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2024 PGA Championship Picks & Top Finishes: Target Niemann, Aberg for Valhalla Golf Club

Topher Smith

Last Updated: May 15, 2024 5:05 PM EDT • 6 min 47 sec read.

Chile's Joaquin Niemann (R) talks to his caddy as we look at our PGA Championship picks.
Chile's Joaquin Niemann (R) talks to his caddy during the second round of LIV Golf Adelaide at the Grange Golf Club in Adelaide on April 27, 2024. Photo by Brenton Edwards via AFP.

The 106th PGA Championship gets underway Thursday, and we have you covered ahead of time with our predictions on who will win and which golfers will finish in the top 5, 10, 20, 30, and 40. Our 2024 PGA Championship picks are based on the odds from our best golf betting sites.

The 2024 PGA Championship tees off this Thursday at the esteemed Valhalla Golf Club, a stunning creation by the renowned Jack Nicklaus nestled in northwest Kentucky.

Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, and Brooks Koepka lead the charge as the favorites according to the PGA Championship odds, promising an intense battle among golf's elite.

Despite a brief suspension during Tuesday's practice round due to inclement weather, anticipation remains high for an electrifying tournament. While Friday might see some thunder and lightning, the weekend forecast suggests minimal rainfall, paving the way for an uninterrupted and thrilling competition.

To accompany Esten McLaren's PGA Championship expert picks, here are our 2024 PGA Championship picks for Valhalla Golf Club based on the odds from our best sports betting sites (confidence rating based on a 1-to-5-star scale).

2024 PGA Championship picks

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Valhalla Golf Club course info

  • Par: 71
  • Length: 7,609 yards
  • Greens: Bentgrass, 13+ stimp
  • Architect: Jack Nicklaus

Valhalla will look entirely different than what we’ve seen in years past, with the course being considerably longer. The 2024 PGA Championship also occupies a different slot in the calendar than the August dates the last times the Nicklaus course hosted this particular major championship.

Being long off the tee will certainly be an advantage, but with a speedier growth season, finding the fairway will be a necessity as the rough was grown out to four inches or more, longer even than last week’s PGA Tour Signature Event in Quail Hollow.

Players who can find the short grass and use it to their advantage on lengthier approach shots will likely pace the field in ball striking, also paramount this week for our golfers.

PGA Championship pick to win

Joaquin Niemann ⭐⭐⭐

Searching for a non-Scheffler (+400) winner can be daunting and the prospects of a maybe-peaked-a-week-early-yet-again Rory McIlroy (+750) seem almost like cherry-picking at a place he won a PGA Championship before.

I’d say both remain in play, obviously, but we want to find value in our prices and Niemann carries just that at 35-to-1 on both FanDuel and DraftKings. The golfer just below, Aberg, is +2000 for a win here and if his knee checks out, I think that’s also a wise investment.

As for Niemann himself, he’s been playing elite level golf, albeit on the LIV circuit. Bringing home two wins in the upstart rival to the PGA Tour, Niemann also four additional top 10s, two of which were top 5s, and acquitted himself nicely at Augusta National with a 22nd-place finish when he didn’t have his strongest game.

He has all the tools capable of competing on a world-class level and has the distance to spare which suits Valhalla like a glove. While he isn’t the world's most accurate player, he also isn’t a slouch and should be able to give himself advantages other players can't. If his putter doesn’t give him fits, he should be in contention in Kentucky.

Niemann has one of the best correlated scores in course fit per the folks at Data Golf and has proven himself a winner on a large stage multiple times this year alone, regardless of what tour he’s on. Yet, he's priced as the 10th most likely golfer to win, while only Scheffler, McIlroy, and Koepka are the only three priced ahead of him that have logged a win this season.

Best odds: +3500 via FanDuel

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See where Neimann ranks in Esten McLaren's PGA Championship power rankings, and don't miss our PGA Championship long-shot picks for some longer odds this week.

PGA Championship top finishes

Top 5: Ludvig Aberg ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The only thing holding me back from making this a five-star selection is the unknown status of Aberg's knee injury which he chose to rest an additional week after pulling out of the Wells Fargo Championship before Round 1.

Aberg is every bit as advertised as golf's next megastar and has finished outside of the top 20 just once since January. Putting is the only statistical category in the last 16 rounds of tracked golf that he doesn’t rank within the top 10 of the PGA Championship field.

He is third on the PGA Tour in total driving and his unreal blend of length and accuracy is rivaled only by Scheffler and Min Woo Lee, and Lee hasn’t yet put together the rest of the pieces that both Scheffler and Aberg have.

Aberg was runner up to Scheffler for the green jacket in his first ever major. He won a Ryder Cup in the fall and has the pedigree and mentality for majors. Getting 4-1 odds on one of the absolute best players on the planet at a course that fits him like glove feels like stealing. It’s just that darn knee - monitor that status as we approach Thursday.

Best odds: +400 via Caesars

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Top 10: Sepp Straka ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

If only Straka were a little longer off the tee, I’d probably try and shoehorn him in even higher. Still, these are incredible odds for a player ranking in the top 10 of the field in accuracy, ball striking, and approach. He's also top 20 in the field in strokes gained: putting, off-the-tee, and tee-to-green. He is sixth in my full field trend table (again, measures which players are coming in hot) and has played scalding hot golf over the past two months.

Straka has logged two top 10s in consecutive weeks and two additional top 20s out of his past five tournaments. His two top 10s come in elevated events and a 16th-place finish at this year's first major. You can even get a favorable +250 price tag on a top 20 finish, if you want to play it a little safer.

Best odds: +750 via bet365

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Top 20: Cam Davis ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Davis enters the PGA Championship with two middling performances in signature events with the Wells Fargo and RBC Heritage. With Heritage, Harbour Town is not a course that suits Davis’ game at all, and Quail Hollow saw improvement from the lengthy Australian. 

Davis’ averages nearly 300 yards off the tee and ranks in the top 15% on the PGA Tour in total driving (accuracy + distance). The strength and confidence of the pick is in such long odds for a player who logged a 12th-place finish in the Masters, so he has the major pedigree entering a course that should fit his game well.

Best odds: +500 via BetMGM

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Top 30: Tom Hoge ⭐⭐⭐

Lack of distance is my biggest concern with Hoge and the fact it will be his first major of the year after not playing the Masters. However, Hoge has missed only one cut on the season and has played in every Signature Event on the season. He ranks in the top quarter of the field in SG: approach, ball striking, and tee-to-green and is well within the top third of the field in putting.

Tremendously accurate off the tee, he should be playing from the short stuff frequently, as well. Hoge has eight top 30 finishes in 14 events, which is an outstanding clip, especially at this price north of 3-1.

Best odds: +320 via FanDuel

Top 40: Ben Griffin ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Griffin ranks in the top half of the field in every major statistical category (except SG: off-the-tee, which is affected by his middle-of-the-pack distance) which is tracked within his recent performances. He’s in the top quarter of the full field trend table, which means his game is sharp - as evidenced by making seven cuts in his last nine events.

He has not finished outside the top 40 in his past four events spanning back nearly two months and his upper echelon putting and approach game should keep him within striking distance of the top 40.

Best odds: +275 via bet365

PGA Championship betting pages

How to bet on golf

Betting on golf involves understanding the various types of bets available and how to assess player performance. First, familiarize yourself with the different types of bets commonly offered in golf, including outright winner bets, each-way bets (which cover both a win and a top finish), head-to-head matchups between two players, and proposition bets on specific events within a tournament, such as hole-in-one occurrences or individual player performances on certain holes.

Once you've identified the types of bets you're interested in, research the players, course conditions, recent form, and other relevant factors that could influence outcomes. Pay attention to factors like player statistics, recent tournament performances, course history, and any injuries or changes in form that may affect a player's performance.

Here are our best golf betting sites:

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Written By:
Topher Smith
Topher Smith has been playing fantasy sports for nearly two decades and that passion with his background in writing and communications led him to cover his two passions - hockey and golf. He's been writing for the past 10-plus years as a freelancer, and he covers golf independently from a data-driven perspective to gain key insight on matching course to golfer in daily fantasy sports and within the betting markets.