Noonan’s PGA Championship Outright Betting Picks & Course Preview | Betsperts Golf

The PGA Championship often lacks the pre-flop buzz of the other major championships on the calendar, but I’m really looking forward to this one for a few reasons. First, the field. The top of the board is trending well. Just a few weeks ago, we looked at the Masters field and thought it was more wide open than in past years because we had questions surrounding Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy‘s lead-in form. They answered those questions resoundingly that week and have continued to do so. Just behind Scottie and Rory is a deep group of stalkers who are just as capable of showing up this week and winning, and nearly all of them are playing some of the best golf of their careers.

Second is the course. Aronimink has that 1920s northeast charm from a design standpoint. We see a few Donald Ross designs every year on the PGA Tour, but the truly exceptional Ross designs, like Pinehurst No. 2, Seminole, Inverness Club, and Oakland Hills, are courses that we never see, or only occasionally mixed into the major championship rota.

I do have concerns that the weather will make this course susceptible to lower scores than we typically like to see for a major championship test, but I hope I’m wrong. Aronimink is pretty straightforward off the tee, but the Par-70 layout should get more difficult as you get closer to the hole. At 7,394 yards, a lot of the approach shots here should come from an uneven lie, as the course routing intended. The course will feature 176 bunkers, most of which are clustered in the fairway and around the greens, and the rough should be grown out and thick enough to limit a pure bomb-and-gouge with no regard strategy.

The main defense for the course is the green complexes. Because they were built in 1926 for slower grass speeds, their natural slopes are very severe for modern green speeds. Ross used internal ridges to divide large greens into small pockets, so the PGA of America will likely give us some gnarly pin placements this week. If a player misses the correct tier or pocket, they’ll face incredibly difficult two-putts that require navigating up and over ridges with massive breaks.

For more course details, check out Ron’s course preview. It’s the best in the business, bar none. Also, don’t forget to check out our research tools, the Aronimink course stats, along with the Tournament Cheat Sheet.

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Key Rabbit Hole Stats This Week:

• Rolling Form (L6M, L24 Rounds)
• SG: Total (Strong Fields, L36 Rounds)
• SG: Ball-Striking (Strong Fields, L36 Rounds)
• SG: Total (Scoring Conditions: Average, Difficult, Very Difficult)
• SG: Par 4 (Long Courses/Strong Fields)
• SG: Putting (Difficult to gain/3-putt Avoidance: Difficult)

There are millions of ways to bet on this beautiful game. My goal with this piece is to touch on the golfers I’m targeting in the outright market this week. Remember to check out the Rabbit Hole, our customizable stat database. It can help you pare down your player pool each week.

Utilize our Discord for up-to-the-minute lines and betting advice. My full card and live in-tournament bets will be posted there. Reach out if you need help getting started.

For outrights, I typically allot 1.5 to 2 units, sometimes more for bigger events. For a major championship, I’m often overexposed, and this week is no different. Overall, though, this strategy prevents me from chasing, knowing that I’m positioned to profit if I can hit 5-6 outrights a season. Anything beyond that is gravy. It also helps me stake bets to a flat “to win” amount regardless of their outright price.

*Betting lines are accurate at the time of publication in Discord.

Noonan’s PGA Championship Outright Betting Picks

Rory McIlroy (+950)

I know most expected Rory to finish better than T19 at Quail Hollow last week, considering his insane course history. But when you drill down a bit, there was a lot to be encouraged with as we head to Aronimink. McIlroy’s driver was absolutely dialed all week, outside of an ill-timed hook on 14 that found the water on Sunday. That single shot cost him nearly 1.5 shots in his SG: OTT for the week, but all in all, his ball-striking numbers (+1.77) were right in line with Nicolai Hojgaard (+1.66) and eventual winner, Kristoffer Reitan (+1.8).

We can’t measure vibes, and we can’t measure SG: Bounce-in-his-step, but you can make the case that these body language signs with Rory are more of a signal with him than anyone else in the professional game. Some, myself included, expected him to play with more freedom after winning the career Grand Slam last year, but it didn’t play out that way last summer. He’s articulated that “freedom” is real right now, and I think he’s locked in to a degree that we were hoping to see last year post-Masters, but didn’t.

The bar is high for McIlroy, and while I’m amazed that he somehow continues to get better and longer off the tee, I’ve been impressed by his improved approach play of late. Over the past 24 rounds, Rory has gained 0.7 strokes on approach, up from 0.3 over his past 50 rounds. You can see in the image above that McIlroy is giving himself more looks from inside 15 feet than almost anyone in this week’s field. He’s also one of the best putters in this week’s field when the setup is difficult (difficult to gain/high 3-putt rate).

At +950, his outright price is nearly double that of Scottie Scheffler on the odds board. I can’t make that make sense.

Cameron Young (27/1)

Yes, again.

I don’t have the juicy triple-digit futures that some have on Cameron Young this week, but I have a few boost-induced bets that net out to about 27/1 on the game’s hottest player. I’m running out of ways to describe what we’ve seen of late from Cameron Young, and he gave it another run last week at Quail Hollow. Even though he had an uncharacteristic hiccup on the greens on Sunday, his charge up the leaderboard on Saturday showed that his ceiling is as high as anyone in the game right now.

Equally impressive among his four days at Quail Hollow was his grind-it-out second round. His ball-striking wasn’t quite as crisp as we’ve seen of late, but he posted a 1-under 70 for the day, and he scrambled his face off. It was an impressive performance, even though it wasn’t full of highlight-reel shots, and it showcased his overall improvements and ability to score even when he doesn’t have his A-game. Young finished second in my Rabbit Hole model this week, 0.2 points behind Scottie Scheffler. Of the seven stats I’m using to weigh the model, Young’s worst spot is fourth. I’m ready for another Sunday afternoon where the final pairing is Rory and Cam.

Chris Gotterup (50/1)

I backed Chris Gotterup to win here back in April because I thought his price in the futures market was too high given his form at the time. Well, I was wrong.

He’s still very much available in the 50-60/1 range, which is a fair price for Gotterup here, but not something I’d be falling over myself to bet anew this week. While he hasn’t posted a top 10 since Houston back in late March, his last four starts have been a major and three Signature Events, and he’s finished T25 or better in three of the four (T38 at Doral). No one should be surprised if he’s competitive this week, especially if distance off the tee is rewarded.

Jacob Bridgeman (100/1)

This is another ill-timed futures bet that I wouldn’t make today, but if I did, I’d get a better number than what I have now. Such is life when you take on the futures market. I don’t think Bridgeman wins this week, but I didn’t think he’d win at Riviera either. Run hot, Jacob.