No sooner is The Open Championship done and dusted, that we have to turn betting attention to the PGA Championship 2016. News this week about the event was that Tiger Woods has pulled out and won’t be back in action this season at all. The Open came down to a classic battle between Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson, both producing some phenomenal golf on Sunday, with Stenson being the one to take the glory. After seven previous top four finishes in the Majors, the Swede delivered the goods. The question is will he be able to follow that up with some more success at the US PGA?
The tournament his year has been brought forward because of the Olympic Games so it’s just a short break, an unusually short break, between the Open Championship and the US PGA Championship. So a whole different set of conditions for the final Major of the year. This is going off two weeks earlier than normal so players who would usually have gone through specific warm up tournaments won’t get that chance, so will this be an advantage to some of the younger players, who may just have the extra touch of stamina to grind out a win?
In comparison to The Open which was won this year by 40 year old Henrik Stenson, the US PGA fits more in line with younger winners. Of the last six winners, five of them have been in their twenties, with the exception being Jason Dufner’s triumph in 2013. So you may well be looking at the young man’s game to shine through at Baltusrol this year in PGA Championship 2016 Golf Betting so where does that send us?
Jason Day, the defending PGA Championship holder, was 27 last year in picking up the title and he is going off at a short 8/1 price to go and make a repeat of that. That makes him joint outright favourite alongside two time PGA Championship winner Rory McIlroy. The Northern Irishman won it in 2012 and then again in 2014. Both of McIlroy’s title wins came in a season where he had already picked up a Tour victory, and so too Jason Day last season. If that is a deal breaker then McIlroy hasn’t won a tournament this season (best finish of third) while Day has won three times.
This year’s US Open winner Dustin Johnson is in the mix and is a man who is just running so very well. His last three wins on the Tour have been single digits under par including his massive -9 at the WGC Cadillac, carded straight after his comfortable win at the US Open. Johnson has a little track record at the PGA Championship, with four top ten finishes from six previous attempts. He came home T7 last season and should be in the mix because he can grind things out. Johnson goes off at 9/1
That leaves Jordan Spieth at a quote of 10/1 to make a title tilt at Baltusrol. He hasn’t hit the heights of last season at all, and he has been complaining about the weight of expectancy on him because of his successes last season. That’s not something a man in a good frame of mind would say so he probably isn’t a great fit for PGA Championship 2016 Golf Betting and you would be better off covering him with a top ten finish more than anything else.
So which of the main corners of Jason Day, Dustin Johnson and Rory McIlroy would you side with? McIlroy hasn’t quite got the form this season so suggest that he is going to deliver. No players has ever won a Major at Baltusrol with a double-digits under par victory either. McIlroy’s four Majors have each come with a score of double-digits under par, so in a tighter battle, he’s not likely to come into the picture.
But Dustin Johnson’s last three wins, as noted above, on the PGA Tour has come with single-digit under par scores. As for Jason Day, well he gets the unenviable position of going into the tournament as defending Champion. History suggests that he isn’t going to land the title back to back because just one man has ever done that in the PGA Championship and that was Tiger Woods. So Day may just be out of the picture. So the tip of the strongest contenders would be Dustin Johnson who checks a lot of the boxes.
As an outside shot we like the huge price on Sergio Garcia. The thing about Baltusrol, as the stats would suggest, that it is going to tight in the scoreboard and a course which is going to need a lot of grinding on. Garcia can do that and he carded a T23 last time the tournament was here and he has the natural game to flow with the course where others may struggle. Bearing in mind that the other three Majors this year have gone to players who have claimed their first Major title, the Spaniard could be a decent each way flutter to get close.
PGA Championship 2016 Golf Betting Odds
Jason Day 8/1, Rory McIlroy 8/1, Dustin Johnson 9/1, Jordan Spieth 10/1, Henrik Stenson 16/1, Phil Mickelson 20/1, Adam Scott 25/1, Justin Rose 25/1, Rickie Fowler 25/1, Bubba Watson 28/1, Sergio Garcia 33/1, Patrick Reed 40/1, 50/1 bar
PGA Championship 2016 Golf Betting Top 5 FInish Odds
Jason Day 13/8, Rory McIlroy 13/8, Dustin Johnson 2/1, Jordan Spieth 12/5, Henrik Stenson 11/4, Phil Mickelson 4/1, Adam Scott 5/1, Bubba Watson 6/1, Rickie Fowler 6/1, Justin Rose 6/1, Sergio Garcia 13/2, 8/1 bar
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PGA Championship Golf History and Stats
This is the final major of the season and is usually played on the third weekend before Labor Day in the USA. However because of the Olympic Games going off this year, then it has been brought forward. Landing a win at the tournament means that you never have to qualifying to get back to the Championship and it automatically guarantee you a place in the other three Majors as well.
The PGA Championship actually started off as a match play event but this meant that some of the tournament went long, very long and money was starting to be lost so the PGA decided to switch things up and make it a stroke play event, lading the standard of 72 holes in four days. The event has mostly only ever been held in the eastern States,with just ten of the editions going out West. The most editions have been held in New York.
The last time that Baltusrol Golf Club (Springfield, New Jersey) hosted the event was back in 2005 when Phil Mickelson with his -4 under par managed to land the victory by just a one stroke margin of Thomas Bjorn and Steve Elkington. Form seems an important indicator for picking out a winner because seven of the ten previous PGA Championship winners had previously put a top ten finish on the board. Three of the last ten had won the event previously.
Things between age groups of 20’s and 30’s are evenly split over the last ten editions, five each. Which means that no player actually over the age of 37 has won the US PGA Championship in the last ten years. So as we hinted at above, the most likely winner is going to be on the more youthful side of things as opposed to looking for an experienced veteran to come through.
Six of the last ten winners of the tournament have been in the world’s top five at the time and nine of the last ten US PGA winners had managed a top ten finish in one of their previous two starts before the tournament. The most wins of the PGA Championship have been by Jack Nicklaus and Walter Hagen, both posting five victories at the tournament. Nicholas incidentally holds the record for the most runner up finishes as well, with four.
The biggest winning margin in the PGA Championship since it switched to stroke payer, was Rory McIlroy’s eight stroke win in 2012 while David Toms holds a record of 265 for the lowest 72 hole score (which is actually the lowest ever scored in any major championship). Tiger Woods is the only man to have ever won back to back US PGA Championship titles.
PGA Championship 2016 Golf Betting Predictions
Would fully get behind Sergio Garcia at a quote of 13/2 to land a top five finishes at the event. The stats are kind of with him here to have a charge at the title. Phil Mickelson, the last man to win here is probably worth a flutter as well at 4/1 but he had a big, gruelling effort in The Open recently which may have taken something out of him. As for our outright winner tip, that would have to be Dustin Johnson. He ticks all the boxes to come through and grind his way on a grinding course to victory.
