PGA Championship betting: Pick Rory McIlroy; fade Jon Rahm, Scottie Scheffler
The PGA Championship gets going Thursday at Oak Hill in Rochester, N.Y., and once again it will feature perhaps the strongest field in all of professional golf, with golfers from the breakaway LIV tour joining their PGA Tour competitors.
Here’s a look at a handful of golfers who this year could take home the massive Wanamaker Trophy. All odds taken Tuesday from GolfOdds.com.
The past 17 winners of the PGA Championship made the cut in their previous tournament. Three of those golfers were coming off a win, eight finished in the top five, and all but two finished in the top 20. So we’re looking for strong form, as we often do with majors.
Of the past 19 PGA Championship winners, 14 had won a tournament earlier in the same calendar year. Of those 19 winners, 18 had at least three top-10 finishes earlier in the same calendar year and all 19 had at least one top-20 finish. Again, it’s exceedingly unlikely that someone is going to come out of nowhere to win this. In the seven majors played since Phil Mickelson defied time to win the 2021 PGA Championship at +30000 odds, all have been won by players with pretournament odds of +3100 or shorter.
This will be the fourth time Oak Hill has hosted the PGA Championship, but the course was drastically remodeled in 2019 to better capture Donald Ross’s original design and make it more suitable for modern players and technology. Length and accuracy off the tee will go a long way, particularly after hundreds of trees were removed to improve sightlines and also because the weather could be cold and damp, which will tamp down distance.
Feedback received from players on Oak Hill so far:
“Great if you can carry it 320.”
“Reminds me of Winged Foot.”
— No Laying Up (@NoLayingUp) May 15, 2023
Several golfers have noted the similarities between Oak Hill and Winged Foot, which most recently hosted the U.S. Open in 2020, when big-hitting Bryson DeChambeau battered the course into submission as the only player to finish under par.
Strong around-the-green play also is a must, considering the deep bunkers that surround the elevated green complexes on nearly every hole.
Rory McIlroy (+1200)
McIlroy’s recent form is worrying: His past four tournaments have featured two missed cuts and a tie for 47th. But McIlroy always seems to bounce back quickly. He missed the cut at the Players Championship this year but followed it up with a third-place finish at the Match Play. In 2022, missed cuts at the Texas Open and the FedEx-St. Jude were followed by second- and eighth-place finishes at the Masters and the BMW Championship. In 2021, he missed the cut at the Masters but won his very next tournament, the Wells Fargo. McIlroy has a win on the DP World Tour this calendar year, so it’s not like he’s been bereft of accomplishments, and his distance off the tee and long-iron play should serve him well at Oak Hill, which he has played often as a member (his wife is from the Rochester area).
Xander Schauffele (+1600)
The list of players who have finished in the top 15 of each of the past four major championships is a short one: It’s Schauffele and no one else. Schauffele also hasn’t missed a cut since the 2022 Masters and enters with five straight top-10 finishes. He was fifth at the 2020 U.S. Open at Winged Foot and ranks fifth on the PGA Tour in strokes gained: approach. At some point, Schauffele is going to win a major, and why can’t it be the PGA Championship, where five of the past 10 winners were first-time major champions?
Patrick Cantlay (+1800)
There might not be a better driver of the ball right now than Cantlay, who has gained strokes off the tee in 14 straight tournaments and ranks second behind Scottie Scheffler in that statistic this season (minimum 32 rounds). Of the 33 golfers in the field who are averaging at least 305 yards per drive over the past 50 rounds, only nine have hit the fairway at least 60 percent of the time, and Cantlay is one of them. Yes, his performance in major championships has been disappointing, but his best finish at a major was a tie for third at the 2019 PGA Championship at Bethpage Black, a course that shares similarities with Oak Hill. Cantlay hasn’t finished worse than 21st in his past eight tournaments, with five top 10s over that span, and he loves putting on the bentgrass that Oak Hill’s greens will feature. Plus, he now has caddie Joe LaCava — who last was seen looping for some guy named Tiger Woods — on his bag.
Brooks Koepka (+2500)
Of all the LIV Golf guys in the field, Koepka would seem to have the best chance, and not simply because he’s a two-time winner of this event. He was in firm control of the Masters for three rounds before Jon Rahm tracked him down on Sunday, a reminder that his health problems are behind him. He also has a win and two other top-six finishes this season in LIV play. Koepka hits the ball a mile off the tee and generally keeps it on the fairway, and he won the aforementioned 2019 PGA Championship at Bethpage Black.
Sungjae Im (+3500)
Im hasn’t won on the PGA Tour this season, but he came out on top this past weekend at an event in his native South Korea and has five top-10s, including in his three most recent PGA Tour events. Im isn’t the biggest hitter off the tee but he’s one of the most accurate, and he otherwise doesn’t have many weaknesses (Im ranks sixth on the PGA Tour in sand-save percentage, which could be crucial this week). It’s the type of game that’s well suited to win a major, and all it will take is putting together four strong rounds.
Tyrrell Hatton (+4000)
Last year, an Englishman with a thoroughly undistinguished record at major championships (that would be Matthew Fitzpatrick) finally broke through with a tie for fifth at the PGA Championship before winning the U.S. Open at the Country Club. This year, might we say the same thing about Hatton, whose most recent top 10 at a major was at the 2019 British Open? Hatton ranks sixth on the PGA Tour in strokes gained: tee to green and ninth in total driving (which combines distance and accuracy), and remember that exclusive 305/60 list that Cantlay is on? Hatton is on it, too. He has finished no worse than T-5 at his past two tournaments, so the form is there. If the combustible Hatton can keep his head, good things might just happen this week.
Wyndham Clark (+6000)
Clark won his most recent tournament at the Wells Fargo, beating an elite field on a difficult course for his first PGA Tour victory. He has three other top-six finishes in his past six events and hasn’t missed a cut since the Shriners in October. Clark ranks ninth in driving distance on the PGA Tour, and only two PGA Tour golfers in the PGA Championship field — Scheffler and Rahm — have been better on approach over their past 36 rounds. He has the well-rounded game and scorching form to win this from down the odds board.
What about Jon Rahm and Scottie Scheffler?
World No. 1 Rahm (+800) and No. 2 Scheffler (+850) are essentially the co-favorites, for good reason. Rahm is coming off his Masters win, one of four victories this calendar year. Scheffler has two wins this year, both at elevated events (the Waste Management and the Players Championship), and hasn’t finished worse than 12th in his past 13 events. Over the past 11 major championships, Scheffler and Rahm rank 1-2 in total strokes gained per round. Scheffler has a Masters green jacket of his own plus six other top-10 finishes over that span, while Rahm has two major-championship triumphs and three other top 10s.
But I’m fading them both in the betting market. Scheffler is, at best, an average putter right now, and at worst his flatstick is an active hindrance. A test such as the PGA Championship requires all-around excellence, and Scheffler doesn’t have that right now, no matter how much the rest of his game is bailing out his putter. As for Rahm, only one Masters winner since 2015 has finished in the top 20 in his next major championship (Patrick Reed, who was fourth at the U.S. Open after winning the 2018 Masters). If he proves me wrong to become the first player to win a season’s first two majors since Jordan Spieth in 2015, so be it.
