
• Denny McCarthy (+2800)
• JT Potson (+3000)
• Michael Thorbjornsen (+3000)

My Picks

Every time I produce picks, I break them down in the a variety of picks. You don’t have to make these plays, but this is where I’m leaning in this week’s contest. My favorite picks are players who are less than +2000 odds, with the long shot picks greater than +2000 odds. For this week’s event, here are my Favorite and Long Shot picks:

Favorite: Ben Griffin (+1600)

Long Shot: Jake Knapp (+3500)

The next phase of my picks are players who are slated to finish within a certain area on the leaderboard. The Top 5, 10, 20 picks also include ties, so if a player finished T-20 and you had them as a Top 20 pick, you win. Here are my plays, and the odds, for this week’s signature event:

Top 5

Ben Griffin (+320)

Chris Kirk (+650)

Top 10

Jason Day (+240)

Jake Knapp (+330)

Top 20

Keith Mitchell (+220)

Michael Kim (+175)

BONUS PICKS

Betting on golf is multi-faceted, and you can increase your odds on winning outside of the outright winner bet with different types of bonus bets. This would include the Double and Triple bets, but also different bets which can still get you plus odds. There are other specials plays, but we’ll save those for the big tournaments on the schedule. Here are my bonus plays for this week:

Group Winner (Group C): Jake Knapp (+320) outright winner out of Lucas Glover, Kevin Yu, Aldrich Potgieter, Chris Gotterup

Double: Ben Griffin or Jason Day to win (+1000)

Winning Margin: 2 shots (+360)

Jeff Hartman is the host of the Fairways & Dreams podcast, and a complete breakdown of the above picks can be heard in the podcast player below: