The PGA Championship at Oak Hill
Temps are falling, but scores may not be. Bets, thoughts, weather, tweets and everything else for the second major of the year.
The discourse around LIV guys being back in the fold again has been preempted for weather talk this week. Well, we scheduled a tournament in May in basically Canada and are now surprised that it’s cold in the morning.
More PGA Championships have been held in New York than any other state but, we used to play this in Mid-August. As much as I’d hate to see Bethpage, Oak Hill, and hell, even Oakland Hills and Hazeltine get kicked out of the rotation, it’s a freaking major and I don’t want to see guys bundled up and miserable because it’s 40 degrees even after waiting out a frost delay. Might be time to do what a lot of folks do when they get to this age (the PGA Championship is 104), and simply move to Florida full-time.
Silver lining: a pretty decent broadcast schedule. I’ll assume ESPN+ will have multiple feeds rolling each morning.
First off, a quick look at the course, courtesy of Ron:
Oak Hill CC
Measuring 7,394 yards, Oak Hill is a massively long par-70 parkland layout that ranks as the ninth longest course played on Tour over the past three years. Located in the Rochester, New York suburb of Pittsford, Oak Hill may end up rivaling both Southern Hills and Kiawah Island as the toughest course in recent memory to host a PGA Championship.
With an average winning score of 11-under in the last 13 PGA Championship events, it will be up to Kerry Haigh, the chief championship officer for the PGA of America, to set up a fair, yet stern course. When Jason Dufner won the 2013 PGA Championship at 10-under par it was on a course that played restricted and that encouraged a plodding and patient form of golf where driving accuracy amidst the thick tree-lined fairways was paramount.
From the elevated tee shot on the first hole to elevated greens throughout the course, the rolling terrain is pleasing to the eyes. The undulating layout offers both uphill and downhill holes as well as sloping fairways. Allen Creek meanders through nine holes and acts as the main water hazard by bisecting fairways on some holes and running right next to the green on others. It forces players to layup off the tee on a couple of holes, making the course play even longer. The course still has plenty of trees lining the fairways, just not as thick or intrusive as before.
Heavy focus on driving the ball this week, but you still need to make your putts if you want to win on tour. Ron took a look at the field and their historical performance putting on bentgrass to see who deserves a little extra bump in the rankings.
follow Ron to see the rest of the list along with other great stat splits each week.
Betting Tip of the Week
Finally had a loser after a hot stretch, with a big price on Hoge not getting home. Tom just couldn’t find enough real low rounds and finished T43. Back at it this week (obviously), but with a massive menu of them, opting for a full tournament matchup.
Mark Hubbard > MacKenzie Hughes +100
Hubbard isn’t terribly long off the tee, but since we’re learning that the distance may play less of a role than previously expected, I’m fine backing guys with better-than-average accuracy with the driver. His irons game is obviously good, but currently, it’s been VERY good with big gains vs the field in Mexico and at the Wells Fargo.
Hughes is very much on the other end of the spectrum with a lot of his best results coming from the short game despite wildness off the tee and a below average approach game. While streaky putting can carry a guy on a tough scoring course like Oak Hill, I’m willing to back Hubbard at a dog price and bet that the rough eats MacKenzie for lunch.
check out the outrights that myself and Noonan took this week so far on our betting preview show (I picked Jason Day as one of my three outrights last week on the show)
Reignmakers
I’m 10% to my goal of breaking even on the cards I’ve bought so far, and looking to make a dent this week.
Still new-ish, but I think we’ve finally found a reason to create NFTs that aren’t just a pump-and-dump scam. Definitely a unique approach to DFS and something that’s kept my interest. Way too much to get into for a newsletter blurb, so luckily our guy John Daigle has been writing and making quick videos about how it all works in the PGA space.
Check out his Articles on the Site as well as this week’s look at RM Strategy:
Giveaway
Free Contest, easy to enter. C’mon, you’ve got two minutes to spare. Simply pick one golfer from each of six tiers (like you see below) and let the tournament play out. Three best combined scores will win a new Swag putter (retails for $555.55). Easy.
Weather
Lots of talk this week about the temps, but we’ve got some precipitation in the forecast as well. If it holds off until Saturday, the tournament should be fine to adjust and get all the rounds in on time. The big concern is a possible frost delay heading into the start of the first round with some very low overnight temps predicted.
Very light lean towards a PM/AM wave advantage as well as later tee times for first-round leader, but nothing major. We’ve seen delays push the later tee times into Friday to finish rounds, but that was earlier in the year with sunsets around dinner time. Thursday’s sunset for Rochester, NY is 8:30 PM, so we should be ok.
The other half of the PM/AM advantage is some wind looking to come in Friday afternoon preceding the storms, it’s a bit early to make moves based on that, but something to keep in mind.
Tweets
Weird stat of the week for ya. Not sure I knew the Hale Irwin one at all.
Don’t forget that a bunch of working Pros qualified in including this guy, whos apparently got some nasty club speed.
This is where I’ve landed on some of the LIV golfers. If I believed in you before you jumped, I may still have some faith, but if you were falling off prior to that, it’s hard to give you the benefit of the doubt based on a few nice rounds at the courses we’re currently seeing on the LIV circuit.
That saidddddd…. I still may have trouble fading Brooks this week after his Augusta performance.
Some hand-wringing over this on the Twitter so far, but I think I’m fine with having ground rules about OB if you’re worried about golfers taking a shortcut using a fairway from another hole.
Lots of great Phil memes this week, too many to share. This one cracked me up though.
As always, be good, have fun, bet responsibly, watch a ton of golf, and be sure to check out all the rest of our content each and every week.
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