Next week brings the second major of the season in the PGA Championship. With it come all the best players in the world heading up to Oak Hill for what should be a tough test of golf. In the outright market, a field like this presents a lot of opportunities given how many players could get in the mix. Odds can and will shift, but here is a look at a few players to add to PGA Championship betting cards.
Editor’s Note: This story was published on May 12th
2023 PGA Championship Odds: Tony Finau Can Smell First Major
Tony Finau — 25-1 (DraftKings)
The list of guys close to winning their first major continues to swell as more and more talented players join the tour. Tony Finau was for a long time searching for any victory, but after a stretch of prolific wins, the talk of getting his first major takes center stage. He just outdueled Jon Rahm to win in Mexico, and Finau heads into Oak Hill checking almost all the boxes.
Length will be an asset here, which can only help strong drivers like Finau. Add in his red-hot iron play all season, and he has some of the best ball-striking numbers on tour. Finau’s putter comes and goes, but bentgrass (which Oak Hill has) is his preferred surface. Finau comes in with every part of his game working, and many people will jump at the chance to target him at around 25-1 to win outright.
Matthew Fitzpatrick — 35-1 (DraftKings)
Step 1 with betting outrights at any major is surviving the very top of the board if going elsewhere. Scottie Scheffler and Rahm obviously bring serious win equity, but their presence also offers generous numbers on a ton of other top-end players. Matthew Fitzpatrick is 35-1 on DraftKings right now, and most other books are more around 28-1 to 30-1. Fitzpatrick can get it done at the highest levels, with his U.S. Open win in Massachusetts still less than a year old.
It is not just about last year’s major; Fitzpatrick won another event last month at the RBC Heritage. He was able to find his approach game that had eluded him most of the season, and gaining 6.2 with the irons was the reason for his success. He has added distance off the tee in recent years and has always had one of the stronger short games on tour. How he will deal with Oak Hill and the numerous long iron shots is probably the key to getting in the hunt come Sunday. Still, this is the right number on a guy who has all the tools for this layout.
Joaquin Niemann — 75-1 (FanDuel)
Playing longshots means finding the right price, and FanDuel has Niemann at 75-1 while most other books are down to 50-1. That is the type of number to take a shot with a guy who has talent to compete with anyone in the world on any given day.
Niemann is still just 24 despite being a seasoned vet on tour. He is looking for more consistency in majors, as he has zero career top-10s, but he is coming off his best finish at Augusta (16th). Can he turn that into something even more at a course that suits his game? One course that compares well to Oak Hill is Memorial, where Niemann has finished third and sixth in his career, and it requires a lot of the same shots. Last year at Genesis, he dominated a field worthy of a major, which again points to the upside being there despite the lack of success at majors. At 75-1, this is the type of dark-horse player to back.
