2023 PGA Championship Odds, Picks for Sungjae Im, Max Homa, More

PITTSFORD, N.Y. – Here’s your first piece of advice for making PGA Championship picks this week: If you’re diving into the analytics and trying to find trends from 2013, the last time Oak Hill Country Club played host to this event, you’re doing it wrong.

The East Course has the same name and remains on the same piece of property, but the similarities largely end there.

“Basically, the only thing that’s the same is that it’s a par-70,” Jason Ballard, the club’s head golf professional, told me last week on SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio.

That’s not hyperbole, either.

“We’ve redone pretty much the whole golf course,” Ballard continued. “All of the green complexes have been rebuilt. Every single bunker has been rebuilt. We’ve taken out some trees over the course of time to give the golfers more playability off the tees and approaches into the greens.

"It’s going to be an exciting week. We’re excited to debut the golf course to the world.”

That word – debut – might seem like a strange one to use for a course that was designed by Donald Ross and established 122 years ago, one that has held six men’s major championships, three senior majors, two U.S. Amateurs and a Ryder Cup, but that’s exactly how the home folks are viewing it this week.

The memories of Jack Nicklaus’ 17th career major title in 1980 and Europe’s shocking victory over the United States in 1995 and Shaun Micheel’s laser-like 7-iron in 2003 (which I still maintain would be considered one of the best shots in the game’s history if it had been struck by a more “worthy” protagonist, like Tiger Woods) and Jason Dufner’s nonchalant straggle to the winner’s circle will endure, but those expecting the same track are going to be in for a surprise.

Based on early returns, Oak Hill sounds like it could play as a PGA Championship/U.S. Open hybrid this week, which is to say, not quite as scorable as other recent venues for the former and not quite as difficult as other host courses for the latter.

Perhaps more to the point, the rough is juicy enough to look like a U.S. Open. However, unlike the year’s third major where essentially every player is going to miss fairways and only the strongest have a chance from the thick stuff, there will be more opportunities to keep it in the short grass. That's key that Ballard immediately mentioned when I asked what type of player should find success here.

All of which gets us to the usual pre-major rhetoric when considering a potential winner: We’ll want to identify somebody who can hit it long and straight off the tee, dials in his irons, owns a deft wedge game just in case he misses greens and can get exceedingly hot with the putter.

Sounds easy enough.

Let’s get to the PGA Championship picks, starting with a player just a few notches below the favorites who’s been checking most of those aforementioned boxes throughout this year.

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2023 PGA Championship Picks

All odds below via bet365.

Outright Winner (short odds)

One player to win the tournament

Sungjae Im (+3300)

As I’ve so often written throughout the past few months, Im’s game is on par with the likes of Tony Finau and Collin Morikawa, but his odds remain longer simply because he hasn’t yet won as much as those other players. It’s coming, though – and the reason I know it’s coming can be found at the top of each of the last three PGA Tour final leaderboards.

At the Mexico Open, it was Finau who finally turned a high-level performance into a high-level result with his first win since last fall; the next week, Wyndham Clark parlayed four months of exquisite play into his first title at the Wells Fargo Championship; and this past week, Jason Day similarly culminated an extended run of strong work into his first win in five years at the AT&T Byron Nelson.

What does any of this have to do with Im, you ask? Good question.

In 13 starts on the PGA Tour this year, he owns 10 finishes of 21st or better, including five top-10s. (And just for good measure, he jetted off to his native Korea this past week and won the Woori Financial Group Championship on the KPGA.) Simply put, he fits the mold of those recent champions – players for whom success was only a matter of time, based on performance.

This season, Im ranks 10th in total strokes gained. He’s 13th off the tee, 60th with his irons, 19th around the greens and 60th in putting. Sure, some of those rankings are better than others, but there’s truly no weakness in his game. While he ranks outside the top 100 in driving distance, his average of 297.7 yards is undoubtedly long enough and when paired with a driving accuracy percentage that ranks 20th, that’s the exact formula we’re seeking here.

Sungjae hasn’t shown his full array of talents on the biggest stages very much yet, as a runner-up finish at the 2020 Masters in November and a T8 there last year remain his lone top-10s in 14 career major starts. There’s little doubt, though, that he’s ready to win a big one.

I love Im's game, love his course fit and love his outright price entering this week.

Pick: Sungjae Im +3600

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Outright Winner (Long odds)

One player to win the tournament

Keegan Bradley (+9000)

During the initial stages of Tiger Woods’ physical decline, I was often asked what professional golf would look like once he was no longer competitive. My answer at the time was that there wasn’t – and will never be – another Tiger waiting in the wings, but that his dominance would essentially be shared by a group of elite players, whether that would mean five or 10 or 20 or more. That’s largely what we’re witnessing now, as you could basically stare at the first 15-20 names on the oddsmakers’ boards this week and have a difficult time discerning between them.

None of that is to suggest that Bradley is one of those players, but he is a byproduct of the situation. What I mean by this is that there are now so many top-tier players, each with varying degrees of shorter odds, that those outside this group own some bigger prices next to their names – even those who have proven they can win events of this magnitude.

Over the years, I’ve enjoyed some outright sprinklings on Bradley for the sheer reason that we know his best is enough to beat the game’s top players, from his PGA Championship victory in his rookie season to a WGC title to a FedEx Cup playoff win.

I’ll admit there’s some risk here and I’ll similarly admit the floor is lower than other similar plays, but when you’re betting an outright, there’s only one potential winning outcome, so I’ll take the ceiling play at a triple-digit number.

For those who believe his tee-to-green game (which is ranking in the top 40 again this season) is good enough, but his erratic putting will keep him from contending, I’ll point out that he’s ranked 65th this season with a flatstick in his hand, gaining strokes against the field in four of his last six starts.

Pick: Keegan Bradley +9000

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Other OADers

Potential selections for one-and-done pools

Dustin Johnson (+2500)

I swear: Even before his impressive LIV performance this past weekend when he defeated Cameron Smith and Branden Grace in a playoff, DJ was going to be very high on my list for this event.

While it might be fair to question his inspiration at this stage of his career — can you believe he’ll turn 39 soon? — there’s never been any doubting his talent, which has so frequently surfaced on big, brawny, Northeast golf courses. From Oakmont to Firestone, Plainfield to TPC Boston, these venues have often been his bread and butter for the past decade-and-a-half.

I don’t mind him for top-fives or DFS or even an outright play, but he makes a ton of sense as an OAD selection, considering we only have two more legitimate opportunities to use him this year in traditional PGA Tour-specific pools.

As we saw at last month’s Masters, with three LIV players inside the top five, this serves as a chance for the elite players on that circuit to show they can still hang at the biggest events. Even for a guy like DJ, who has nothing left to prove to anyone, another opportunity should serve as plenty of motivation to try and capture a third career major title.

Brooks Koepka (+1800)

My assumption is that most OADers (and bettors, too) will employ Koepka this week if they’re looking for a LIV play. I’ll go on record here that I like DJ for this specific tournament more than Brooks, but I certainly wouldn’t shy away from the latter.

In case you hadn’t noticed, Koepka tends to show up a little bit for the majors – and yes, that is a massive understatement. After holding a 54-hole lead at the Masters, he finished in a share of second place, which might not have cashed those outright tickets, but it still offered a nice ROI for pool selections. And just like DJ, many of his major conquests have occurred at venues that can at least offer up some Oak Hill vibes, if not serve as impeccable comparisons.

I’d expect Koepka to be a very popular play here and while I do prefer Johnson, we might find by week’s end that there was no wrong answer between the pair.

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Tony Finau (+2200)

Really, I’m including Finau in this OAD section just for those haters who used to look at his top-five finishes and whine that he doesn’t win enough and who now look at his half-dozen wins and whine that they aren’t impressive enough. Trust me: It’s coming.

I’ve had Finau targeted for next month’s U.S. Open for the past year, so personally I’ll bypass him here in favor of that one, but for those still having the internal conversation about whether the guy previously known as Top-Five Tony can win a major, the answer is an unequivocal yes.

Jason Day (+2500)

The litmus test is complete and Day has passed with flying colors.

On Sunday, he claimed his 13th career PGA Tour title in five years and eight days at the AT&T Byron Nelson. It might be asking too much for Day to take just seven days to win his next one, but he’s got some history and intuition on his side.

First, there are two previous occurrences of the Aussie winning in back-to-back starts — back in 2015 and '16, which suggests he knows how to smash that gas pedal. Then there’s his confidence level. Golfweek's Adam Schupak asked Day about the future of his game last week, and he answered that once he wins one, he’s going to win a bunch more. That’s a stark contrast to the guy who once lamented his back injuries to the extent that he predicted his own career would end sooner rather than later.

So far this year, Day owns eight top-20 finishes, a T39 at the Masters after being top-10 entering Sunday then posting a final-round 80 and a missed cut at the Wells Fargo. That’s literally three poor rounds all year to this point. I won’t go as far as to suggest that Day’s floor is higher than anyone else, but it’s a lot higher than he’s probably being given credit for.

Tom Hoge (+17500)

Years ago, if we wanted to know the best player in a specific aspect of the game – say, iron play – we essentially had two options: We could look at greens in regulation, which never quite tells a true story of approach performance, or we could use the ol’ eyeball test, which could fail even worse.

Now, of course, we have strokes gained data, which offers an exact measurement of how a player fares in relation to his peers. All of which explains that while we might “pick” a Justin Thomas or Scottie Scheffler or Collin Morikawa as the best iron player, the numbers say that Hoge is gaining strokes on approach as much as the game's elite.

Hoge has led the PGA Tour in Strokes Gained: Approach for much of 2023 but finds himself second behind Finau entering this week. The top six illustrate just how good Hoge has been, though. After him, it goes Rahm, Morikawa, Schauffele and Scheffler to round out the top six.

As we saw at The Players Championship, when he posted a tournament-record 62 in the third round and finished T3, if Hoge's irons are backed by a hot putter, he can go low in a hurry. I like a small outright play on Hoge this week; even though this is a different course than 2013, he owns some serious Jason Dufner vibes.

I also like him for props and DFS, but I’m even more intrigued for multi-entry OAD pools, especially for those who are trying to play catch-up at this point in the year.

Top-Five

One player to finish top-five

Max Homa (+700 for top-five)

The entire betting world is backing Homa to have his breakthrough major championship performance in his hometown at next month’s U.S. Open. While I won’t discount that possibility, there are suggestions that this one might actually suit his game better.

Homa's victory at last year’s Wells Fargo Championship on a chilly TPC Potomac course might not serve as a perfect comparison, but I do envision some potential similarities between that venue and Oak Hill. Despite six career PGA Tour wins and an ascendancy into the world’s top 10, Homa owns just one result better than 40th in 14 previous major appearances, but it’s worth noting that one came at last year’s PGA Championship, when he finished T13 at Southern Hills.

The next step for Homa is contending at a major. Again, whereas many bettors are banking on that taking place at LA Country Club – and trust me, I like him there, as well – don’t ignore him here in hopes that his next big step can only happen at that one.

Pick: Max Homa — Top 5 (+700)

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Top-10

One player to finish top-10

Cameron Young (+280 for top-10)

It’s not exactly the straightest walk down Narrative Street, but if we imagine it as a meandering path we’ll eventually reach our destination.

Growing up on the mean streets of New York — alright, as the son of a club professional at prestigious Sleepy Hollow — Young is the closest elite-level player to calling this week a “home game,” even if he’s a five-hour trip from home. Even so, this one could mean a little more to him, just as the formula has for defending champion Justin Thomas, who’s parlayed a few generations of PGA professionals before him into a pair of meaningful PGA Championship titles already.

I’m still concerned by Young’s 59th-place result in his most recent start at Quail Hollow, a course that theoretically fits his skillset perfectly, though he does have four top-10s in 11 starts already this year, including a T7 at the Masters.

There have been very few up-and-comers over the past decade who I didn’t feel “needed” to capture a PGA Tour victory before a major, but he might be the ultimate outlier, as it would hardly come as a surprise if Young — who twice finished top-three in majors last year — skipped over this building block on his career path and went directly to that endgame. As a top-10 selection, we’ve got some leeway if he falters in the mission.

Pick: Cameron Young — Top 10 (+240)

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Top-20

One player to finish top-20

Rickie Fowler (+275 for top-20)

As someone who still receives tweets from readers reminding me that I’d predicted Fowler would win a major something like a dozen years ago, I’m very cognizant of being more bullish on him than the public. That said, I can’t get away from the notion that a player who ranks top-20 in strokes gained tee-to-green, on approach shots and overall isn’t due for a big week.

This pick goes beyond the analytics, though. Fowler has played just three previous majors over the past three years – and two of those were top-25 results, each at a PGA Championship. For a player who once perhaps took for granted his inclusion in the game’s most important events, he now understands the performance level necessary to make it back – not to mention the necessity to play well in hopes of earning more of these starts.

I’ll be loading up on Fowler in DFS and don’t mind a top-five or top-10 wager if you want to get a little more aggressive, but top-20 props should be a solid way to invest in him at plus money this week.

Pick: Rickie Fowler — Top 20 (+210)

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Top-30

One player to finish top-30

Justin Rose (+220 for top-30)

In what started as a resurgent year for the 42-year-old Rose, with a victory at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February, it feels like we haven’t heard much from him since. In fact, I can’t remember even seeing many shots from him in the following few months, but a look at his results shows that a pair of subsequently missed cuts have dovetailed nicely into finishes of T6 at The Players, T36 at the Valspar, T16 at the Masters and T25 at the RBC Heritage.

When I spoke with Rose during the first of those weeks at TPC Sawgrass, he mentioned Vijay Singh’s name as one he wanted to model himself after on the back nine of his career and explained just how hard he’s working to maintain this high level of play.

I wouldn’t get overzealous in playing him for other props, but the top 30 feels like a nice spot based on those recent results.

Top-40

One player to finish top-40

Cam Davis (+225 for top-40) | Thomas Detry (+240 for top-40)

I’m listing a pair of players for this prop who are both 300-1 outright, which is a big number if you simply looked at ‘em on the driving range. I don’t expect either Davis or Detry to win this week, but they’re both very impressive from tee to green and should present a pair of opportunities to invest in a decent top-40 price without going after plays that are either too short or more random.

DFS Free Bingo Square

A safe plug-and-play option for DFS.

Xander Schauffele (DraftKings $9,900; FanDuel $11,100)

This is the spot in the preview where I’m supposed to inform you that Jon Rahm and Scottie Scheffler are really talented players and guys you’ll want in your lineups for a major championship. I’m going to assume, though, that you already know this.

What you might not know, unless you’ve been eyeballing their prices ahead of time, is that Rahm and Scheffler are $11,400 and $11,200, respectively, on DraftKings, obviously the two highest-priced players on the board. On a week when I’ll want to jam 3-4 elite-level players into my lineups, getting a “discounted” Schauffele – discounted, at least, when compared with Rahm and Scheffler – for less than five figures feels like an upside play that can help that strategy.

It’s not as if there’s much of a drop-off from those guys to Xander, either, as he’s finished in the top 10 in each of his last four starts, including a T10 at the Masters and a runner-up at the Wells Fargo. Throw in the fact that he’s been a top-10/20 machine at the majors and you’re saving some money from the biggest starts, while still owning a massive floor and potentially high ceiling.

DFS Mid-Tier

A medium-priced option for DFS lineups

Wyndham Clark (DraftKings $7,500; FanDuel $9,200)

There are situations where the DFS platforms want to list pricing well in advance of a major championship, which means those who play well in a final tune-up tournament are summarily mispriced.

This isn’t one of those situations. No, prices weren’t released until after Clark had won the Wells Fargo two weeks ago – and it’s not as if he was playing poor golf before that. He’s finished 37th or better in each of his last 10 starts, including four top-10s, which makes his DraftKings tag of $7,500 a laughable number. Look, Tom Kim ($8,000) owns a world of potential and Taylor Moore ($7,800) has enjoyed a breakthrough campaign, but there’s absolutely no reason for either of them to be priced above Clark.

My only worry here is that he’ll garner too much ownership, but that’s a worry I’ll gladly take while pondering the other five spots in my lineups.

DFS ‘Dog

A lower-priced option for DFS lineups

Adrian Meronk (DraftKings $6,700; FanDuel $8,200)

Remember the name. At this point in the proceedings, with so many past European Ryder Cup stalwarts having been disqualified from consideration, it would be difficult to imagine Meronk not being included on the final roster for Rome. At 6-foot-6, the Poland native looks like he could be playing on the wing for an NBA playoff team instead of a Ryder Cup team, but he’s got plenty of game on the course. A recent victory at the French Open bolstered a resume that already included wins at the Irish Open and Australian Open over the past year.

Meronk is undervalued in the DFS market this week and here’s one way of figuring that out: Compare his DK price and 200-1 odds to those of similar players. For example, Harris English is 250-1 but costs $500 more in DFS. Same for Taylor Montgomery and Nicolai Hojgaard. In fact, I counted 25 players with longer odds than Meronk who cost more on DraftKings this week.

That screams value for a player who’s proven he can play some great golf, even when some of the big boys are in attendance.

First-Round Leader

One player to post the lowest score Thursday.

Viktor Hovland (+3500 for FRL)

We often use FRL wagers as a way of having an investment in a player with a bigger price — one who can go low on any specific day, but someone we might not fully trust for four-round endeavors. And by we, I’ll admit that this is often my strategy as much as anyone else’s.

With that in mind, it’s worth looking at the PGA Tour’s first-round scoring leaders this season. The top four on that list? Rahm, Hovland, Scheffler and Schauffele. Sure, there are those who play better or worse than their baseline on Thursdays, but there isn’t a surprise anywhere on top of this category, which suggests that perhaps FRL lottery tickets are mostly wishful thinking, especially in tournaments of this magnitude.

All of that said, I’ll stick with one of those R1 studs in Hovland, who still fits the original profile — to an extent. As we’ve heard, Oak Hill could provide some devilish short-game shots around the greens. I’m willing to bet Hovland can get through this — or at least around it — for a single round but don’t want to go all-in for 72 holes.

Pick: Viktor Hovland FRL (+3500)

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Matchup Man

One player who should beat comparable players.

Talor Gooch (+7000)

Please, I beg of you: Don’t mistake the following observation for some LIV-hating bias that you’re going to tweet me about from an account that doesn’t use a real name.

(Although that dynamic is fascinating to me. I’ve watched LiV events, I’ve enjoyed some of ‘em and, as I’ve been saying for the past year, if this brand of entertainment speaks to you as a consumer more than the PGA Tour’s product, then I’m happy you’ve found something that makes you happy. What I find really strange, though, is that it seems like 90 percent of users who tweet about LIV on a regular basis tend to hide behind a screen name, as if they don’t want anyone to know they enjoy watching it. Granted, that’s a wholly unscientific estimate, but isn’t that strange? I don’t understand being such a fan of something that you can’t stop tweeting about it, yet so afraid to show you’re a fan that you don’t put a name behind it. Or maybe I’m just imagining things. But really, I’m not. Alright, back to that observation…)

What we’ve already learned in a small sample size is that LIV’s best players might own even more motivation to play well at majors and prove to the world that banking a big signing bonus hasn’t impacted their competitive edge.

What I’ve struggled with is trying to judge the floor of players from that league. After all, everyone involved has already inked a bunch of top-48 results before they’ve even started. For matchup plays, I love the ceiling/floor combo which gives us two chances to win — one on Friday when the cut is made and another when it’s over on Sunday.

All of that said, I’ve often viewed Gooch as a player with the proper combo. A recent two-time, back-to-back LIV champion, there’s certainly a chance he brings his best stuff to this one, but I think at the absolute least he’ll play solid golf, giving him value in H2H bets.

Also Receiving Votes

Other players who should provide value

Matt Fitzpatrick (+2800), Tyrrell Hatton (+3500), Adam Scott (+7000), Sahith Theegala (+8000), Joaquin Niemann (+8000), Corey Conners (+10000), Gary Woodland (+11000), Taylor Moore (+15000), Keith Mitchell (+17500), Billy Horschel (+25000), Brendan Steele (+30000), Thomas Pieters (+30000), Taylor Pendrith (+40000)