Welcome back golf fans! After going 2/3 in our last article, and cashing both + money plays, I am very excited for this weekend!
The 2024 PGA Championship, the 2nd major of the season, is being held at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky. The last time this event was held at this course was in 2014, when Rory beat Phil Mickelson by 1 stroke to win his second PGA Championship. If that event told us anything, we are in for a treat this weekend.
This course will be tough for players to pull away from the field and we should have a bunched leaderboard come Sunday morning. My picks below were determined by how the player has been performing recently and how they performed in recent majors.
My biggest metric is how they perform on tour in 5 categories for this course specifically, total driving, driving accuracy, SG(shots gained) tee to green, SG approach to green, and scrambling.
PGA Championship Bonus: Bet $5, Get $150 at DraftKings
Scottie Scheffler is by far the best player in the world right now. Over his last five events he has 4 wins and one tied for second place, which is about as dominant of a run you will have in golf.
He has 7 top 5 finishes out of his 10 events so far, finishing 1st in the Masters, The Players, and the Arnold Palmer, 3 very revered tournaments. He is coming off having a baby, but I do not believe that will slow him down this week.
Scottie leads the tour in scoring average and ranks top 10 in 5 categories; total driving, SG tee to green, SG approach to the green, SG around the green, and in scrambling. Hard to stay off this juicy line when every other book has it -190 to -200+.
Taking this purely for the value in the market. Top 5 for +115 is a very good look as well if you don't like this juice. I believe he has a good shot to hit top 5 in pursuit of another major.
Rory McIlroy returns to where he won his last major, 10 years ago now. Will he finally get the monkey off his back? Perhaps, but it is always tough to win back-to-back tournaments on tour, which he pulled out the win last week at the Wells Fargo Championship.
This course is long and suits Rory's top of the tour driving ability to give him an edge on all par 5s and longer par 4's. Some of the landing zones may keep some of the holes in check for Rory, but others he should be able to dominate with his length and #25th ranked driving accuracy.
He ranks #6 SG tee to green and #24 scrambling which are good enough numbers to keep him around for the weekend and in contention Saturday and Sunday.
We will ride Xander until the wheels fall off. There may be more consistent players on tour, but we don't think so. 10 of his 11 starts have finished top 25, 8 have finished top 10, 5 have finished top 5.
He is the 3rd highest earner on tour this season and is ranked #6 in total driving, #2 in SG tee to green, #7 in SG approach to the green, and #4 in scrambling. He is always around the top of the leaderboard in tournaments that matter, especially major events, and for good reason.
He is one of the tour's best iron players and is very solid with his short game, as seen by his rankings. He has all the tools to get his first major win this weekend and I believe it would be smart for a lot of people to back him this week with how high he ranks in categories that matter at this course.
He has top 10 finishes at every major, and he has a very good shot to find that again this week.
Ludvig Aberg is going to be a name everyone gets to know and remember very soon. He has been climbing the charts and playing well all year long. He ranks #3 in total driving and #26 in driving accuracy, two critical categories on this long and narrow course.
He ranks #13 in SG tee to green and #17 in SG approach to green, and if he happens to need to scramble his way around the greens, he ranks 12th in scrambling. If he gets in trouble, he knows how to get back out of it and avoid the big numbers.
He has four straight top 15 finishes on tour and eight straight top 25 finishes, seven of them under 20. He finished second at the masters and looks poised to make a run at PGA this season.
Tommy Fleetwood is always around on the big stage. He finished tied 3rd this year at the Masters, 33rd at last season's Masters and finished no worse than 18th in the other 3 majors last season.
In the 2021-22 season he finished top 14 in 3 of the 4 majors. 7 out of his last 9 majors he has finished 18th or better and the price we are getting on his line seems too good to pass up.
What has impressed me about Tommy this season is his two DP world tournament events. He finished 1st and tied for 14th, and those events usually host some of the best golfers in the world. He seems like a no brainer, at plus money, to finish in a good spot.
Corey Conners has played very well this season hitting this line in 9 of his 12 events. He placed T38 at Masters this season, T10th and T8th at previous Masters. He finished T12 at last year's PGA, missed the cut the year prior, and finished T17th at PGA in 2021.
He tends to play well in the bigger tournaments, finishing 13th at the Players this year, which is sometimes known as the tour's fifth major. What I like about him to finish above this line is that he ranks very high in the categories I targeted for this course.
He ranks #21 in total driving, #24 in driving accuracy, #10 in SG tee to green and #3 in SG approach to green. He's not one of the tour's best putters so if he can avoid having to scramble a ton, by staying accurate off the tee and from fairway to the green, leaving himself with easier putts, he should give us a nice plus money win.
These three, Aberg, Conners, and Schauffele are three of the most accurate drivers on tour. Currently Conners is #24, Aberg #26, and Schauffele is #34. Yes I could have looked at Morikawa, Fleetwood, or Lowry who are all top 5, but I believe these 3 are going to have a stellar tournament and it starts with day 1.
Aberg and Schauffele are both #3 and #6 in total driving, and Conners is #21. These 3 stay very accurate off the tee and I love both 8.5 lines for Aberg and Schaffele, I can see a push with 9 on Conners which is why I opted for the Flex play.
Let's cash these bets and have a great 2024 PGA Championship! A couple extra freebies for everyone are at the bottom if you like! :)
Best Bets:
Scottie Scheffler Top 10 (-150) BetRivers
Rory McIlroy Top 10 (+100) Bet365/Bet Rivers
Xander Schauffle Top 20 (-125) Bet365
Ludvig Aberg Top 20 (-105) Bet365/DK/FanDuel
Tommy Fleetwood Top 30 (+100) Bet365
Corey Conners Top 40 (+115) Bet365
UnderDog Flex Play (3x = 2.73, 2x = 0.91x)
Ludvig Aberg: Higher 8.5 Fairways Hit
Corey Conners: Higher 9.0 Fairways Hit
Xander Schauffele: Higher 8.5 Fairways Hit
Honorable Mentions:
Colin Morikowa Top 30 (-120) Bet365
Cam Smith Top 30 (+115) Bet365