2023 PGA Championship Picks, Odds: Best Bets for Sungjae Im, Brooks Koepka, Patrick Cantlay, More

It's time for our PGA Championship picks for this week at Oak Hill in Rochester, N.Y.

Scottie Scheffler and Jon Rahm sit atop the 2023 PGA Championship odds board, followed by Rory McIlroy. There's a little separation between the top three and the rest of the board, though. That's the part of the board where our experts are finding the top players who they're backing this week.

Our best bets feature outright picks and a matchup between two elite-level golfers. Check out our staff's favorite 2023 PGA Championship picks below.

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Favorites We’re Backing

• Jason Sobel: Xander Schauffele
• Chris Murphy: Patrick Cantlay
• Matt Vincenzi: Brooks Koepka
• Spencer Aguiar: Xander Schauffele
• Nick Bretwisch: Tony Finau

Best Long Shot

• Sobel: Keegan Bradley
• Vincenzi: Patrick Reed
• Aguiar: Stephan Jaeger
• Bretwisch: Thorbjorn Olesen

Biggest Bust

• Sobel: Rory McIlroy
• Murphy: Rory McIlroy
• Vincenzi: Max Homa
• Aguiar: Dustin Johnson
• Bretwisch: Scottie Scheffler

Contrarian Player To Target

• Sobel: Rickie Fowler
• Murphy: Taylor Moore
• Vincenzi: Hideki Matsuyama
• Aguiar: Jordan Spieth
• Bretwisch: Joaquin Niemann

Trend That Guides Your Betting Strategy

Sobel: The trend for Oak Hill is … no trend at all.

This is a completely different golf course from the one which hosted this event back in 2013, not to mention the other five majors and Ryder Cup and so many big events before then. My advice is to not even look over the stats from any other tournaments that were held here.

That said, there’s a trend on the PGA Tour that definitely interests me. In each of the last three weeks, a player who’d been playing excellent golf without seeing a top result has enjoyed that “positive regression” we so often speak about, with Tony Finau, Wyndham Clark and Jason Day all turning consistently high-level play into victories. Don’t be surprised if another player follows that trend this week.

Murphy: As I stated in my first look, I think play off the tee will be vital this week around Oak Hill. While I think we could see a number of player profiles around the first page of the leaderboard as things tighten up over the weekend, I think we ultimately see some of the elite drivers of the ball stand out at the end of the week. Total Driving is my top statistic this week and it leads me directly to a nice correlation with my best bet.

Aguiar: Throw out what you think you have learned about Oak Hill during past iterations of golf played at this track. Andrew Green masterfully added back in its original Donal Ross flare when he renovated the course to prepare for this year's PGA Championship. Still, the most significant change made to the property might be the one controlled by mother nature.

When Oak Hill Country Club was given clearance to host this event years ago, it was slated to be played in mid-August instead of May. That factor will generate a lack of rollout off-the-tee because of the colder weather in New York at this time of year, and the frequent rainfall over the past few months will have the rough as a severe hazard for those that go wayward with their opening shot.

Bretwisch: All of the above. I’m looking for five-tool golfers who can handle the carnage of Oak Hill and the insanely penal rough and bunkers. We’re going to be targeting longer hitters who can handle the length and accuracy demands of Oak Hill.

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PGA Championship Best Bets

Sobel: Sungjae Im +3600 (FanDuel)

As I’ve so often written throughout the past few months, Im’s game is on par with the likes of Tony Finau and Collin Morikawa, but his odds remain longer simply because he hasn’t yet won as much as those other players. It’s coming, though.

In 13 starts on the PGA Tour this year, he owns 10 finishes of 21st or better, including five top-10s. (And just for good measure, he jetted off to his native Korea this past week and won the Woori Financial Group Championship on the KPGA.) Simply put, he fits the mold of those recent champions – players for whom success was only a matter of time, based on performance.

This season, Im ranks 10th in totalstrokes gained. He’s 13th off the tee, 60th with his irons, 19th around the greens and 60th in putting. Sure, some of those rankings are better than others, but there’s truly no weakness in his game. While he ranks outside the top 100 in driving distance, his average of 297.7 yards is undoubtedly long enough and when paired with a driving accuracy percentage that ranks 20th, that’s the exact formula we’re seeking here.

Sungjae hasn’t shown his full array of talents on the biggest stages very much yet, as a runner-up finish at the 2020 Masters in November and a T8 there last year remain his lone top-10s in 14 career major starts. There’s little doubt, though, that he’s ready to win a big one.

I love Im’s game, love his course fit and love his outright price entering this week.

Pick: Sungjae Im +3600

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Murphy: Patrick Cantlay +1900 (FanDuel)

I was pleasantly surprised to see this number lingering in the +2000s on Tuesday night since I thought it would be beaten down to the mid-teens by now. I see this as a great value in who I view as the third best player in this field.

Cantlay has stepped his game up a couple of notches over the last few months and the biggest difference we see in his play is off the tee. He's the best player in this field over the past three months in that Strokes Gained metric and ranks third on TOUR this season in Total Driving. This is a category where he has never finished better than 25th over the past few years and the marked improvement really sets him up well for this week.

When I add in the fact that Cantlay has become a bit of a bentgrass green specialist, it just has everything pointing towards him having the opportunity to capture his first major this week at Oak HIll.

Pick: Patrick Cantlay +1900

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Vincenzi: Brooks Koepka +2200 (BetMGM)

Since 2015, Koepka has been the best player in the world in the PGA Championship. In the past eight editions of the tournament, the 33-year-old has only finished outside of the top-13 twice. Included in those results are two wins, and three additional top-five finishes.

There have been plenty of questions about Koepka's health and competitiveness after he made the controversial decision to join LIV Golf last year. In my opinion, those questions have been answered. He won LIV Orlando, and then led the Masters for three rounds before eventually losing to the best player in the world. He finished third at LIV Singapore after the Masters and said he was using LIV Tulsa as a "tune-up" for this week's PGA Championship.

That mindset is what made Koepka such a phenomenal major championship player throughout his career, and it appears he no longer is worried about staying healthy or getting back into form. He's healthy and he's playing great golf. The focus now returns to winning majors.

Along with his dominant major championship record is Brooks' success in the Northeast throughout his career. He won the 2018 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, which is a long and grueling par-70 track that's similar to what he'll see at Oak Hill in Rochester this week. Then, he won the PGA Championship at Bethpage Black. Bethpage is yet another beast of a par-70 in New York.

For Koepka, the desire to win major championships has fueled him throughout his career. Oak Hill is a course where he's perfectly suited to win his 5th major and hoist the Wanamaker Trophy for the third time.

Aguiar: Sungjae Im (-120) over Dustin Johnson (DraftKings)

There seems to be an overcorrection in the market for the LIV golfers. Most bettors went from wanting to full-fade the entire group at the Masters to now trying to fit the whole crop into a betting card. That shift is often dangerous since it gets felt numerically from an odds standpoint, and I tend to want to fade most of the big-name options that will be teeing it up this week at Oak Hill.

Remember, Augusta National is the single-highest predictive venue on the PGA Tour yearly. I was not shocked to see a handful of the players pop up on the first page of the leaderboard, but let's see if they can do the same when faced with diabolical bunkers that will test everyone in the field.

Johnson ranked 120th in my model for weighted sand save percentage before leaving for LIV, and the 110th-place grade for weighted scrambling only adds to this shaky profile that is getting boosted because of his LIV Golf Tulsa victory last weekend. A win will always matter, but it is another story when it promotes a deflated price tag throughout the board.

Bretwisch: Thorbjorn Olesen Top 40 (+360, FanDuel)

The sweet-swinging, DP World Tour walking top-20 finisher has a top-40 finish at the 2013 PGA Championship at this Oak Hill property. Yes, the course has taken on a significant facelift since then, but so has Olesen’s game.

Olesen is a five-tool golfer who comes into this event in fantastic form overseas. I have this number right around +275 so I’ll take 85 points of value every day that I can. Let’s go, Thorbs!

Pick: Thorbjorn Olesen Top 40 (+360)

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