Golf betting tips: Preview and tips for the 2023 PGA Championship

This year’s 105^th PGA Championship will be played on the famed Oak Hill Country Club in Pittsford, New York.

The PGA Championship is organized by the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) of America. It is an official money event on the PGA Tour, European Tour and the Japan Golf Tour.

PGA Champions are automatically invited to play in the other three majors for the next five years and are exempt from qualifying for the PGA Championship for life. Winners also receive membership on the PGA and European Tours for the following five seasons and invitations to the PLAYERS Championship for five years.

The PGA Championship features the strongest field of any of the majors based on the Official World Golf Ranking, with 156 players competing annually for the Wanamaker Trophy. This year’s host course is the famed Oak Hill Country Club.

PGA Championship Qualification Criteria

• Each former PGA Champion.
• Last five Masters winners.
• Last five Open Championship winners.
• Last three Players Championship winners.
• Senior PGA Champion.
• Low 15 scorers and ties in the last PGA Championship.
• The 20 low scorers in the previous PGA Professional Championship.
• Top 70 in money standings on the PGA Tour (from a week before the previous year’s PGA Championship to two weeks before this year’s PGA Championship).
• Players from the most recent US and European Ryder teams, as long as they are in the Top 100 of the Official World Golf Ranking.
• Any tournament winner co-sponsored or sanctioned by the PGA Tour since the last PGA Championship.
• The PGA of America can invite additional players not included in the categories listed above.
• The total field is no more than 156 players. Players beneath 70^th place in official money standings can also receive an invite.

Course Overview

Oak Hill Country Club is located in Pittsford, New York. It was founded in 1901 and is best known for its East course which has hosted multiple major championships.

The club started out with 9 holes on 85 acres on the banks of the Genesee River in Rochester. In 1921 the University of Rochester proposed a land swap, which allowed the club more space to spread out in a town that was predominantly rural at the time.

The country club decided to take the university up on their offer and moved the club to a 355-acre plot in nearby Pittsford. This swap tripled the size of Oak Hill’s property. The additional space allowed for a large clubhouse as well as two Donald Ross designed courses The courses are known as the East and the West and opened in the mid-1920s.

The East course, which hosts the major tournaments, has had several changes made over the years. Robert Trent Jones Sr. carried out changes in the early 1960s with Tom Fazio and his design group making alterations to the course for the 1989 US Open and 2003 PGA Championship.

In 2019, Oak Hill hired golf architect Andrew Green to remodel some holes and bring them more in line with Donald Ross’ original design. Reconstruction of the East Course began after the 2019 Senior PGA Championship and was completed in May 2020.

The restoration works included replacing the the old bentgrass/Poa annua greens with pure bentgrass. The shape and contours of some greens were restored to the original design. There was also extensive tree removal which has opened up a lot of the holes.

All bunkers were either redone or strategically relocated with intimidating, steep faces. New back tees were added and a new drainage system installed.

The restoration works has brought a lot of the perimeter hole placements back into play. Taking on these new hole locations around the edges will require precision and holding greens will be difficult. Oak Hills is a 7,394 yard Par 70 with small greens averaging 4,500 square feet which will make getting close to pins the standout challenge this week. Putts will be fast and challenging on many of the holes.

With newly opened holes, new bunkers and exposed green edges, Oak Hill will have a different look and feel from previous majors. This Donald Ross masterpiece, perfectly intertwines strategy with challenge.

History tells us that the PGA Championship tends to be kind to longer hitters. Oak Hill will favor those players hitting full shots while in tune with distance and accuracy. Hitting it stiff will be key, especially with players on a learning curve in reading the unfamiliar greens.

It goes without saying that Major Championships are not tournaments to arrive at trying ‘to-find-your-game‘. History tells us that excellent Current Form is key this week. 

Major Championship Winners at Oak Hill

Year	Tournament	Winner	Winning Score	MOV	Runner(s)-up
1956	U.S. Open	Cary Middlecoff	281 (+1)	1 stroke	Ben Hogan, Julius Boros
1968	U.S. Open	Lee Trevino	275 (–5)	4 strokes	Jack Nicklaus
1980	PGA Championship	Jack Nicklaus	274 (–6)	7 strokes	Andy Bean
1984	U.S. Senior Open	Miller Barber	286 (+6)	2 strokes	Arnold Palmer
1989	U.S. Open	Curtis Strange	278 (–2)	1 stroke	Chip Beck, Mark McCumber, Ian Woosnam
2003	PGA Championship	Shaun Micheel	276 (–4)	2 strokes	Chad Campbell
2008	Senior PGA Championship	Jay Haas	287 (+7)	1 stroke	Bernhard Langer
2013	PGA Championship	Jason Dufner	270 (–10)	2 strokes	Jim Furyk
2019	Senior PGA Championship	Ken Tanigawa	277 (–3)	1 stroke	Scott McCarron

2023 PGA Championship | Oak Hill Scorecard

Hole	Name	Par	Yards	Hole	Name	Par	Yards
1	The Challenge	4	460	10	Council Grove	4	430
2	Breather	4	405	11	Creekside	3	245
3	Vista	3	230	12	Leaning Oak	4	399
4	The High & Mighty	5	615	13	Hill of Fame	5	623
5	Little Poison	3	180	14	Bunker Hill	4	320
6	Double Trouble	4	503	15	The Plateau	3	155
7	Creek’s Elbow	4	461	16	Straight Away	4	458
8	Wayside	4	429	17	Twin Tees	4	502
9	Needle’s Eye	4	482	18	Goin’ Home	4	497
Out		35	3765	In		35	3629
				Total			7394

Par	#	Shortest	Longest	Average
3	4	155	245	203
4	12	320	503	446
5	2	615	623	619

PGA Championship Winners Since 2000

Year	Champion	Course	Score	To par
2022	Justin Thomas	Southern Hills CC	275	-5
2021	Phil Mickelson	Ocean Course Kiawah Island	282	-6
2020	Collin Morikawa	TPC Harding Park	267	-13
2019	Brooks Koepka	Bethpage Black	272	-8
2018	Brooks Koepka	Bellerive CC	264	-16
2017	Justin Thomas	Quail Hollow	276	-8
2016	Jimmy Walker	Baltusrol GC	266	-14
2015	Jason Day	Whistling Straits	268	-20
2014	Rory McIlroy	Valhalla GC	268	-16
2013	Jason Dufner	Oakland Hills CC	270	-10
2012	Rory McIlroy	The Ocean Course	275	-13
2011	Keegan Bradley	Atlanta Athletic Club	272	-8
2010	Martin Kaymer	Whistling Straits	277	-11
2009	Y.E. Yang	Hazeltine National GC	280	-8
2008	Padraig Harrington	Oakland Hills CC	277	-3
2007	Tiger Woods	Southern Hills CC	272	-8
2006	Tiger Woods	Medinah CC	270	-18
2005	Phil Mickelson	Baltusrol GC	276	-4
2004	Vijay Singh	Whistling Straits	280	-8
2003	Shaun Micheel	Oak Hill CC	276	-4
2002	Rich Beem	Hazeltine Nat’l GC	278	-10
2001	David Toms	Atlanta Athl. Club	265	-15
2000	Tiger Woods	Valhalla GC	270	-18

PGA Championship Winning Formula

The following table details the breakdown of the Average Strokes Gained in each of the strokes gained categories for the past six champions of the PGA Championship.

SG Category	Winner’s Average Strokes Gained	Average Finishing Position (SG Category)
SGOTT	3.494	17
SGAPR	5.275	15
SGARG	1.262	32
SGP	3.865	18
SGT2G	10.031	8

Graphing the above Average Strokes Gained gives a visual check on the likely key areas required for success at this week’s PGA Championship.

PGA Championship Tips 2023

Xander Schauffele 16/1 (E/W) – has 3 x Top 16 finishes from his last four starts in the PGA Championship, including a T13 last year when played at Southern Hills. The San Diego native’s form so far this season is top-notch. He has 8 x Top 10’s from thirteen starts including a solo 2^nd in his last outing in the Wells Fargo Championship. Around Quail Hollow he was an impressive 4^th in SGT2G and 12^th in SGP. A zero-red-flag game puts the 29-year-old just outside the Top 20 in this week’s Stats Analysis. He is also 19^th on Tour for GIR and 3^rd for Scoring Average. Arriving hot to a course that should play to his strengths makes him hard to ignore. Best value at top end of market.

Patrick Cantlay 18/1 (E/W) – his best result in the recent past at the PGA Championship is a solo 3^rd in 2019 when played at Bethpage. A T14 in the Masters was followed by a solo 3^rd in the RBC Heritage. He also finished T21 in his last outing at the Wells Fargo Championship. The supremely talented golfer places just outside the Top 20 in this week’s Stats Analysis. He is also 8^th on Tour for SGT2G and 2^nd for Total Driving. The California native’s iron-play is sublime and if he gets the putter to compliment his tee-to-green game then he will be dangerous if not unbeatable. Just needs to see a few putts drop early on Thursday to get in the groove. Always worth a look each time he tees-it-up.

Please note that PGAgolfbets will not be previewing the Charles Schwab Challenge. The website will be updated again for the Memorial Tournament (June 1-4).