PGA Championship Picks, Bets, Preview, Stat Deep Dive
Geoff and I preview the course and run through the odds while making their 2024 PGA Championship Picks, Bets, One and Done selections. Plus, you have to tune in to find out who Cust is ANDERCURSING and REVERSE CURSING!!!! May be the most profitable thing you do all year.
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THURSDAY PICK’EM
Based on the advanced weather report. Rain early in the week and partially Wednesday should soften up the course a but for ideal conditions Thursday. Of course the forecast can flip with little notice, but scoring should be at its easiest Thursday.
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WEATHER
WIND TOWER: Bowman Field
PGA CHAMPIONSHIP
Course: Valhalla GC
Par: 71
Yardage: 7,609
Greens: T1 Bentgrass
Average Green Size: 5,000 sq. ft.
Number of Sand Bunkers: 62
Number of Holes Water is in Play: 7
Architect: Jack Nicklaus (1986)
Par 3's (4): Average Distance - 216 yards
-Three play over 205 yards, the average distance is 13 yards longer than what we saw at Oak Hill last season
-Players who, this season, are seeing their Par 3: SG improve the longer they get
Thomas Detry (best in the field from 200-225)
Harris English
Sungjae Im
Keith Mitchell
Par 4's (11): Average Distance - 454 yards
-There is a 157-yard difference between the shortest (351) and the longest (508, one of four that play north of 490 yards)
-Some of the top performers on Par 4: 500+ since the start of 2023
Viktor Hovland
Tommy Fleetwood
Luke List
Denny McCarthy
Par 5's (3): Average Distance - 586 yards
-They all play 570-600 yards -- at Oak Hill last season, there were only two Par 5's and both played 615+ yards
-The top 5 since the start of last season in percentage of rounds gaining on the field in Par 5: 550-600
Patrick Cantlay
Scottie Scheffler
Rory McIlory
Collin Morikawa
Cam Davis
The Course
Rebuilt greens in 2011
You saw these in 2014 at the PGA Championship (or in this clip of Akshay Bhatia winning the 2018 Junior PGA Championship at Valhalla), so it shouldn’t be new.
Resurfaced tees and fairways from bentgrass to zoysiagrass in 2021.
Nothing may be funnier than a golf club espousing its virtues about sustainability for the environment when they change grass types to save money on water. Although, Valhalla is now more proof if you can make something environmentally friendly cheaper than the earth harming alternative, it’ll be adopted as long as it’s not terrible quality. Plus, all the executives can Barry Horowitz themselves for saving the planet. Fairways and tee boxes were converted from bentgrass to Zeon zoysiagrass in 2021.
The project consisted of changing fairway turf and tee tops from bent grass to Zeon Zoysia. A total of 30 acres of Zeon Zoysia was installed in a three-month time frame. It’s is a warm season grass with a more narrow blade than traditional Zoysia grass which closely mimics the look of bent grass and tolerates much shorter mowing heights than traditional Zoysia.
It was changed for myriad reasons: Bent grass is a difficult turf to manage in what is known as the transition zone. The area between mild conditions where cool season grasses thrive and hot humid conditions where warm season grasses thrive. Zeon Zoysia fairways allow for firm fast playing conditions all season long as opposed to the seasonality of bent fairways. It was called Zion Zoysia but the wear and tear from the protesters on the course wouldn’t be ideal for turf management. Also, despite great profits, Valhalla couldn’t afford to subsidize the protesters demands for both regular and vegan diets.
New tees on No. 1, 12, 14 and 18 + aesthetic changes
Hole #13 - Exposed large limestone shelves that support the waterfall that skirts the green and Brush Run Creek.
Hole #18 - When constructing the new Championship tee on hole 18 excavation was needed to create better sight lines which in turn exposed another amazing limestone outcropping. The water feature has been enhanced to create a more dramatic look from the tee
Valhalla in 3s
Third longest course this year to date behind Torrey Pines (South) and Corales.
Third Smallest Greens behind Pebble and Harbour Town.
Third Bentgrass greens after Augusta and Byron Nelson.
PAST CHAMPS
Each of the previous three winners were inside the Top 4 after Day 1
Top 3 (Two 1sts) after round two.
1996 PGA Championship
Mark Brooks and Kenny Perry were tied at 11 under par after 72 holes of the 1998 PGA Championship and Brooks won with a birdie on the first playoff hole
2000 PGA Championship
Tiger Woods beat Bob May in a three-hole aggregate playoff to win his fifth career major and third straight. Both men made exciting birdies on the 72nd hole to force a playoff – Woods also birdied 17 – then Woods rolled in a long birdie putt on the first playoff hole and walked after it while pointing at the ball when it was 3 feet from the cup.
2008 Ryder Cup
USA took a nice lead after the first day, but Europe closed the gap on Day 2. But the red, white and blue won 5.5 of the first 8 points in Sunday singles to take an insurmountable lead and win by 5 points
2014 PGA Championship
Like in 2000, the finish was wild, not because of a playoff, but because of near darkness and threatening weather. Eventually, Rory McIlroy topped Phil Mickelson by a shot to win his second straight major and third consecutive PGA Tour start, making him the first since Tiger Woods in 2008 to accomplish the feat. But the rush to finish before darkness on the 72nd hole was bizarre when McIlroy and Bernd Weisberger, playing in the final pairing, played up the 18th hole with the penultimate pairing, Mickelson and Rickie Fowler.
2018 Jr. PGA Championship
Akshay Bhatia won the 2018 Boys Junior PGA when he holed an eagle chip from off the 18th green. He turned a one-shot deficit into a one-shot victory and became the first two-time winner of the championship after also winning it in 2017.
MORE ON 2014
Heres how the leaderboard looked, stat wise, in 2014…
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To look at the leaderboard a different way, it was tough to compete without plus-distance off the tee. Of the Top 25 on the leaderboard only four players weren’t above field average in driving distance for the week. And two of those players (Stenson and Stricker) finished first and second in putting. The other two, Snedeker and Furyk gained +9.3 SG: PUTT between them. Distance is a repeatable skill. Putting tends not to be so consistent.
Here are the Top 30 in driving distance over the past 50 rounds.
They don’t have enough rounds to earn a spot on this list, but David Puig (from LIV) and Tim Widing (From KFT) both rate inside the Top 20 if we just look at distance p[er average PGA TOUR round.
Puig has been playing outside of LIV with tremendous results. He’s won twice in his past scene Asian Tour starts, with Top 10s in six of them. The seventh being a T15 in Hong Kong in November. That success hasten’t translated over to LIV. His best finish as been T15 in five starts since March.
For all the talk of Scottie, Brooks, and Rory entering play with wins in their last start, few have mentioned Widing. Probably because he’s not in the same class as those guys. Not even the same school if we’re being serious. Yahoo Serious. Currently 17th in average distance on KFT he’s won each of his past two starts on Korn Ferry, which is how he go into this Major. The Swede is 26 was an amateur until June 2021. Since he’s worked his way from the Euro Challenge Tour to Latinoamerica, and now has all but guaranteed a PGA Tour card for next season.
2014 Quick Notes
Rory won and ranked 7th in Prox 175-200, Phil finished solo 2nd and ranked 4th in that range, Rickie finished T-3 and ranked 2nd.
Three of the top four finishers carded nothing but 60's for the week
Four of the top six putters for the week cashed top 10 paychecks
2014 Rory McIlroy
66-67-67-68 (beat Phil Mickelson by one stroke -- beat him by three on Thursday, that was the only round he topped him)
Gained 5+ strokes putting in his two measured events prior (he's only entered an event with form like that twice in his career and the other time doesn't even really count because he had four months between the events -- the 2021 CJ Cup in October and then the Genesis in February of 2022)
Recent putting notes (for better or worse) ...
Xander exits Wells Fargo with his best run of 3 measured events with the putter since the winter of 2021.
Detry has picked up 11.6 strokes with the putter over his past 10 rounds
Wyndy C has picked up over 2 strokes putting in 2 straight events
Sungjae had the worst putting performance of his career at Valspar (and that was only in two rounds, -5.6)
Lowry had his 4th worst putting week of his career at RBC Heritage, but ... two of his top three putting weeks for his career have come at PGA Championships (2017 and 2018)
Recent PGA Championship Notes
- 12 straight rounds have played Difficult to Par (Sunday of 2020 was the last time we got even an "average" scoring environment)
-Over the past 5 PGA Championships, the impact of Approach play over OTT on Top 10 finishers has spiked.
2019: 0.95 strokes gained APP for every one stroke gained OTT
2020: 1.07 strokes gained APP for every one stroke gained OTT
2021: 1.65 strokes gained APP for every one stroke gained OTT
2022: 2.07 strokes gained APP for every one stroke gained OTT
2023: 2.56 strokes gained APP for every one stroke gained OTT
Key Stats
I walked through the build in full on the PGA Championship research show. But if you’re a results based person who don’t got that kinda time, here are the results:
WATCH: PGA Championship Picks, Research, Course Preview
BETS (So far)
Brooks 23/1 (Using Bet365 30% Boost)
Clark 66/1 (Future From February)
Theegala 80/1
Zalatoris 85/1
Keegan Bradley 275/1
If Keegan wins you can claim victory in the $40 into $11K Challenge
The other names I’m circling at the moment:
Near the top: Bryson, Morikawa, Homa
I think I like Bryson the most of this group, but Max Homa as PGA Championship just sounds right. Morikawa’s irons have been so bad yet he keeps finding himself on leaderboards with driving, chipping and putting. Something about Homa’s recent major have me leaning towards him. He notched a Top 10 at last years Open. His first in a Major. Followed that up by being in the penultimate pairing at Augusta come Sunday, finishing in third.
And just look at Homa’s performance splits between long, difficult courses and shorter, birdie fests in 2024.
From the Back
These Jabronis
Not sure how I wanna attack these guys. But I’ll have everything finalized in Wednesdays post. Until then…
Tuesday: Best Bets with Cam and Rasa
Wednesday: DK Picks/Final Bets with Tambo
Wednesday Night LIVE: PGA CHAT/NFL Schedule Release with Cust & Geoff
Friday: Cut Sweat LIVEEEEEE
— PM