PGA Championship: Favorite, Mid-Level and a Longshot to Bet

Oak Hill Country Club is hosting the PGA Championship 10 years after it previously held the major. 

But the course has undergone wide-scale changes that will make it look and play vastly different than it did in 2013. 

Reaction from participants, and are mixed.

“We’ve redone pretty much the whole golf course,” Jason Ballard, Oak Hill Club Professional said. 

“All of the green complexes have been rebuilt. Every single bunker has been rebuilt. We’ve taken out some trees over the course of time to give the golfers more playability off the tees and approaches into the greens.”

The new-look course has drawn a wide array of opinions, from some golfers noting in interviews they believe bombers could flourish by driving the ball as far down as possible and chopping it out, whereas others don’t see it as a bomber’s paradise and value accuracy off the tee. 

Based on what we’ve seen from the new version of Oak Hill, here are three players worth targeting at each level of the odds: favorite, mid-tier and longshot. 

Favorite

Jon Rahm

Depending on the book, Scottie Scheffler and Jon Rahm are both the overwhelming favorites in this year’s PGA Championship field at around 7/1. Scheffler is even as low as 13/2 with some .

There are enough stats and metrics to feed into the narrative of either one of them winning. Their form is great and both are elite off the tee. 

If you decided to use most of the betting allotment for this week on either of them instead of multiple players further down the board, it would be hard to blame you. 

When it comes down to it, if there’s one of the two that I lean towards, it’s Rahm. 

How’s this for a stat? According to Justin Ray of the PGA TOUR, Rahm is the only player on tour ranked in the Top 20 in strokes gained: off the tee, strokes gained: approach and strokes gained: putting. 

That’s all you need to know if you want to back Rambo to make it successive major victories.

Mid-Tier

Patrick Cantlay

Cantlay has come under scrutiny for his timely pre-shot routines and has become the target of the slow-play discourse that has become more prevalent with the PGA TOUR. 

But don’t let your disdain for his pace discourage you from wanting to back him this week.

Cantlay is third this season in strokes gained: off the tee, fitting into the narrative of driving success being critical this week. 

He’s also one of the better bentgrass putters and has had success in this area. Two of his last three solo wins came in the Northeast on bentgrass greens. 

Recent form has also been a positive for Cantlay. He’s finished no worse than T-21 in his last eight events and at 18/1 with he looks to be worth a punt.

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Longshot

Tyrell Hatton

Tyrell Hatton has been one of the most consistent and elite performers this season. 

He ranks fifth overall in strokes gained this season, trailing only Rahm, Scheffler, Tony Finau and Xander Schauffele. 

Hatton has also been great at the marquee tournaments in 2023. He finished fourth at the Arnold Palmer Invite, second at The Players Championship and is coming off a T-3 at the Wells Fargo Championship and a T-5 at the AT&T Byron Nelson. 

His recent placements and overall strokes-gained data puts him near the top of the field this year, but he is still an attractive price at 33/1 making him worth consideration this week.