The Money List keeps track of each player’s earnings on the PGA Tour. Golfers earn money based on their placements in tournaments. Of course, the highest finishes earn the best payouts. Essentially, the best players on tour are typically atop the money list. For example, Jon Rahm, Scottie Scheffler and Max Homa hold the top three spots in the FedEXCup rankings and Money List standings.
BetUS Sportsbook offers a large field of players for PGA Money List picks. Rahm and Scheffler are currently the favorites by a wide margin. Rahm sits in first with about a $2 million cushion. Scheffler leads third place by over $4 million. This could be a two-horse race, but the PGA Tour still has a long way to go.
Impact of Major Tournaments and High-Paying Events
Believe it or not, the major tournaments – The Masters, PGA Championship, Open Championship and U.S. Open – do not have the largest purses. The Masters features the largest purse among the majors at $18 million. Rahm won this event, earning $3.24 million. The PGA Championship, Open Championship and U.S. Open have $15 million purses, with $2.7 million going to first place. Of course, this kind of money can still greatly impact PGA Money List predictions. If Scheffler wins one of these events, he has a good chance of vaulting Rahm for the top spot.
Several of the largest purses are behind us, like the Players Championship ($25 million), WM Phoenix Open ($20 million) and Genesis Invitational ($20 million). The Memorial Tournament ($20 million), Travelers Championship ($20 million), FedEx St. Jude Championship ($20 million) and BMW Championship ($20 million) are upcoming tournaments in the summer that could cause big shifts in the PGA Money List.
Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele are options that could narrow Rahm and Scheffler’s lead. Cantlay won the BMW Championship in 2021 and 2022. If he can three-peat, he could make a big jump on the Money List. Schauffele also has a good history with one of the largest purses remaining – the Travelers Championship. He won it last year.
Wyndham Clark is another name to watch in PGA Money List news. He has surged up the standings after his first PGA Tour win at the Wells Fargo Championship, which yielded a $3.6 million payout. Plus, Clark has six top-10 finishes.
Whoever finishes with the most PGA Tour wins will likely finish atop the Money List. Remember, this is about how much money is earned, not their points. The top three placements in tournaments earn the most money.
The PGA Money List also makes lesser-known tournaments, like the Travelers Championship, far more important. The events with the largest purses will have a greater impact on PGA Money List betting than the majors.
The PGA Championship is the second of four major championships on the PGA and European Tours but is conducted by the PGA of America, the organization that is made up of club professionals who operate pro shops and give lessons to local players.
The tournament has been a stroke play event since 1958 and was played in August from 1969 to 2018, moving to May in 2019 to accommodate a change to the PGA Tour schedule.
The move to May increased the course options for the tournament, with cooler temperatures bringing more potential venues into the mix or better weather for longtime host courses.
The site of the 2022 PGA Championship, Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma, saw 90-degree temperatures in 2007, so golfers and fans alike appreciated the more temperate weather moving forward. The tournament is generally considered the least of the four major championships, especially after the resurgence of The Open Championship in the 1970s.
Throughout its history, the PGA Championship has produced a large number of not only first time major champions but also winners who ended up with the victory remaining their only major title. For bettors, that fact makes it a little more difficult event to wager on, with numerous longshots, like Rich Beem, Y.A. Yang, Mark Brooks, Keegan Bradley, and Jason Dufner pulling surprises to win the Wanamaker Trophy.
Since the PGA Championship is a major tournament, the PGA Championship Odds are usually available far in advance of the event, even before the full field has been announced. However, given the qualifying criteria, at least half the 156 player field, and especially most of the top contenders, are locked in months prior to the start of the tournament.
There are 20 spots in the event that are reserved for the top finishers in the PGA Professional Championship that takes place in late April, but since those mostly club pros aren’t experienced tournament players, they rarely factor into the outcome of the tournament and really aren’t legitimate threats from a wagering perspective. Since Tour winners in the year prior to the tournament qualify, there can occasionally be late additions to the field that could threaten the favorites.
The most popular wager on the PGA Championship is futures betting, where the early PGA Championship Odds are established on who will win the tournament. The favorite usually has odds of around +1000, which means a winning $100 wager returns a net profit of $1000 to the bettor, with the biggest underdogs having odds of as high as +100,000.
The week of the tournament, after the field has been finalized and players have committed to playing, other wagers are also available, particularly head to head matchups even if the two golfers aren’t actually paired with each other on the golf course. There are also proposition bets, for instance over/under wagers on the winning score, the continent in which the winning player was born, and the margin of victory, among others.
Live betting has also become popular, with sportsbooks offering PGA Championship Odds on scoring for a stretch of holes for particular competitors, as well as prop bets like closest to the hole or the longest drive. The increased popularity and legalization of sports wagering has greatly expanded the type of wagers that sportsbooks are willing to offer.
