By: Harry Gagnon
Harry’s PGA Championship Prop Bets and Best Bets
What: PGA Championship
Where: TPC Harding Park
San Francisco, CA
When: August 6-9
This will mark the first time since 1971 that the first major played in a golf season will be the PGA Championship. We have had to make it this way due to scheduling around COVID-19 and the PGA deserves a pat on the back for the way they have handled the coverage and scheduling situation thus far.
Plenty of story lines will play into this championship: stories like Justin Thomas being the No. 1 after his win last week in Memphis. Joh Rahm who is primed for his first major victory and Rory McIlroy has now dropped to No. 3 in the world, but Rory won on this course back in 2015 at the WGC-Match Play Championship over Gary Woodland.
Brooks Koepka is going after a three peat of his own for PGA Championships. He hadn’t been playing well until last week’s performance at the St Jude Invitational where he tied for second and shot an opening round 62. Here are a few of my best plays for the first major of the PGA year.
PGA Championship Matchup Prop Bets
Matchups
-115 Rory McIlroy over Bryson DeChambeau
Bryson has been brilliant since the restart, there is no denying that, but Rory just slipped to No. 3 in the world golf rankings and can’t be happy about that one bit. With Justin Thomas winning at the St Jude Invitational Rory will have to produce on the big stage to get back to the No. 1 spot.
In 2015, McIlroy won the WGC-Match Play Tournament at Harding Park so that could be an enormous plus in Rory’s corner.
+110 Tiger Woods over Dustin Johnson
Both golfers have been inconsistent this season. Tiger has only played in four tournaments this campaign and we know that at any given moment Tiger’s back could go out on him. That obviously makes it tough to “back” a guy like Tiger, excuse the pun. I am however, going to take Tiger based on him winning a tournament here in 2005.
+115 Danny Willett over Paul Casey
Since the return of golf, Casey hasn’t been the same. He has either missed cuts on courses he prefers or finishes a tournament at the bottom of the leaderboard. Willett (175-1 to win this tourney) has been playing well of late and in that Match-Play tourney in 2015, Willett finished in the top 4 with Rory, Gary Woodland and Jim Furyk.
+105 Collin Morikawa over Adam Scott
We have all seen how good Morikawa is at golf over the past year or so, but what we have not seen is any good golf at all out of Adam Scott. Therefore, I’m going with the guy who has actually been out on the courses.
PGA Championship Prop Bets: Top American Finisher
Top American Finisher
+550 Justin Thomas
Now the new No. 1 golfer in the world. Thomas is also the leader in FedEx points and top 10 finishes.
+750 Brooks Koepka
I would have said no way considering the number of bogeys he has been putting up, but his second-place finish in Tennessee a week ago makes me think a PGA Three-Peat for Koepka is conceivable.
+1100 Bryson DeChambeau
He is always a threat simply because he is at the top of every single leaderboard.
+1400 Patrick Cantlay
Has been less than stellar in the few tournaments he has been involved in since the restart.
+1400 Dustin Johnson
DJ has been just too inconsistent for my liking this year.
+1400 Xander Schauffele
Xander has five top 10’s this season and that includes finishing 6th last week in Memphis.
+1600 Daniel Berger
Berger is a guy who could get hot like he did a couple months ago where he almost won on back-to-back tournaments.
+1800 Tiger Woods
Tiger has only played in four tournaments this season. His last seven rounds have been 71 or higher.
PGA Championship Winner Bets
1400 Xander Schauffele
I was close to taking Koepka but Xander is a better overall player right now. Xander also is 6th on tour in scoring average at 69.4 shots per round (has played in 54 rounds heading into this week in San Francisco).
Top 20 Finish and Winning Odds
Tony Finau
+240 and +5000
Finau is ranked 17th in the world and has five top 10’s this campaign. Two of those include a 2nd place finish in Scottsdale and a third in Minnesota.
Matthew Fitzpatrick
+300 and +6000
This 25-year-old Englishman has four top 10’s and finished 3rd at the Memorial. Plus, he also had a top 10 finish in Memphis last week. He is ranked 18th in the world and is 2nd on tour in overall putting.
Rory McIlroy
-145 and +1200
Rory won here in 2015 and has six top 10’s. He is 5th in driving distance, 3rd in overall scoring and first on tour in eagles.
