2024 PGA Championship – Don’t get stuck in the rough when betting

In his great book, “A Good Walk Spoiled,” author John Feinstein wrote that, “For many years, the PGA Tournament has been the wayward stepchild among the four majors.”

That’s a rather accurate statement. The PGA Championship has had a difficult time finding its identity. 

This tournament got its start at a time when professional golfers were looked down upon. It was initially played in 1916, when the first prize was a whopping $500. In its 100th anniversary in 2016, Jimmy Walker took home $1.8 million for his upset victory. 

The championship had been contested largely within a match play format through 1957, and there are still some observers who believe this is what gave the event the kind of charm that distinguished it from the other majors. But television started to rule over pro golf by that time, and so in 1958 the PGA went strictly to stroke play, so that more top players could be shown to the audience.

This tournament jumped all over the calendar; ultimately it settled into mid-August, where the extreme heat was a problem. The PGA of America,which runs it, decided that a May date work better, and this has the effect of creating a majors “season” in golf, with the Masters in April, PGA in May, US Open in June and British Open in July.

And so here we are – at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, where the world’s best players once again gather. Who’s going to win?

Here are the odds to win the 2024 PGA Championship: 

(Note: We have listed the top contenders at 50-1 or below)

In addition to this listing, Tiger Woods is priced at 200-1 and Phil Mickelson at 400-1.

Valhalla – what is it?

The PGA Championship will be contested at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, which was built 38 yards ago. Until 2022, it was owned by the PGA of America, which is, of course, the same organization that runs this event. It has since been sold to a group that includes former NBA player Junior Bridgeman. 

Naturally, are going to put some of their signature tournaments there; that includes the Senior PGA Championship and the Ryder Cup, which happened in 2008. It has also played host to two PGA Championships.

In 2000, Tiger Woods defeated the unknown Bob May in a playoff, in what was one of the most exciting finishes this tournament ever had. And in 2014, Rory McIlroy defeated Mickelson by a single stroke.

You’ve got some choices when betting golf 

When you’re handicapping golf, there are certainly ways that are more preferable to go than others. This is especially applicable wen it comes to the most important tournaments; the ones the best players make a point of participating in. This obviously includes the four”majors,” and one of those is the PGA Championship, which is played every year at a different course.

Because the event is run by the PGA of America rather than the PGA Tour (there is a difference between the two), the organization makes accommodations for the teaching (club) professionals who they have certified. These are not regular competitors on the Tour; the instead compete amongst themselves, and this culminates in a “National Professional Championship,” formerly known as the “National Club Pro Championship.” 

For a long time, 40 club pros qualified for the PGA Championship through this mechanism. But eventually the tour pros squawked because they were taking up too many spots. So now only twenty club pros get in. That’s significant for us in the handicapping process, because it has created more openings for world-class players who would theoretically have a chance to win, making the PGA, in the minds of many, the strongest field among the four majors.

We should also mention that since the PGA stands for “Professional Golfers Association of America,” it is not a place for amateurs, which opens up even more room for tour players. This past January, amateur Nick Dunlap won the American Express tournament, which would qualified him for the PGA Championship based on the two-year exemption a player gets for winning a Tour event (he was the amateur since Phil Mickelson in 1991 to win on tour). Instead, Dunlap has decided to turn pro. He’ll be at Valhalla with that status.

For more insights into the distinction between the PGA Tour and PGA of America, and how signature events are structured, you can refer to the article PGA TOUR Signature Events Explained.

With all the players who have a legitimate chance to win the tournament, perhaps taking a stab at simply making a wager on a player to win is like placing a futures bet. You may not get much value out of that, and you can be completely out of the running at the end of Friday if your guy doesn’t make the cut. 

You don’t have to bet on the winner to, well, win 

There are better ways to wager. One of the options many sportsbooks offer is a “Top 5” or “Top 10” or “Top 20” bet. This gives you an opportunity to be more inclusive with your wager, and you can bet a number of players at once, because one player does not necessarily have to lose in order to allow another player to be part of a winning ticket.

Let’s offer an example between two of the greatest players of our generation. Tiger Woods is on the back nine of his pro career; most people are well aware of that, and needless to say, injuries have slowed him to the point that it’s harder for him to get around the course than ever. At the Masters he did manage to make the cut, but he wound up finishing last out of all the players who qualified for the weekend. 

So if you’re being very objective about it, you’re not necessarily considering Woods as a serious contender to win. But you may be a Tiger fan. In fact, he may even be the reason you’ll be watching. And we all have to admit that he’s been a “comeback kid” before. So you might be attracted to a chance at getting +700 (7-to-1) odds on Tiger Woods finishing in the Top 20 at the PGA.

Another veteran, Phil Mickelson, is a slightly different story, and not just because he isn’t playing on the regular PGA Tour anymore, having defected over to the LIV Tour. You have to remember that Lefty, at age 50, actually WON this tournament as recently as 2021, and tied for the runner-up spot in the Masters last year. So he is by no means to be counted out on the biggest stage. 

At the same time, those two great results are the only Top 20 finishes he’s had in his last 17 majors. He’s also had only two Top 20 results since he joined LIV. 

Even having said all that, it still might be surprising to see him a longer shot to get into the first twenty than Tiger, as he’s +800.

Looking at Scottie Scheffler, who is the recently-crowned Masters champion (a two-time winner) and current #1 player in the OWGR (Official World Golf Ranking), he is priced at -300 to make the Top 20, -160 to be in Top 10 and +120 to finish in the Top 5.

Since 2020, he has played in 15 majors, finishing a dozen times in the Top 20, with ten in the Top 10 (including three in the PGA) and six in the Top 5. So that’s why it may not look like a good price. Of course, to some that may seem an extremely good price.

Consider the hot hands

You certainly would rather have your money on a player who is showing good form than a player who isn’t. And you have to look favorably upon players who are experiencing an upward trajectory.

We just mentioned Scottie Scheffler, who has just won his second Masters and looks like the kind of player who has his best golf in front of him. So he is going to get a lot of support.

If you want to do some research about how players have been doing lately, just go to the OWGR (Official World Golf Ranking) website, and track what they have done. Since these rankings are based upon what players have done over a certain period of time, the results – and any patterns they reveal – are right there in front of you.

Also, reference the Wikipedia pages for the individual players. There you’ll see their histories in each of the majors, so you’ll be able to see the finishes not only in the Masters, PGA, US Open and British Open, but also the Players Championship and the World Golf Championship (WGC) events.

One player who might be ready to bust through and be a big winner on the biggest stages is Swedish-born Ludvig Aberg, a 24-year-old who went straight from being the #1 amateur player in the world to winning on both the European AND American PGA Tour AND playing in the Ryder Cup in less than a year’s time. 

And at Augusta, he finished as the runner-up in the Masters in his very first major. He is currently #6 in the OWGR. In other words, he has skyrocketed. 

Keep an eye on him. And he’s getting respect; Aberg (pronounced OO-berg) is +2200 to win the PGA, even money (+100) to make the Top 20, +225 to get into the Top 10 and +450 to finish in the Top 5. 

Betting head-to-head matchups is a great way to go

One of the most popular options to wager on when it comes to professional golf at online sportsbooks concerns head-to-head matchups between players.

The whole thing is pretty straightforward. It’s one player against another, and whoever finishes higher wins.

Here is another great thing about matchups – and pay attention to this – a player can actually be involved in several head-to-head props at once. So you have choices, and if you really like a player’s chances to win it all, you can win a number of wagers along with that.

Also, the menu of matchups are not “dead” after the tournament has started. There are new matchups that come out for all four days of the event. 

Let’s take a look at a head-to-head matchup that involves two of the tournament favorites – Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy:

• Scottie Scheffler -165 
• Rory McIlroy +137
• Scottie Scheffler -1.5 (-130)   
• Rory McIlroy +1.5 (-101) 

You can bet this either way. The first prop represents whose score will be better between the two. And in this way it resembles a baseball game or even a fight. The second one carries a handicap with it, like a run line in baseball. So you see that Scheffler is giving up a stroke and a half to McIlroy and there is a price based on that.

In betting this you will want to consider a number of factors, not the least of which is that McIlroy has won the PGA Championship on this course, as we mentioned previously. 

There’s another head-to-head we need to mention; that between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. We see it listed with Lefty as the favorite:

• Phil Mickelson -144
• Tiger Woods  +120

What’s especially interesting about this is that, at the same sportsbook, Tiger carries lower odds to win the tournament and to finish in the Top 20. I guess there are questions as to Tiger’s ability to make the cut and / or his staying power over an entire 72 holes. 

Again, keep in mind that matchups can either be determined over the course of the whole tournament or for an individual round, so check to see how each one is designated. 

Betting the PGA Championship by groups / categories

One of the interesting ways to handicap a major golf tournament, and in this case, the PGA, is to bet the groups.

These propositions, in the form of a field, break down players into categories. Some are a lot smaller than others. For example, you can bet on the “Top American,” which is the American player who finishes the highest. There are a lot of American players in the tournament, so naturally it’s a rather big field. And Scottie Scheffler is the +300 favorite. 

You can narrow things down in a number of different ways. So at the sportsbook we looked at, there are a load of groups we can bet. Here they are, and we listed the favorites:

• Top Asian — Hideki Matsuyama heads a list of three favorites (at +425)
• Top Australian — Cameron Smith (+210)
• Top Britisher — Rory McIlroy (+110)
• Top Canadian — Corey Conners (+245)
• Top Dane — Nicolai Hoijgaard (+135)
• Top Former Winner — McIlroy (+140)
• Top Left-Hander — Brian Harman (+150)
• Top LIV Golfer — Brooks Koepka and Jon Rahm (both +425)
• Top Scandinavian — Ludwig Aberg (+175)
• Top Senior Player — Mickelson (+140)
• Top South African — Dean Burmester )+200)
• Top South American — Joaquin Niemann (-175)

Another kind of group — Three-balls

Golf bettors also have an opportunity to evaluate something that kind of falls between a matchup and a field. It’s called a “three-ball,” and generally it consists of three players who will tee off and play together, at least for the first two rounds. So obviously there are going to be a lot of these trios to choose from. So we’ll take a look at just a few:

• Scottie Scheffler -145
• Wyndham Clark +245
• Brian Harman +425

Scheffler is, of course, the #1 player in the world right now. Clark is the reigning U.S. Open champion. And Harman won the British Open last year.

Here’s another:

• Adam Scott  +115
• Keegan Bradley +160
• Tiger Woods +350

There are three more major champions in this one. Adam Scott was the 2013 Masters champion. Keegan Bradley is an automatic qualifier, regardless of how he is doing on the PGA Tour at any given time, because he won the PGA Championship in 2011. And Woods has won the PGA four times, one of those at this year’s course, Valhalla. 

And here’s one three-ball proposition that carries some special intrigue for me:

• Luke Donald -140
• Michael Block +180
• Shaun Micheel +600

Donald was, at one time, the world’s #1 player. He is also the captain of the European Ryder Cup team. But he has never won a major, and he does not qualify for the PGA Championship under any of its criteria. But he received a special exemption from the PGA of America to participate this week.

Michael Block is a 47-year-old who qualified for last year’s PGA Championship through the PGA Professional Championship (he had actually won that event in 2014). Block held a share of the lead on the second day in last year’s PGA Championship, which was enough of a shock. But he played so well that he tied for 15th place, which earned him a return trip this year. It also earned him $288,000, which is a great payday for a club pro.

Shaun Micheel was one of the true “underdog” winners of the PGA Championship, with his victory coming in 2003. That was his only win on the PGA Tour. But Micheel demonstrated that was not a total fluke, as he was the PGA runner-up in 2006. However, those were the only Top 20 finishes he’s ever had in majors, and he hasn’t made a cut in the PGA Championship since 2011. In 2014 he underwent heart surgery. Now 55 years old, he’s 500-1 in the category of “Top Former Winner.” 

Then there’s the “live” option

Most sportsbooks are going to give you the option of wagering live on the tournament. So you can literally bet on any hole (generally televised groupings),most likely on who is going to win the hole, or even if there is going to be a tie. Or, there are running odds on who is going to win the tournament. 

These are operated by algorithm, and are updated constantly. There’s usually a lot of time between shots, so you have the luxury of being able to ponder your decisions a little. Still, you’ve got to be quick with the point and click!