The second major of the year starts on Thursday, with the famed Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, New York hosting the U.S. PGA Championship.
The course, which has previously hosted three U.S. Opens and three U.S. PGAs, as well as the 1995 Ryder Cup, was given a face lift in 2020. This has resulted in a longer track, with heavy rough and heavily-guarded greens – thus straight driving and accurate approach play appear necessary.
The two favourites are Jon Rahm and Scottie Scheffler, but we’re going to avoid both. Rahm has only missed four cuts in his Majors career and two of them came in New York State, while Scheffler seems at odds with his putter at the moment.
Rory McIlroy is a member of Oak Hill, with his wife hailing from this region, but his form this year doesn’t warrant such a short price. We hope he goes well, but would need a price in the 20s instead of 12/1 to back him.
Patrick Cantlay is ranked second in this field in strokes-gained off-the-tee for the season as a whole. He seems particularly comfortable in this part of the U.S. with his best major championship so far coming at the Bethpage, also in New York, when he finished in a share of third place. He seems a perfect fit for this challenge.
Our second selection is Matt Fitzpatrick. The young Englishman showed his class by winning the U.S. Open last year, proving that he now has sufficient length off the tee to cope with the sternest of challenges. He currently stands second in the statistic of most strokes gained tee-to-green per round in the majors since the start of 2022, behind only Scheffler, suggesting accuracy is an important attribute.
Recommendations:
Cantlay to win, 1 pt, at 18/1, widely available
Fitzpatrick 0.5 pts each way at 40/1, 1/5 the odds for the first 8 places, bet365
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