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After a few quiet weeks following the Masters, it’s officially PGA Championship week! Unfortunately, defending champion, Phil Mickelson has withdrawn from the event due to the ongoing turmoil between the PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Tour. While Mickelson will be missed, this is still an exciting event, with 95 of the world’s top 100 golfers.
This year the PGA Championship is being played at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Southern Hills has been home to the PGA Championship, US Open, US Amateur, and Tour Championship. The last PGA Tour event held here was in 2007, when Tiger Woods won the PGA by two strokes over Woody Austin. The course has since undergone a significant renovation at the hand of architect Gil Hanse. Southern Hills is long, measured at 7,556 yards, and has small greens, many of which are heavily protected by bunkers. In fact, 11 of the 18 greens have at least four bunkers around them.
Scoring will be much higher this week than in the past few weeks. I wouldn’t expect anything less for a PGA Championship. With golf’s best teeing it up this week, it’s easy to make an argument for multiple golfers to win. I plan on going fairly deep in my outright selections using a combination of these metrics:
- Strokes Gained: Approach
- SG: Tee-to-Green
- SG: Around the Green
- Driving Distance
- Sand Saves
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Here are two of the golfers I am betting on this week with odds from PointsBet Sportsbook:
Justin Thomas to win (+1400)
Thomas will be the most popular golfer this week, and for good reason. While Thomas hasn’t won since last year’s Players Championship, he is my favorite golfer this week. Over the last 36 rounds, he’s the top golfer in SG: Total, he’s seventh in SG: Approach, 11th in driving distance, and 13th in sand saves. It’s always been the putter that’s plagued him, but putting shouldn’t be overly important due to the smaller bent grass greens. Either way, Thomas has been a much better putter over his last four events. He gained +3 strokes putting at Valspar and then another +3.3 strokes at Byron Nelson.
Watching Thomas last week playing TPC Craig Ranch was promising. He didn’t have his best ball-striking effort and was saved by his scrambling and phenomenal play around the greens. He gained +3.7 strokes around the greens. You generally aren’t winning events if you rely heavily on SG: ARG. However, the way this course is played, SG: Around The Green will be important.
For Thomas, it isn’t a matter of whether he’s going to win this season, just when. This is an excellent spot for him.
Editor’s Note: Be sure to check out the PointsBet site and mobile app Wednesday from 9-10 p.m. ET for PGA Championship Power Hour, where market-best odds across all golfers to win the tournament will be offered for the full hour!
Hideki Matsuyama to win (+3300)
I backed Matsuyama last week, and I am backing him again this week. He had been battling injury before his previous two starts. He looked solid at the Masters and looked primed to win the Byron Nelson. A third-place finish doesn’t do him justice with how well he played all week. He gained strokes everywhere except around the green. This is a bit misleading; he only had one day of actually losing strokes around the green.
Geoffrey Ulrich of SB Nation brought up a few trends that made me love Matsuyama more:
- Six of the last nine winners of the PGA Championship finished T-15 or better in their previous start before winning. Matsuyama finished third at the Byron Nelson.
- Five of the last six winners played in a PGA Tour event the week before their PGA Championship win. Matsuyama played last week.
- Four of the five past winners have won an event that season before their PGA Championship win. Matsuyama has two wins on the season: the ZOZO Championship and Sony Open.
Only four golfers meet that criteria: Jordan Spieth, Matsuyama, Xander Schauffele, and Scottie Scheffler.
While I would love to bet based on trends blindly, Matsuyama’s play supports a wager on him. He’s second in the field in SG: Tot, only behind Thomas. He’s sixth in SG: Approach and 10th in sand saves. He’s a great candidate to pick up his third win (and second major) this weekend.
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