The celebration of the birth of a nation, combined with the double-barrel action of birdies and eagles, makes the John Deere Classic a hotbed for fireworks this Fourth of July weekend. Ben Griffin (+1600) arrives in Silvis, Illinois, at TPC Deere Run as the favorite at the top of the FanDuel Sportsbook. The two-time TOUR winner in 2025 made his debut in the Quad Cities last year and shared fifth place after closing with rounds of 64-62. Sitting second on TOUR in Total Birdies, the 29-year-old knows the formula for contending and what it takes to close the door on Sunday. A win with Andrew Novak (not entered) at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans lit the fuse, and three weeks later, he earned T8 at the PGA Championship. He followed on with his first victory on his own ball at the Charles Schwab Challenge the next week, and has not looked back. Cashing T13 last week in Detroit runs his streak to six consecutive paydays of T14 or better on TOUR.

The second choice on the FanDuel board is Jason Day (+2200), a 13-time winner on TOUR is making his seventh start in the American heartland. Searching for his first victory at the par-71, 7,289-yard layout, the Australian, who lives in the Midwest in Columbus, Ohio, quietly owns four top-10 paydays in 2025, including four rounds in the 60s for T4 at the Travelers Championship two weeks ago. Day hit the podium at the winter shootout in the Coachella Valley, sharing third at The American Express on 22-under-par, his best finish and total of 2025. Giving it a knock from tee to green starts the process this week, but a hot putter is going to separate the leaderboard on the weekend. Day, an excellent lag putter, ranks second on TOUR in Approach Putt Performance. The Bentgrass greens at TPC Deere Run are considered some of the best on TOUR.

Making his 17th start of the season, Denny McCarthy (+2800) is one of just three players in the field of 156 who are less than +3000 to win. The annual, wide-open shootout at TPC Deere Run has crowned a first-time winner in 24 of the 54 previous editions. A victory this week for McCarthy, who has yet to slam the trunk early in 2025, would be his first on TOUR, yet would be his fourth consecutive top-10 payday at TPC Deere Run. Posting 53-under on aggregate over the last three years, he’s cashed T7, T6 and T6 for his efforts, and eight of 12 rounds are 66 or better.

Si Woo Kim (+3000), a four-time winner on TOUR, is not afraid of getting his scorecard active in shootout conditions. Ranking seventh on TOUR in Total Birdies, the Korean hopes his activity from tee to green, 14th on TOUR in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, sets the table for plenty of opportunities. The average winning score is just a click better than 22-under par over the last four editions, and another low winning total is expected this week. After withdrawing before the weekend at the Travelers Championship, Kim opened 68-68 before fading to 84th in Detroit. He’s never played the weekend in three visits to the Quad Cities.

The 2022 champion, J.T. Poston (+3300), needed four starts at TPC Deere Run to crack the code. Cashing T6 in defense with four more rounds in the 60s, he added four more for T30 in 2024, bringing his streak to 13 consecutive loops in the 60s. Sharps will look at past results from TPC Summerlin, Wyndham, and The American Express for clues at TPC Deere Run. Poston won in Las Vegas last fall and picked up his first victory at the 2019 Wyndham Championship. Dots connected.

Sungjae Im (+3500), the 2021 winner in Las Vegas, illustrates how demanding it is to win at TPC Deere Run. In 2024, he posted two rounds of 64, posted 20-under, and collected a share of 12th place. There were 11 players better than 20-under in the 2024 edition, highlighting the necessity to put as many circles on the card and avoid bogeys. The Korean sits third in Overall Putting Average and ranks ninth in Total Birdies. His streak of eight consecutive events on TOUR without a top-10 finish would produce his first top-10 result in four visits to TPC Deere Run.

Davis Thompson (+3500) rewrote the record book in 2024 to win for the first time on TOUR. Arriving last summer off T9 at the U.S. Open and T2 the week before in Detroit, he circled 30 birdies and one eagle to set the new tournament scoring record of 28-under-par (256). Over eight career loops, he posted four rounds of 65 or better, including four of his last six. Uneven recent form accounts for three early departures from his previous six starts. In October 2024, he shared fifth at TPC Summerlin, his last top-five result on TOUR.

Youngsters Luke Clanton (+3500) and Michael Thorbjornsen (+3500) both made waves of grain in the 2024 edition. Thorbjornsen, making his second start at the event, shared second with Clanton, the amateur debutant. Clanton opened and closed with 63 while Thorbjornsen, making just his third professional start, played his final 54 holes in 20-under. Both players graduated from the top of the PGA TOUR University program, Thorbjornsen in 2024 and Clanton in 2025. Thorbjornsen, who missed the three-man playoff in Detroit by a shot on Sunday, picked up his third top-five result of the season and is in the better form of the two young stars.

Chris Kirk (+3500), one-third of the three-man playoff in Detroit last weekend, will try to emulate Thompson’s path to victory in 2024. Making his eighth appearance in the Quad Cities, Kirk owns five paydays inside the top 30 but none better than T21 in 2023. The veteran of six wins on TOUR led the field in Detroit last week with 26 birdies. Jake Knapp (+3500) posted the course record, 61, in Round 2 in Detroit before settling for a share of fourth place. He also signed for 59 at the Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches in early March. The course record at TPC Deere Run is 59, achieved last in 2024 by Hayden Springer (+20000) in Round 1.

Twenty-year-old Aldrich Potgieter (+4000) became the seventh-youngest winner on TOUR since 1983 after winning the three-man playoff at the Rocket Classic in Detroit. Making his first start since cashing T6 at the Charles Schwab Challenge at the end of May, the South African youngster will look to join countryman and 2019 winner Dylan Frittelli (+50000) as a debut winner.

Former winners of the John Deere Classic in the field this week include 2021 champion Lucas Glover (+4500), 2018 champion Michael Kim (+4500), and 2012 champion Zach Johnson (+12000).

Here's a look at the odds for other selected players via FanDuel:

• +4000: Sam Stevens, Kevin Yu, Thorbjørn Olesen, Chris Gotterup, Pierceson Coody, Bud Cauley
• +4500: Ryan Gerard, Alex Smalley
• +5000: Keith Mitchell, Mark Hubbard
• +5500: Kurt Kitayama, Rickie Fowler
• +6000: Nico Echavarria, Stephan Jaeger
• +6500: Vince Whaley, Andrew Putnam
• +7000: Taylor Moore, Victor Perez, Kevin Roy, Emiliano Grillo, Jacob Bridgeman, Thriston Lawrence
• +7500: Ryo Hisatsune, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Tom Kim, Jesper Svensson
• +8000: Lee Hodges, Matt McCarty, Cameron Champ, Patrick Rodgers, Eric Cole, Rico Hoey
• +9000: Seamus Power

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