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Golf betting tips: Best longshot picks for US PGA Championship
With Sky Bet offering up to 12 places on each-way bets for the PGA Championship, we've picked out a dozen outsiders who could run into the money.
Min Woo Lee
A former winner of the US Junior Amateur and brother to LPGA major winner Minjee Lee, Min Woo Lee has stacks of talent and pedigree. He's already a two-time winner on the DP World Tour and with both titles won at links-style courses by the sea, it's easy to see him taking to Southern Hills and coping with the wind that's forecast to blow.
He's a big-hitter, which will help given that the course can stretch beyond 7,500 yards and has two par-fives that are over 600, and he's also got a lovely short-game for all that the putter can hurt him at times. And, while he lacks major experience, he made an excellent Masters debut when 14th last month, itself a good trial run for the week ahead.
Most likely this is a little too soon, but Lee was just two shots shy of the top 10 at Augusta, putting really well. It's far from certain he'll repeat the trick but he does look capable of becoming a major contender in time, and at 250/1 or so there are worse options for those spying those extra places.
Ryan Fox
As with Lee, Ryan Fox has shown what he can do on courses where quality approach play and touch around the greens are important. He's one of the form players on the DP World Tour, too, winning in the Middle East and returning from a break to finish 15th, ninth, eighth and second over his last four starts.
If that sequence were to continue then he'd be emulating compatriot Michael Campbell, a shock winner of the 2005 US Open, and it's not totally beyond the realms of possibility. Fox is a big hitter whose iron play is outstanding right now, he's never looked better on the greens, and he's made the cut in seven of his 11 major appearances to date.
Robert MacIntyre
Speaking of making cuts at this level, Robert MacIntyre is eight-from-eight in majors since finishing sixth in the first of them, the 2019 Open Championship. It's an exceptional record and while it won't last forever, a difficult, windswept Southern Hills ought to be just what the Scot is looking for.
Last month he finished 23rd in the Masters, where he'd been 12th on his first look, and that's a good form guide. He's also hit the ball better than his results would suggest subsequently, first when weighed down by his partner in the Zurich Classic, and then when putting horrendously throughout much of the British Masters.
So far, MacIntyre has only hit the frame in the Open, but he's been close in the US and is capable of delivering at a best of 250/1. He's also a solid favourite to be the best of two Scotsmen, while there could be mileage in a less-than-competitive market for the top left-handed player. Bubba Watson is probably playing better than his results suggest, too, but he's seldom a major contender outside of Augusta.
Sergio Garcia
If long driving, good hands around the greens and quality irons makes for a winning formula this week, then perhaps Sergio Garcia could conjure a second major championship at a course where he contended in 2001.
Much has changed since, both in his life and in terms of Southern Hills, but if anything it should be even better for him now. Wide fairways will allow the Spaniard to flex his muscles off the tee, and he ought to be more comfortable than most combating this course's main defences: tricky green complexes, and strong winds.
Garcia had been a bystander in majors post-2017 Masters win, missing 11 of his next 15 cuts in a shocking run for one of his ability. However, he's now on a run of three top-25 finishes in succession, he's hitting the ball really well again, and if his recent LIV Golf-inspired outburst doesn't affect him, it'd be no surprise at all were he to find his way into the mix.
Marc Leishman
As with Garcia, Marc Leishman is a name synonymous with majors, having contended on several occasions and come closest when losing out in a play-off for the Open Championship at St Andrews in 2015. A return to the Old Course this summer has no doubt been circled on the Leishman calendar for some time, but before that he's not to be ruled out here at Southern Hills, despite a pretty poor record in both this and the US Open.
Leishman ought to prefer this test, having been no fan of the typical US Open layout with narrow fairways and thick rough. As an occasionally wild driver who is long but not the longest, that formula is no good to him, whereas he's very comfortable under the sort of conditions expected in Tulsa, including around the greens where he's best from tight lies.
Though a bit disappointing last week, he did finish with his best round and a hole-in-one to boot, so it was tempting to side with him at three-figure prices. It is in fact rare to see him at such odds in a major and I'm not sure he's as far away from contending as the market seems to think.
Bernd Wiesberger
A glance at Bernd Wiesberger's form since his Ryder Cup debut last September would have you believing he's been pretty poor, but there is absolutely no doubt that from tee-to-green, he's not far off the game's elite right now. The reason for such a modest run of results is that he's not just struggled a little on the greens, but that the putter has become a massive handicap.
This can be seen in his last two starts, which have resulted in eighth place in Spain, and 37th in Belgium. Wiesberger was the best player in the field from tee-to-green in the first of these and second in last week's Soudal Open, where he gave away close to two strokes per round on the greens. That's insurmountable and chances are it continues to hold him back.
But whereas it's very unlikely a player languishing towards the foot of the ball-striking charts will suddenly hit the ball to a high standard, the reverse happens regularly enough for odds of 250/1 to hold some appeal. Wiesberger's run of bad putting extends right back to last August, having lost strokes in 14 successive events. If he can somehow stop the rot, he can go well in the major which saw him feature in the final group alongside Rory McIlroy in 2014.
Branden Grace
Like Wiesberger, Branden Grace has made winning look pretty easy on the DP World Tour. Unlike the Austrian, he's also completed the transition to the PGA Tour where he's won twice, and gone mighty close at the very highest level in both this event and the US Open.
The South African has endured a pretty miserable year but there were signs in the Heritage that he'd turned a corner, after which came a top-five finish in the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. A missed cut in the Wells Fargo followed, before he produced some tidy tee-to-green work to finish mid-pack in the Byron Nelson, a shootout which does not suit him one bit.
With a Presidents Cup spot to play for, Grace needs a big summer and he's got at least two suitable courses to aim at in majors, first here and then at St Andrews. If the short-game he showed last week marries with the iron play of the Heritage, then suddenly this fine wind player would look a live candidate.
Cam Davis
Aussies in the wind is a bit of a golfing trope but it's true that most of them are at least used to battling it, and Cam Davis is certainly one such example. This silky-smooth swinger showed as much when a shock winner of the Australian Open, and he's impressed when winning on both the Korn Ferry Tour and the PGA Tour, too.
Lower scoring conditions would probably suit better but following a good effort on his Masters debut, he finished third by the sea at Harbour Town. Then came a missed cut in the Wells Fargo, but his ball-striking was really good and the overall feeling is that he's got a nice summer in front of him, whether it begins here or not.
Pablo Larrazabal
One player for whom 2022 will go down as a success regardless of what happens over the coming months is Pablo Larrazabal, who won a play-off in South Africa and then went in again for an emotional victory in his native Spain last month.
It's fair to say he's never gone on to establish himself at world level, reaching the fringes of the top 50 but never better, yet this might be the best and most consistent run of his career. As well as winning twice, he's been third, fifth, sixth and 13th in a run of seven events dating back to February, and that coveted top-50 spot is within touching distance now.
He's beaten elite players in the past – Henrik Stenson, Sergio Garcia and Rory McIlroy have all finished runner-up to Larrazabal – and this is one Spaniard for whom cliched remarks about good hands are bang on the money. It's still likely he comes crashing back down to earth, but providing the course doesn't eliminate those who aren't massive hitters, he might just be able to keep the good times rolling.
Cameron Champ
It is possible though that big hitting is a prerequisite, and if so then the biggest of them all, Cameron Champ, might build on some encouraging recent signs.
Now recovered from an injury problem which blighted his first third of the season, Champ finished 10th at the Masters, followed that with sixth place in Mexico, and closed with a round of 65 in Texas last week. Across all three he's been brilliant with driver and the fact he's gone well in all three Masters starts now suggests he might just cope better with these dramatic greens than his short-game stats suggest.
Already having contended in this championship two years ago and a three-time PGA Tour winner, Champ has the potential to go well now he's back performing at the top of his game.
Anirban Lahiri
It's been heartening to see Anirban Lahiri recapture his best form this spring, first when pushing Cameron Smith all the way at Sawgrass and more recently when fifth in the Wells Fargo. Four of his last five starts have resulted in top-15 finishes, and the exception was at Harbour Town, a quirky course he's never really liked.
Much of his improvement stems from the driver, but Lahiri is doing pretty much everything well and that includes his work around the green, ranking 20th, seventh and 10th across his last three starts. Throw in a hot putter, and he's suddenly looking like he could become a PGA Tour winner, with a Presidents Cup return very much in his sights later in the year.
This will be his first start in a major since the pandemic, a long wait for one with plenty of ability, and he has enjoyed some success before, notably when fifth in the 2015 PGA Championship. That came under low-scoring conditions but he showed at Sawgrass and again last time out that he can grind, too, and there are few outsiders who will come here with greater confidence and indeed in a better place – Lahiri and his wife welcomed their second child into the world on Tuesday.
Patrick Reed
Finally, I can't leave Patrick Reed out of a feature like this given that I like Augusta (winner) and Shinnecock (top-five) as potential guides, and that he's won on some of the biggest and toughest courses on the PGA Tour.
Overall I do remain worried about his long-game, which has at times been abysmal during a quiet 12 months, but he's driven the ball a little better lately. That's helped Reed make three of his last four cuts, including in the Masters, and if he can take another step forward then we know he has the short-game credentials for Southern Hills.