Who will win the PGA Championship in 2024? Odds, betting favorites, expert picks & more to know | Sporting News

Scottie Scheffler continued his torrid 2024 PGA Tour season with a win at the Masters. Now, he will look to build on his success by earning another major at the PGA Championship.

Scheffler enters the tournament heavily favored to take home the Wanamaker Trophy. He has four wins to his name thus far in 2024 and has seen his greatest weakness, his putter, grow stronger throughout the campaign.

MORE: Ranking the 2024 PGA Championship field 1-30

Of course, that doesn’t guarantee Scheffler will win his first PGA Championship. He is facing competition from a loaded field headlined by PGA Tour stars Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele, and Ludvig Aberg and LIV Golf’s finest, Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka.

Add in legends of the game like Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, and Valhalla Golf Club seems primed for an exciting battle at golf’s second major of the season.

But who among these top golfers will take home the Wanamaker Trophy in 2024? The Sporting News breaks down the odds and best bets to win the PGA Championship in 2024.

PGA Championship odds 2024

Scottie Scheffler (+400) enters the PGA Championship favorited to win the event, according to odds from BetMGM Sportsbook. The World No. 1 golfer has been on fire over the past couple of months, winning four of his past five starts and finishing tied for second in his lone defeat. His victories include wins at the Masters and The Players’ Championship, two of the most prestigious events on the PGA Tour.

Rory McIlroy (+900) is the only other golfer with better than 10-1 odds to win the event. McIlroy is coming off a win at the Wells Fargo Championship, his fourth at the event. Perhaps more importantly, he won the last PGA Championship held at Valhalla Golf Club in 2014.

Brooks Koepka (+1400), the winner of the 2023 PGA Championship, leads a contingent of golfers with better than 20-1 odds to win the event. Former World No. 1 golfer Jon Rahm (+1400), budding star Ludvig Aberg (+1400), and second-place Wells Fargo finisher Xander Schauffele (+1600) join him as players primed to contend in Louisville.

Both Tiger Woods (+15000) and Phil Mickelson (+20000) are in the field, as well. Neither is considered likely to win the PGA Championship, but it’s worth noting that Mickelson is just three years removed from becoming the PGA Tour’s oldest-ever major winner at the event.

Below are the odds for the top golfers in this year’s PGA Championship. Only competitors with odds of 100-1 or better odds to win the tournament are listed.

PGA Championship course breakdown: Valhalla Golf Club

The PGA Championship will be played at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky. The event was last held at Valhalla in 2014 when Rory McIlroy (16 under) won the event by one stroke over Phil Mickelson (15 under).

The course was designed by 18-time major winner Jack Nicklaus. It will be a par-71 layout and play to a length of 7,609 yards for the 2024 PGA Championship. That is 151 yards longer than the course played in 2014 and will make it one of the longest courses on the PGA Tour’s 2024 season.

Naturally, the course’s length will favor the biggest hitters on the course. That means players with positive marks in strokes gained off the tee (SG:OTT) and ball striking should profile well for this course.

Driving accuracy will be just as important for golfers, as there are numerous obstacles in the form of water hazards, bunkers, and thick rough around the course. It will be important to hit the fairways as frequently as possible to set up high-percentage second shots into each hole.

As such, strokes gained on approach (SG:APP) will also be a determining factor for the winner. Golfers who can get the ball near the hole and consistently log greens in regulation (GIR) will have a better chance to go low at this difficult course.

Finally, it certainly helps players to be high-quality scramblers and hot putters. Scrambling and strokes gained putting (SG:Putting) will tell bettors a lot about which golfers can handle the pressure of a difficult course like Valhalla.

Best bets to win PGA Championship

Anyone planning to bet on the PGA Championship has to consider putting Scottie Scheffler (+400) on their card. The world’s top golfer has been unstoppable in 2024, and he’s in the midst of a dominant stretch during which he has won four of five events, including the Masters and The Players’ Championship.

Scheffler has the best tee-to-green game on the PGA Tour, ranking top-two in SG:OTT, ball striking, and SG:APP. That mixture of power and accuracy should allow him to tame Valhalla. If his putter remains hot, he could add another major to his resume during an already superb 2024.

Brooks Koepka (+1400) is the other top option among the favorites. Koepka has great power and is in good form, fresh off a win at LIV Golf Singapore, and tends to step up his game in major events. He won the PGA Championship back-to-back in 2018 and 2019, so there’s no reason to think he can’t win it back-to-back seasons again.

PGA Championship value picks for top-10 finish, DFS lineups

Those looking for a more adventurous pick to win it all can consider Ludvig Aberg (+1400) as a solid top-10 pick. His odds to win it all are the same as Koepka’s and Jon Rahm’s — which could scare some off him, especially in DFS lineups — but Aberg has finished top-25 or better in eight straight events and finished second at the Masters.

Aberg, 25, is on the verge of breaking out and sports all the tools needed to earn a major win soon. He is a top-10 ball striker and ranks top 20 in SG:OTT, SG:APP, and scrambling. His putter is merely above average, but if he gets hot, he may emerge as Scheffler’s top challenger.

Wyndham Clark (+2500) is another potential Scheffler challenger who has frequently been atop the leaderboard during the 2024 season. Clark is a top-10 ball striker and putter with the power needed to shorten Valhalla.

Clark’s scrambling skills aren’t as strong as some of the other top talents on tour, so that’s why his odds sit at 25-1. That makes him a solid value pick, as he should be a top contender as long as he’s hitting greens in regulation more often than not.

PGA Championship sleeper picks

Sam Burns (+6600) has the makings of a quality sleeper option. The 27-year-old started the season strong with four top-10 finishes in his first five events, but he fell off a bit after that. He finished 30th or worse in his next five starts with two missed cuts, disappointing those who thought he could be a solid Masters sleeper.

That said, Burns finished tied for 13th at the Wells Fargo Championship and looked a bit looser with his wife Carolina having already given birth to their first child, Bear. Perhaps with that milestone past — and Burns not having to worry about leaving a tournament at the drop of the hat, as he planned to do at the Masters if Carolina went into labor — the well-rounded golfer can better tap into his top-40 ball striking and solid tee-to-green game to contend at the PGA Championship.

More daring bettors could also consider Akshay Bhatia (+10000) as a mega-longshot. Bhatia has enjoyed a solid season and won the Valero Texas Open in a playoff over Denny McCarthy. He ranks top-10 in SG:APP and doesn’t have any weaknesses in his game.

The only question is whether Bhatia can go low enough to knock off the likes of Scheffler, Koepka, Rahm, et. al., but at 100-1 odds, he’s at least worth a flier.

PGA Championship winners by year

Brooks Koepka is the reigning winner of the PGA Championship. He shot 9-under par during the 2023 event to earn a two-shot win over Viktor Hovland and Scottie Scheffler. The win marked Koepka’s fifth major win — three of which have come at the PGA Championship — and the first major win by a golfer competing on the LIV Golf Tour.

Koepka has won three of the past six PGA Championships. Only Jack Nicklaus (five) and Tiger Woods (four) have more wins than Koepka since the tournament switched to stroke play in 1958.

Below is a full look at the history of PGA Championship winners since 1958.