PGA Tour Major #2
Golf Tips
Dates: Thu, 16 May – Sun, 19 May 2024
PGA Championship! Players will travel to Louisville, Kentucky to take on Valhalla Golf Club. The last time we saw this course was a decade ago in the 2014 PGA Championship. The course underwent a renovation in 2021 and the most significant change was the switch from Bentgrass fairways to Zeon Zoysia grass fairways. The reason this is significant is because the Zoysia grass can be mown shorter and will allow the fairways to play firmer and faster. This will also allow them to cut the fairway grass around the greens more closely. This could lead to 2 important things: balls that might of held on Bentgrass collars are now more likely to keep rolling and filter down off the green. and players may opt to putt from off the green more often with the more closely mown surface. This could favor players with weaker short games as they won’t be forced to hit as many wedges around these greens. As part of the renovation they also added yardage to holes 1, 12, 14 and 18 resulting in Valhalla playing a total of 151 yards longer than 2014. Honestly though we think that will be negligible with distance gains since then and the switch to the firm and fast Zoysia.
What were looking at for this week. This is a long course, there’s no way around it. We do expect to see a higher average driving distance with equipment advances and the grass change since the last time they played here. That being said, we think the first stat to look at is Driving Distance. This stat was hugely important in 2014 and expect it will be again with the length of this course. It becomes even more important with the length of this rough and we do expect some guys will take the bomb and gouge approach. In 2014 about half of approach shots came from 175 yards and out. Most of those came from 200+ but we are not sure we’ll see that drastic of a split this time around. So, were going to weigh SG: Approach 175-200 and 200+ equally in the model. The bottom line is that mid to long irons will be important this week.
Next, we’ll move to some scoring stats. We know the PGA likes to make things difficult and so we can expect a winning score around 10-11 under. When we expect scoring to be at a premium, we definitely want to look at par 5 scoring a little more closely. If you want to tie it in with driving distance you could also add eagles gained into your model. Next, we’ll be adding Greens in Regulation Gained. We talked about how small these greens are and the new threat of the ball running off instead of holding these collars. Guys who can hit a ton of greens are going to hold a large advantage this week. we know this feels like common sense but it’s more applicable on courses with small greens, especially in events where we expect a good amount of scrambling. Good Drives Gained is another stat I’m going to add to my model mainly because it ties in with GIR Gained.
Key Stats:
Driving Distance
SG: Approach 175-200 and 200+ yards
Par 5 Scoring
Greens in Regulation Gained
Good Drives Gained
Ball-Striking
Our Picks:
Brooks Koepka @14/1
We are backing Brooks this week for all the same reasons we bet him at the Masters. The big difference is he’s coming into this week in better form. It’s honestly a pretty fair number for a guy who consistently shows up for majors. 3 of his 5 major wins came at PGA Championships. If there’s anyone in this field who can take down Scottie during his crazy run, Brooks would be top of the list in our opinion.
Ludvig Aberg @18/1
We had every intention of going Brooks and Aberg this week and calling it a day. This knee damage makes us nervous, so we’ll be watching him closely the first couple holes and if he looks good to go, we get in on him live. He’s incredibly well-rounded and being long and straight should lend a big advantage this week.
Tommy Fleetwood @35/1
As we say every week we back Tommy because he can play, he just don’t show the consistency we would like but, that said this is the PGA Championship and he will step his game up on a unfamiliar course to everyone. This should be a great contest and we can’t wait.
Best Golf Betting Picks and Tips, Image Credit: seatgeek
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