Golf

Steven’s Weekly PGA Primer: PGA Championship

by
Steven Quezada
May 13, 2019

Weekly Primer: PGA Championship

The goal with my weekly primer is to provide you with a one-stop guide to equip you with all of the information that you need to make your picks and assemble your lineups. From course previews, to history, stats, and pick suggestions, this guide will provide a concrete base as you conduct your own research and submit your winning picks and lineups.

Course Preview

Dates: May 16-19

Where: Farmingdale, New York

Course: Bethpage State Park (Black Course)

Architect: Robert Trent Jones Sr. (1960); Rees Jones (2007)

Par/Yards: Par 70; 7,455 yards

Greens: Poa

Fairways/Rough: Poa/Ryegrass

Field: 156

Cut: Top 70 and ties after 36 holes

Defending Champion: Brooks Koepka

Purse: TBA

FedEx Cup Points: 600

Withdrawals:

Bethpage State Park consists of five different courses: Blue, Green, Red, Yellow and Black. Greeted with arguably one of the most pretentious warning signs, Bethpage Black presents a long and difficult test for the second major of the season and for the Wanamaker Trophy. The warning sings boasts that “The Black Course is an extremely difficult course which [is] recommended only for highly skilled golfers.” Bethpage will have plenty of that as the world’s top golfers, including all Top 50 OWGR, tee it up for the PGA Championship. If you are looking at course history then it is important to note that this major does have a rotating schedule and rotating site. The last tournaments that were hosted at Bethpage were the Barclays in 2016 and 2012. It has also hosted the US Open twice in 2009 and 2002. Patrick Reed is the most recent winner in 2016 at the Barclays with Nick Watney winning back in 2012. The US Open winners were Tiger Woods and Lucas Glover.

The course will not be playing as difficult as the previous US Opens hosted here. Tiger won the 2002 US Open with a score of -3 and Lucas Glover won in 2009 with a score of -4. The Barclays had winning scores of -10 and -9 which reflects the difficulty of course condition based on the specific tournament. The PGA Championship should play closer to conditions experienced in the Barclays rather than US Opens.

This does not mean that the course will not still be a difficult test as a Par 70 tipping out at over 7,400 yards. The bunkers surrounding the greens are deep, so being able to hit greens is key while also being able to recover and scramble for the near-green misses. The 2^nd hole is the only one Par 4 that measures under 400 yards so being long off the tee and hitting the relatively flat greens from over 200 yards will also be key.

Weather Outlook

The rain chances will not be anything like what we experienced at the Byron Nelson this last week. Low chances of rain with mild temperatures should hold throughout the week and have us avoiding any more 6+ hour weather delays.

Course History Targets

This is a rotating host event. Bethpage Black has been the host for the 2016 and 2012 Barclays as well as the 2009 and 2002 US Opens. Sergio Garcia, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, and Ryan Moore are the only golfers in the field with at least 2 Top 10s at Bethpage. Below are the results from the last tournament hosted at Bethpage Black in 2016.

Recent Performance Targets

Just as important, if not more so, when selecting a roster is recent performance. You will see certain golfers go on a tear and post consecutive high-finishing results. This can translate to good form and a mental advantage as they tee it up the next week. Here is breakdown of some notable players that have been performing well as of recent and have at least one Top-20 in their last five starts.

The Approach

Before I even begin making picks I will break down the field into six tiers A-F. When you have fields of 100+ golfers then it can be overwhelming to scroll back-and-forth and up-and-down when making picks. DraftKings has a useful tool where you can export the entire DK roster with salaries to a CSV and open in Excel which I would highly recommend and then break down the picks from there.

When I am assembling my lineups or placing my bets, I will look at just about every stat that I can while also looking at course history and recent performance. There are certain players that just perform well at certain courses. You also have to look at how players are performing leading up to the tournament.

Two other factors that I take into account are the OWGR and the betting odds. Vegas always knows something that you don’t, so when I see a golfer in the sub-8k range and see he has the same odds as golfers in the 9-10k range then he is someone that I have to consider.

Key Stats to Target

The stats that stick out from the last three winners of this tournament and that I will be keying on this week are: