Golf expert Ben Coley previews the second men's major of the season and fancies two close friends to contend for the PGA Championship at Oak Hill.
- Our golf expert has selected two of the last six PGA Championship winners at odds of 50/1 and 16/1, while his record for 2023 includes winners at 50/1, 100/1 and 22/1. Click here for details of all Ben's selections.
Golf betting tips: PGA Championship
3pts e.w. Patrick Cantlay at 20/1 (Paddy Power 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)
3pts e.w. Xander Schauffele at 20/1 (Paddy Power 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)
1pt e.w. Shane Lowry at 80/1 (Sky Bet, bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Joaquin Niemann at 90/1 (BoyleSports 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Gary Woodland at 100/1 (Paddy Power 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)
1pt e.w. Cameron Davis at 275/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
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What the PGA Championship may lack in prestige, relative that is to its three fellow men's major championships, it has more than made up for in drama in recent years.
While Mito Pereira's implosion at the 18th hole may have been matched by the US Open and even exceeded by the Open, it was nevertheless a must-see finish. The Masters will always have those because it is the Masters, but the last four champions have known they were champions when teeing off on 18.
This tournament, one which can legitimately claim to provide the strongest field among the four, gave us Phil Mickelson in 2021, Collin Morikawa in 2020, and an almost-collapse from Brooks Koepka in 2019. Bellerive before that involved Tiger Woods and it was only late in the 2017 renewal that Justin Thomas could begin to relax as an international cast produced a thrilling Sunday.
"I f****d up," Pereira infamously whispered to his caddie after finding water with his final tee shot a year ago, a comment picked up by the Netflix microphones. "On the last hole, man." Some will never consider the PGA to be on a par with the Masters, the US Open and the Open, but Southern Hills gave us a finish for the ages just as Kiawah Island had done before that.
A lot has changed in 10 years...
As for what Oak Hill provides over the coming days, just one thing seems certain: something very different to when Jason Dufner beat Jim Furyk a decade ago, with Henrik Stenson third. Back then, the course had become a suffocating test of accuracy, thick rough and thicker trees making small targets hard to find. In contrast to what we've seen recently, it wasn't much of a spectacle.
Now, thanks to Andrew Green's 'sympathetic restoration' of a Donald Ross classic, we should have a course fit for the modern game it welcomes back. It is longer at 7,394 yards and will play longer still; more than 600 of the thousands of trees have been removed; bunkers and green surrounds have been given both nuance and bite.
Just as significant may be the time of year. May in New York is very different to August in New York, with temperatures low and rough made thick by a long winter and wet spring. It's not so long ago that snow seeped into this turf and the course is verdant, its rough not perhaps as long as you'd find at a US Open, but every bit as thick.
If that reminds you of the first PGA Championship following the change in the calendar, it does me, too. Bethpage Black was listed as a 7,400-yard par 70, almost identical to this one. It was cold and the course played extremely long, something Justin Rose had cottoned onto soon after arriving. Rose felt maybe 30 players could win; in the end we were served a battle between Koepka and Dustin Johnson, the two best drivers in the field that week.
Driver is the club I believe will take on greater importance versus Southern Hills, where rough was less of a factor, and the course still had bounce in the Tulsa heat. There, some balance was required and Justin Thomas did everything quite well, but among the three players who could've won the tournament, there was not what you'd call an outstanding driving display.
Certainly, both Thomas and runner-up Will Zalatoris got away with missing a huge number of fairways, just as Mickelson had, just as Koepka had. The fact that both he and Johnson ranked 44th in accuracy but dominated the strokes-gained off-the-tee stats says much about what set-ups like this one can do to any notion of equality.
The rough here at Oak Hill will favour the longer hitters more than it does the accurate ones, but those who spray the ball everywhere seem sure to struggle. Recovery shots are still possible according to PGA championships officer Kerry Haigh, more so than was the case in 2013, yet there are too many mid-to-long irons awaiting these players to believe anyone can execute them effectively if they're not on or close to the fairway.
Take two against big three
Jon Rahm, Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy head the betting, as they may for years to come, and if McIlroy can warm up his putter then he might look an opportunity missed at 12/1. You may by now have read that he is an Oak Hill member and while far from a regular visitor, he has seen more of the course than almost anyone in this field, his wife hailing from nearby in Rochester.
Modest form figures since he played some of the best golf in the Match Play mean we're being offered four points bigger than for his latest Masters disappointment, yet his game is a very good fit. McIlroy's best driving is better than anyone else's here, his approach play from distance has always been a strength, and he's so much better than many give him credit for from bunkers, which will test everyone.
Leaving him out isn't easy but there have to be concerns over his approach play and putting and they're just not accounted for in the odds. Last April he was an 18/1 chance at Augusta, his form at the time good. Somehow it feels as though the Rahm-Scheffler axis has had the opposite effect to that which it should've: McIlroy is pinned to them as part of a big three despite his own form in 2023 being a grade below theirs.
I hope he rides the wave of support to a fifth major but better value comes in the form of PATRICK CANTLAY, who right now might be the best driver of the ball in golf.
Over his last six measured starts dating back to Riviera in February, Cantlay has ranked second, third, first, 12th, third and seventh in strokes-gained off-the-tee, climbing to second among this field for the season as a whole.
He's also second in total driving and this rather more old-fashioned statistic at least helps to explain what makes him so effective: Cantlay is both long and straight, a Scheffler-like blend which seems perfect for Oak Hill, where fairways have always been and will remain very difficult to hit.
Throughout this period his approach play had also been excellent until a dip at Quail Hollow, but that's a course Cantlay wouldn't have visited had it not been a designated event. In finishing 21st, not only did he improve upon his two previous starts there, but he solidified a timely return to form with the putter.
Both these quiet, meticulous characters have rounded games which begin with excellent driving, seldom missing big. Schauffele is slightly less reliable in this department but makes up for it with his elite approach play, which has improved throughout his career and now sees him ranked fifth on the PGA Tour.
His majors record is arguably superior and includes 16th place at Bethpage, probably the best recent PGA pointer, along with fifth at Winged Foot, another New York major where thick rough and hard-to-hit fairways saw Bryson DeChambeau blast his way to victory. He's been close in the Masters and the Open, too.
What I like most about Schauffele, however, is that this comes at exactly the right time. In contrast to a year ago, he carried Cantlay at the Zurich Classic this time, while his last three individual starts have seen him rank fourth, first and fourth in strokes-gained tee-to-green, his driver getting better from one to the next.
As I've written elsewhere, my view is that the Masters told us next to nothing about the breakaway circuit and how its players can be expected to fare in majors. We simply don't know the long-term impact and as far as the short-term goes, guess what? Some exceptional golfers are still capable of playing exceptional golf.
Despite this and the Bethpage comparison already drawn, I find Brooks Koepka a laughably short price at 18/1, while Dustin Johnson's play-off win doesn't quite justify prices of 25s. Maybe Johnson's improvement makes sense given that he enjoyed his off-season, but I need a little more convincing before putting him back on a par with someone like Tony Finau, Cantlay, Schauffele and even Homa.
Lowry owes us nothing, not yet anyway, after his Open heroics and I think he's backed it up pretty well, adding another big title to his collection at Wentworth and, in major terms, eight top-25s in 12 subsequent appearances.
Just last month he putted poorly yet finished 16th in the Masters having been around the places all week, a tournament he contended for the previous spring, and the putter is the only reason he missed the cut in last year's US Open as well as denying him a top-10 finish at St Andrews in July.
In terms of this event, he was fourth under admittedly favourable conditions at Kiawah Island when the best driver in the field but again putting poorly and that club may ultimately determine how high up the leaderboard he finishes once more. Clearly, it's been a problem this season and particularly so from close range.
Woodland's long-game is without doubt back to the levels which took him to US Open glory in 2019. In fact, it might even be better and he led the field in strokes-gained tee-to-green last time out at the Wells Fargo.
Prior to that he'd ranked third in Mexico so you won't need a background in data science to understand that he must've putted poorly to finish 39th there and 14th at Quail Hollow, the very same position he'd filled in the Masters a few weeks earlier.
The former Australian Open winner has two recent top-10s in designated events, first at Sawgrass and then again at Harbour Town, and while yet to make an impact in a major he's also yet to miss a cut having played in just four of them so far.
He was one of my players to follow at the start of the year because he has all the tools required to reach elite levels, and at last we're seeing that as a notable improvement off the tee has seen him rank among the best drivers around since the start of April.
His approach play and short-game are far less consistent hence a patchy profile but he was fourth in strokes-gained tee-to-green two starts ago before again driving the ball well at Quail Hollow, where he missed the cut by a shot but at least showed a welcome upturn with the putter.
Davis has so far been at his most effective on bentgrass and cool, breezy conditions won't bother a player who has based himself in Chicago, all of which makes me believe he might just be this year's Pereira at prices as big as 275/1 in places and 250/1 generally.
Others of note at massive odds include Robert MacIntyre despite nagging injury doubts, while Harris English is probably entitled to a little more respect in the major which is certainly the most open and, arguably, can be considered the most exciting.
Let's hope for more of that, or else a nice, comfortable, 10-shot win for a certain someone who will have the support of his fellow Oak Hill members.
Posted at 1800 BST on 15/05/23
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