PGA Championship
PGA Championship
May 11, 2026PGA Championship
It was a solid week for us at Quail Hollow in the Truist Championship as our 28/1 pick Rickie Fowler finished second to bag a full place return.
Rickie had started the week slowly but after a 63 on Friday he closed out with a superb 65 on Sunday. At one point it looked like he might come from seven shots back to land the trophy. Unfortunately though he could not convert a shortish birdie opportunity on 16 after a superb approach and he then followed this with a bogey on the tough 18th to finish a couple of shots shy of where he needed to be.
The event itself was won by Kristoffer Reitan who parlayed some eye catching recent form in to a the biggest win of his career. Its been some 18 months or so for the Norwegian who earned his Tour Card via the DP World Tour last season and he deserves every credit.
Over at Myrtle Beach there was a real fairytale win for 45yr old Brandt Snedeker who earned his first tour win since 2018.
From our point of view the event was a frustrating one as despite having two of our four picks finish top 20 we were unable to bag a place.
So on we go and the tour heads North East from the Carolina’s for the second Major Championship of the year, the USPGA.
This year’s edition will be the 108th playing of the Championship and the venue that gets the honour of hosting is Aronimink in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania.
The course has hosted the PGA Championship on one previous occasion way back in 1962 when Gary Player triumphed while it.
As you would expect for a Major the field is a stellar one.
In addition as is tradition for the PGA Championship in amongst the 150 or so who will start the event on Thursday will be around 20 PGA of America club professionals.
The market is headed up by the world number one and two Scottie Scheffler. Scheffler is then followed by Rory McIlroy and Cam Young, with Jon Rahm Xander schauffele and Bryson Dechambeau making up the top six in the market.
COURSE
The course is a Donald Ross design, which has undergone subsequent redesigns under the supervision of Ron Pritchard in 2000 [who was the designer of TPC Southwind].and more recently Gil Hanse in 2017.
The course is a Par 70 and measures just under 7400 yards.
The greens are Bentgrass.
Aronimink was last seen on the PGA Tour hosting the 2018 BMW Championship which was won by Keegan Bradley at 20- under on a very soft course, while previously to that the venue hosted the 2010 & 2011 AT&T National, which were won by Nick Watney & Justin Rose respectively.
The three other Donald Ross designs used regularly on tour are East Lake, home of the Tour Championship, Sedgefield Country Club, the annual home of the Wyndham Championship and Detroit GC home of the Rocket Mortgage Classic.
In addition Plainfield which hosted the 2011 and 2015 Barclays is a Ross design while Pinehurst No 2 which hosted US Opens in 2014 & 2024 and the East course at Oak Hill, which hosted the 2013 & 2023 PGA Championships are also both Ross designs..
Ross considered Aronimink his ‘masterpiece’ and the aim of the 2017 redesign was allowing for the advancement in technology to restore the course to play how Ross had intended.
The course is a tough, classical test with fairways which historically have been difficult to find, elevation changes and undulating greens.
There are several challenging doglegs on the front 9, particulary the Par 4 7th,, whilst the Par 4 10th is arguably the toughest hole on the course.
What is particularly noticeable at Aronimink is that the rolling fairways give the course a definite ‘Scottish feel’. This is unsurprising as Ross’ roots lie in Scotland.
In addition the 2017 redesign involved the construction of 176 new bunkers to match the original design, the widening of some fairways and some greens being made larger.
At the time Hanse has said that the wider fairways and larger greens, which afford different pin placements, will add a strategy element – players can think more about where they attempt to place shots to take advantage of better angles to the hole. When the fairways were more narrow, he said, the players' top concern was just keeping the ball in the fairway out of the rough.
HISTORY
So let’s take a look at the winners of the USPGA since 2011.
The winners have been as follows;
2025 S Scheffler
2024 X Schauffele
2023 B Koepka
2022 J Thomas
2021 P Mickelson
2020 C Morikawa
2019** B Koepka
2018 B Koepka
2017 J Thomas
2016* J Walker
2015 J Day
2014 R McIlroy
2013 J Dufner
2012 R McIlroy
2011 K Bradley
The first thing that springs to mind looking at this list is that a strong finish right before the PGA if you are going to lift the Wanamaker Trophy is key.
To expand on this further the previous ten winners of the PGA prior to the 2019 move had played in the WGC Bridgestone and the worst finish recorded by any of them was in 2017 by Justin Thomas who finished 28th in Akron.
Then in 2019 Brooks Koepka finished fourth at the Byron Nelson the week prior to his victory at Bethpage.
Finally in 2020 prior to his win at Harding Park Collin Morikawa tuned up by finishing 20th at the WGC Fedex St Jude with, allowing for a wonderful dollop of hindsight his weekend of 67 66, which saw him climb the leaderboard particularly eye catching.
2021 winner, Mickelson, bucked this trend [as he did many of the other historical ones!] as he only managed a 69th place in his previous start at the Wells Fargo and prior to that his form through 2021 had been poor. In 2022 it was back to the norm as Justin Thomas warmed up for his victory at Southern Hills with a fifth place finish the week before at the Byron Nelson.
In 2023 Koepka then landed the PGA at Oak Hill when we were onboard, having finished fifth in LIV Tulsa in his previous start. F Xander Schauffele landed his maiden Major title in 2024 on the back of a runner up finish at Quail Hollow the week before, while last year not unsurprisingly Scottie Scheffler had won in his previous start at the Byron Nelson
With the PGA moving around to different styles of tracks each year looking at event history alone does probably not give us too much help. Instead then it makes sense to look at players who have a strong record on Ross courses and/or in the North East of the US.
From that point of view the winners of the Wyndham Championship over the past 10yrs who are playing this week are as follows:
Cameron Young, Aaron Rai, Lucas Glover, JT Poston & Si Woo Kim.
Meanwhile Tommy Fleetwood, Scottie Scheffler, Viktor Hovland, Patrick Cantlay, Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele and Dustin Johnson have all triumphed at East Lake in the Tour Championship, although we do need to remember some of these would have been under the ‘starting strokes’ format.
Finally at the Rocket Mortgage their have been wins for Aldrich Potgieter, Rickie Fowler and Bryson Dechambeau who are in the field this week.
If we then look at Majors played on Ross designs and Brook Koepka triumphed at Oak Hill in 2023 in the PGA while Bryson Dechambeau was victorious in 2024 US Open at Pinehurst.
Finally on the hunt for players who could be classed as something of a specialist in the North East and a few names come to light. Keegan Bradley who won here in 2018 and hails from the North East also has won twice at TPC River Highlands in Connecticut.
Justin Rose won his lone major at Merion in Pennsylvania while he also won here in 2011 and was runner up to Bradley in 2018. He has also won in neighbouring Ohio at the Memorial.
Another player with an excellent record on the Bentgrass greens of Memorial is Patrick Cantlay who is a two time winner there. In addition Cantlay has landed the BMW twice in neighbouring Maryland and Delaware.
Finally Cantlay’s name pops up with a fourth place finish at last years Truist, which was won by Sepp Straka 30 minutes away at Philadelphia CC.
WEATHER FORECAST
The start of the week looks dry however once we reach Wednesday the potential for showers creeps in over the next three days before the weekend looks dry.
Temperatures aren’t set to get to 70 until the weekend where things warm up considerably with 80 degrees forecast.
Wind could also be an issue over Thursday & Friday with Friday in particular showing a chance for 25mph+ gusts. The wind looks to then settle down over the weekend as temperatures warm up.
As I always say though this could all change!
PICKS
I have gone with five players this week as follows;
BROOKS KOEPKA – 35/1 – 2pts E/W - 1/5 1st 8
While as always the spectre of Scottie Scheffler looms large over the market I am happy to swerve the very top tier in the betting and instead start our team with Brooks Koepka.
Koepka as we know is something of a PGA Championship specialist with three of them to his name with the most recent coming in 2023 at the Donald Ross designed Oak Hill. He also played solidly here in 2018 to finish 19th.
From that point of view then the five time Major Champion must be licking his lips at the thought of getting to Aronimink.
Returning to the PGA Tour this year Brooks has looked rejuvenated and has talked about how much he is loving the grind even to the extent of sitting out two signature events recently waiting as first alternate to hopefully get in the field. He then headed last week to Myrtle Beach for the opposite field event where he finished 11th referencing Saturdays 64 as the most fun he has had on the golf course in years.
Lots of positive talk from Brooks then and this is more importantly reflected in his results with five top 18 finishes in his last seven starts including a 12th at Augusta.
If we then look at Koepka’s number for the year to date we see that he ranks first on tour in approach play for the season and eighth from tee to green so the long game is really firing.
On the flip side the area that has stopped him from winning has been the putter for which he ranks a lowly 149th. At Myrtle Beach though after having his putting coach on site there were some flashes of improvement particularly on Saturday so the hope is he can continue to improve on that front this week.
If that is the case allowing for the current excellent shape of his long game and of course his Major pedigree, I can see Brooks making a bold effort for Major number six this week.
TYRRELL HATTON – 1.5pts E/W – 45/1 – 1/5 odds 1st 8.
Next up I will turn to Tyrrell Hatton.
I have to be honest with all the uncertainty around LIV Golf at the moment I am wary of LIV players as a whole this week however I have decided to make an exception with Hatton.
What leads me to Hatton the most is how he has been trending closer and closer to landing a Major over the last couple of years, as we know one of the biggest clues to finding a Major winner is often found in the form in the previous couple.
If we look then at Tyrrell’s record and since the start of 2025 he has gone 14 60 4 16 & 3 in his past five Majors with the third at Augusta recently and the fourth in the US Open at Oakmont last summer, also in Pennsylvania we should note, particularly eye catching.
Looking at 2026 to date and aside from his big finish at Augusta Hatton has a best of third on the LIV Tour with his most recent starts showing a fifth in Mexico and a solid 17th in Virginia last week.
As we know Tyrrell’s greatest strength is his iron play, which should certainly serve him in good stead this week, however he has also talked recently about how his short game, historically the weak link, has improved and he sees this as the key to getting to the next level.
All in all Hatton is the type of al round player I would expect to thrive at Aronimink and with him now knocking firmly on the Major door I am keen to side with him here.
PATRICK CANTLAY – 1.5pts E/W – 45/1 – 1/5 odds 1st 8.
Moving on and next up is Patrick Cantlay.
Addressing the elephant in the room first and the big issue of course is that we are coming up to nearly four years since Cantlay last bagged a trophy, an unbelievable stat for a man of his abilities.
2026 again started sluggishly for Patrick however since his 32nd place at Sawgrass he has hit a really strong vein of form firstly finishing seventh at the Valspar then 12th at Augusta before backing that up with two further top tens.
No doubt in solid form then but what really leads me to Patrick this week is that when he heads North East he produces some of his best golf, something that can be seen by the fact that four of his seven solo wins have come in this part of the US.
Furthermore Patrick is a former winner of the Tour Championship at the Ross designed East Lake and was second there again last year.
Twelfth on tour from tee to green Cantlay’s long game has been in fine fettle this year with the putter the missing ingredient, last week though at Aronimink he ranked tenth on the dance floor so we can certainly take some encouragement from that, particularly as the Bentgrass greens he will see this week are his favourite surface.
I’m convinced Cantlay has at least one Major Championship in him and at 34yrs old now he should be right at his peak to deliver this. Let’s take him this week then to finally get over the line once more in one of the biggest events.
RICKIE FOWLER - 50/1 –1pt E/W - 1/5 odds 1st 8
Another player in a rich vein of form of late is Rickie Fowler.
Fowler arrives at Aronimink with seven top 20 finishes in 11 starts this year and on the back of three straight top tens. All that is missing is his first win since 2023, something which you would think will come very soon.
In his most recent start at Quail Hollow where were onboard after a slow Thursday he caught fire the rest of the week, coming home with a 65 on Sunday to finish second.
Looking at Fowler’s stats for 2026 and everything is firing, with his putting noticeable returning to its levels of yesteryear when it was his great strength. At Quail Hollow he ranked third on the greens, 15th in approach and 16th around the greens.
Looking at Rickie’s record at Aronimink and we can take plenty of encouragement that he was 13th here way back in 2011 and then eighth on his next visit in 2018. Meanwhile his most recent win came on the Ross designed Detroit GC home of the Mortgage Classic.
Back working with Butch Harmon confidence is clearly high in the Fowler camp at the moment and I am happy to stick with him this week.
KEEGAN BRADLEY - 90/1 –1pt E/W - 1/5 odds 1st 8
Finally I am drawn to the odds of Keegan Bradley.
2026 has perhaps understandably started slowly for Captain Bradley, however since finishing 21st at Augusta he has pushed on notching two further top 20s in three starts.
Most recently Keegan finished a solid 19th at Quail Hollow where he ranked 27th in approach and most interestingly 14th on the greens, the area that we know is usually his achilles heel.
All solid stuff then but what makes Bradley most interesting this week is the fact that he lifted the trophy the last time the tour came to Aronimink, coupled with his all round record in the North East. To expand further and Bradley who hails from Vermont and went to college in New York has two titles at the Travelers to his name.
Returning then to this part of the US and to a course he has triumphed on I can see Keegan producing a really strong week.