PGA Championship Predictions, Expert Betting Picks and Odds May 18-21
PGA Championship Betting Preview
WagerTalk golf handicapper Nick Borrman offers his thoughts on the PGA Championship teeing off from Oak Hill Country Club in Pittsford, NY. Nick discusses the guys at the top of the odds board, golfers to fade and other expert picks surrounding the PGA Championship this week!
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| PGA Championship | PGA Tour Betting Notes |
|---|---|
| When: | May 18-21 |
| Where: | Oak Hill Country Club in Pittsford, New York |
| Defending Champ: | Justin Thomas |
| Current Favorite: | Scottie Scheffler (+700 at DraftKings) |
| TV: | ESPN & CBS |
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PGA Championship Odds Board
Top-10 Total Strokes Gained over the last six months (betting odds via FanDuel , DraftKings and others)
The Course & Field – Oak Hill Country Club East Course (Rochester, New York)
From Nick Borrman:
I’ll start with the field as that’s easy. 99 of the Top-100 players in the world are in the field this week making it the deepest and strongest field of the season.
Only Will Zalatoris is missing as he is out for the season after undergoing back surgery. Unlike the other strong field designated events this season, LIV Tour players are in the mix.
To the surprise of many, they had a strong showing at the Masters and now that we know they are still actually good at golf, I expect more people to be wagering on them this time around.
Scouting Major tournament courses is where things get interesting. Many time, the venues picked are not regular TOUR staples such as the case with Oak Hill. The Donald Ross design has hosted several Championship events before including three previous PGA Championships, a US Open, the Ryder Cup, the US Amateur as well as the Senior PGA and Senior US Open.
The last edition of the PGA here came back in 2013 and was won by Jason Dufner. 33 contestants from that tournament are in the field this week.
However, the course has undergone major renovations since then, most notable beginning in 2019 with the removal of trees all around the property.
All 18 greens were rebuilt and are now entirely bentgrass from a previous mix of bent and poa annua. The greens are small, as most Donald Ross courses are, averaging just 4,500 square feet and with the rough described as “thick and gnarly” this week, keeping the ball in the fairway will be at a premium.
Additionally, fairways are narrow and lined with deep bunkers which could often make going for the green an impossibility.
The course measures nearly 7,400 yards but plays only to a par 70, meaning it will play plenty long. Both par 5s can measure longer than 600 yards depending on how they set them up so even those are not easy birdies.
The weather this week is up and down. The tournament will start off with a potential frost delay as overnight lows Wednesday into Thursday will dip into the mid 30s before reaching a high of about 60 degrees.
Friday jumps into the high 70s but with some breezier conditions which will then linger through Sunday. Rain showers are forecasted on Saturday before the finale on Sunday with temperatures in the upper 60s and winds at the highest of the week, gusting over 20 mph.
PGA Championship Predictions
Jason Day was the #2 ranked Strokes Gained golfer heading into last week which makes it now 17 of 28 (61%) TOUR winners this season that have ranked inside the Top-10 Strokes Gained over the previous 12 months. With the Top-10 list as strong as it is, hard not to see one of those guys winning this week.
PGA Championship Outright Winner
Patrick Cantlay +2100 (FanDuel)
Ho hum. A big tournament and another attempt to cash a ticket on Patrick Cantlay. Cantlay hasn’t been winning this season anyway with his last win coming in the Playoffs last year at the BMW Championship, so he isn’t getting the attention of a Scheffler or Rahm. But the reason you back Cantlay is consistency.
Dating back to the RBC Heritage last April (2022), Cantlay has been incredibly consistent. In 24 starts, Cantlay has finished outside the Top-20 four times.
Yes, he is finishing in the Top-20 at a ridiculous 83% clip which includes Majors, Playoffs and plenty of designate events along the way. In fact, he has finished inside the Top-10 50% of the time, 12 of 24 events making his nearly 2-1 price at doing so again look very attractive.
Cantlay is:
Long, 28th in Distance ✔
Accurate, 8th in Greens in Regulation ✔
And can putt, 18th in SG Putting ✔
The course features newly renovated bentgrass greens where Cantlay excels winning four of his last 12 starts. He ranks #1 SG on bentgrass greens over his last 50 rounds.
Leaderboard Finish
Wyndham Clark Top-10 +600 (B365 or FD) | Top-20 +260 (B365)
I promised myself I wasn’t going to miss out on Clark’s first PGA Tour win, the problem was I didn’t expect it to come in a designated event.
The evidence was there, Clark was performing well overall, but extremely well in the non-designated, aka weaker, field events. Then he goes ahead and wins the Wells Fargo Championship in his last start, in dominating fashion, mind you.
I like backing consistent players and Clark has been just that. 16 straight cuts made with eight Top-20 finishes including six Top-10s. But over his last six starts he has been red hot with four Top-10s including that Wells Fargo win.
I often tout Strokes Gained data and reference the Top-10 list as my “go to” for Outright betting any given week.
While Clark isn’t in the Top-10 over the last 12 months, he does rank #10 over the last three months and #13 over the last six months.
While expecting him to win in back-to-back starts is asking a lot, there is no reason to think he won’t make the weekend and be somewhere on the first two pages of the leaderboard come Sunday.
Top-10 Player to Fade
Rory McIlroy
Although in his defense, this is the best number we have seen on Rory in a long time, so if there was a time to take him, it’s probably now. That being said, I’m good.
Two missed cuts in his last four starts which were at the Masters and THE PLAYERS. He finished 3rd at the Match Play and T2 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, but also no better than T29 in his other three made cuts.
So basically, he has finished inside the Top-25 twice in the last seven starts. I don’t have the cojones to bet him to miss the cut, he’s just not in the kind of form I’m interested in this week.
See you next week for the Charles Schwab Challenge!
Nick Preview’s the PGA Championship During WagerTalk Extra!
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