After spending last week in the islands of Hawaii, the PGA TOUR is headed to the desert this week for The American Express. The unique format with three courses in the mix for the first three rounds sets up a great Sunday of action at the Pete Dye Tournament Course at PGA WEST. It’s typically a low-scoring week with plenty of excitement, and DraftKings Sportsbook has a wide variety of options to consider as you fill out your golf betting card for the week. One way I try to find the sweet spot that balances risk and reward in my golf best bets each week is by digging up some winners in the 3-ball tournament matchups each week.
The format of 3-ball picks is simple to understand — three golfers are placed in a group and you select the top finisher from those three players. This week, there are four groups available in the Trios section of the tournament groups on The American Express section of golf odds.
Last year, I had a lot of success with these picks, and I love including 3-balls in my golf best bets because they typically offer plus-money odds even though they don’t require picking the winner out of a large group or the full field.
Looking at the tournament trios on the board this week, here are my top three 3-ball plays from this exciting market:
Patrick Cantlay (+180)
I highlighted Cantlay in my tournament and GPP plays for this week, and I love him as the long shot in this trio against Russell Henley (+165) and Sam Burns (+175).
Henley is the only one of this trio who played last week in Hawaii as he finished a solid T19. He has always been a horse for the course in Oahu, but he hasn’t had as much success at this venue, missing the cut in four straight appearances before finishing T14 in 2022, which was the last time he played The American Express.
Burns, on the other hand, has a great history at this event with five top-30 finishes in his last six appearances. He finished T29 last year, but he never pushed his way into the top five.
In addition to his history, Burns had good form when we last saw him compete. He finished in the top 15 at the Procore Championship in his only FedExCup Fall event and placed in the top 20 in eight of his last 11 events, which date all the way back to last summer. Like Burns, Cantlay doesn’t have a ton of recent form, but he did finish runner-up at the TOUR Championship behind Scheffler. Over his last 12 events, he has six top-15 finishes, even though he missed the cut in the final three majors of 2025 during that span as well.
Cantlay has an even better tournament history than Burns, though, which is why I’m surprised he’s the longest shot in this trio. He has finished in the top 10 four times in his last six events at this course with a T2 in 2021 that was highlighted by a course record. Even though his current form is an unknown, his overall pedigree is enough to make him a strong play in this trio.
Alex Noren (+175)
Noren is in a perfectly balanced trio with Rickie Fowler (+175) and Harris English (+175) as all three players make their 2026 PGA TOUR debuts. While Fowler and English are well-known American golfers who have had some recent success, neither can keep up with Noren’s recent results from overseas.
After missing the FedExCup playoffs, Noren played this fall on the DP World Tour and caught fire. He won both the Betfred British Masters hosted by Sir Nick Faldo and the BMW PGA Championship. He added top-20 finishes at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship and DP World Tour Championship in November as well. He earned his full-time PGA TOUR card back through the DP World Tour Top 10. After recovering from injuries, the 43-year-old is playing some of the best golf of his career and finds himself back in the top 20 of the Official World Golf Rankings for the first time since 2018. For context, English is No. 11 and Fowler is No. 83 in those rankings.
Noren also has a solid course history at this track, making the cut in three of his four tries with a T14 in 2020 and a T25 in 2024, when he last competed here. English also has good history here with eight made cuts in four appearances and a pair of top-25 finishes. However, he hasn’t finished better than T43 in the last seven years. Fowler has made the cut in five of his eight tries, including a T21 last year. The reason I’m not playing Rickie, though, is that he hasn’t played an event since the BMW Championship last August, so he may need some time to get back in the groove.
With so much recent success, I think the veteran Swede can defeat the two better-known players in this trio.
Si Woo Kim (+170)
The final of the four trios is a tough call for me, since I really like all three players in the matchup this week. Kim is up against Harry Hall (+180) and Matt Fitzpatrick (+175).
I highlighted why I like Hall in my cash game picks and love his consistency, strong current form, and propensity for desert golf. I’m also a big fan of Fitz as a steady producer who can grind on some of the toughest tracks on the PGA TOUR and seems to have found his game over the past few months. This isn’t really a pick against either of those golfers (although I get that it is), it’s just that I love Kim’s ceiling and his current form even more than Hall’s or Fitzpatrick’s for this format.
Kim held off Cantlay’s Final Round charge to win this event in 2021. He was forced to withdraw from the tournament in 2020 but has made the cut in all the rest of his seven career appearances at La Quinta with five top-25 finishes.
He also returns to the venue with plenty of momentum. Last week, Kim led the field at the Sony Open in Hawaii in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green and Greens-in-Regulation while raking in the top three in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and Strokes Gained: Approach. He struggled on the greens, though, and finished T11 as a result. the field in GIR (81.94 percent) and finished in the top-3 in SG: Off the Tee, SG: Approach to Green and driving accuracy.
If he can flip the flat stick in his return to the greens that helped him win in 2021, he has the ceiling to run away and win this week in La Quinta. While I like all three of these players for DFS lineups and think they’ll each have a good week, I’m taking Kim in this trio since he has the best chance to post a high finish if his putter cooperates. I’m sticking with Kim over Hall and Fitzpatrick in this tournament trio as one of my best bets on DraftKings Sportsbook.
