PGA Championship Betting Tips

pga championship betting

The PGA Championship, of the four golf majors is the one that is most like every other PGA Tour event and that can make betting on and picking a winner either easier or harder depending on which way you look at it.

The U.S. Open is brutally tough, the Open Championship is a links style course often played in poor conditions and the Masters is played at the same course each year but the PGA Championship is basically a golf tournament that moves to a different course each year and is set up tougher but not unrealistically and has entered into it a field of the top golfers in the world trying to win a major title to add to their career resume.

The history of winners at the PGA Championship has some great names that have won and some players that would never be mentioned when talking about great golf players which goes back to the fact that this major is very much like a regular PGA Tour event. To me, I consider it a poor man’s US Open because it is played on the same courses generally that the US Open has played only set up much easier than a U.S. Open major set up. We cover US Open Betting Tips in our first post of the betting tips series.

So it should be easy to pick a winner? No, it may be even harder to pick one because unlike other majors you can’t rule anyone out right away. Regardless we still make our bets every year on the PGA Championship and we stick to a few things that we keep in mind when making bets on the second major of the year.

Picking Winners For The PGA Championship

Here are some betting strategies to use in trying to pick a winner for the PGA Championship:

Check Recent Form – Who’s Hot

Because anyone can win this tournament I do pay attention to who is playing best leading up to the PGA Championship. Who is putting well, whose driving percentages and iron stats are really solid in the last 2-3 tournaments and who has been really close to winning the last couple of weeks but either lost because of one bad round or even one or two bad holes.

Research The Course

Since every course is different every year for the PGA Championship it helps to check out the course and see if it favors a particular type of golfer or if it has hosted a US Open or US Amateur Championship in the last few years. Some courses favor long hitters, some help the short iron specialist and sometimes it comes down to the type of grass on the greens. All these are factors that can help you when you are researching players to pick to bet on that week.

Course History

We touched on this briefly but if the course hosted a US Open before or even an US Amateur Championship then see what the results were and see if any names pop up that you could look at betting on for the PGA Championship. Also do some reading and see if any of the golfers either are a member of the course that is hosting that year or grew up near or currently live in the area and played the course regularly. This isn’t a betting strategy that I would base my picks on but again, if it gives you a slight edge then use it.

Narrow Down Your Betting Pool

Winning a PGA Championship gives a player an exemption for life and can play even when they shouldn’t be allowed in the field of golfers. Figure out which players are well past their expiry date and eliminate them off your lists. I also tend to eliminate golfers that are entered into the PGA Championship because they won a tournament in the last year at one of the alternate tournaments. Usually when a WGC Tournament is being held there is another tournament that week for the rest of the PGA Tour players that don’t qualify for the WGC events. In those tournaments the winner gets an exemption into the 4 golf majors but those events are usually with a field of golfers full of rookies or guys that have hung around the PGA Tour barely eking out a living. Those guys rarely can compete against the top 50 golfers that are entered into the PGA Championship. Those winners should be avoided as a bet since they are a complete longshot to win anyway. This can also be applied to some of the tournaments that begin the PGA Tour season just after the FedEx Cup playoffs have ended. Many top golfers either take a break or head to Europe to play in some of those events. What is left over are rookie golfers that just got their PGA Tour card or again the players that play in as many events as possible to win enough to stay on the money list to get their card again for next year.

Weather Can Change A Round

This can be applied for every PGA golf tournament or every golf major but it is worth mentioning again. The PGA Championship is played in May and depending on where it is in the United States it could still have spring like conditions around that time. That means it could be rainy the week of the tournament which makes the course softer to play or if it rained heavily in the week leading up to the tournament which also would have softened up the golf course. At times players may be faced with cooler conditions since May isn’t always super warm in the northern parts of the U.S. and on rare occasions there is a hot dry spell leading up to the PGA Championship which would dry out the course and make the balls roll farther in the fairways and makes the greens quicker too. On tournament days it’s good to see what the weather is supposed to be like to see if it favors a morning tee off or an afternoon tee off. There are times that teeing off at a certain time will determine who makes the cut line and who doesn’t that week.

Regardless, betting on the PGA Championship can make you some quick cash if you keep in mind some of the betting strategies that we’ve mentioned here.


THE BETTING TIPS SERIES

US Open Betting Tips
The Open Betting Tips
Masters Betting Tips

Similar Posts