Golf PGA Championship lines

Jon Rahm has gone on a tear in the 2022-23 PGA TOUR with four wins and eight top-10 finishes. His outstanding season is topped by winning The Masters, which is considered the most prestigious Golf tournament. With Rahm leading the FedExCup standings by a wide margin, he is the favorite to win the PGA Championship. However, Rahm has not been close to winning this event. He finished 48th last year, and his best finish was a tie for eighth in 2021.

Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy are also popular PGA Championship picks. Scheffler is consistently among the favorites after his breakout 2021-22 campaign. He finished second in the tour standings last season and is currently in second behind Rahm. Scheffler did not place in the 2022 PGA Championship but tied for eighth in 2021 and fourth in 2019.

McIlroy has been one of the biggest names in golf for years. After winning the FedExCup last year, his play has slid in the 2022-23 tour. However, McIlroy has a great history with the PGA Championship, winning it in 2012 and 2014. Following poor finishes for several years, McIlroy has found his groove at the PGA Championship once again. In fact, his eighth-place finish in 2019 and 2022 were his best placements since his 2014 win.

Justin Thomas and Brooks Koepka are also hard names to miss in PGA Championship news. Neither player has a win this season. Thomas has two top-10 finishes while Koepka has one. Thomas has not had multiple tour wins since the 2019-20 season. Koepka has not won a tournament since the WM Phoenix Open in the 2020-21 season. Like McIlroy, both players have a lot of success at the PGA Championship. Thomas won the tournament in 2017 and 2022. Koepka went back-to-back in 2018 and 2019. Neither has performed well in recent seasons, but you cannot write them off at the PGA Championship thanks to multiple career wins.

Following his first PGA TOUR win in the Wells Fargo Championship, Wyndham Clark has become a hot name. This has been a breakout season for Clark, as he is fifth in the FedExCup standings. His win at the Wells Fargo Championship secured berths for two majors – the PGA Championship and Open Championship. Clark will have long odds to win the PGA Championship, but considering his recent play, it could be worth the risk. Many PGA Championship predictions could look to cash in on Clark’s breakout season.

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 1970’s.

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.