The PGA Championship is wide open heading into the final round at Aronimink, where Jon Rahm and Ludvig Aberg are staring down an inexperienced leader.
Golf betting tips: PGA Championship round four
3pts Jon Rahm to win the PGA Championship at 6/1 (Unibet - 11/2 general)
2pt double Scheffler and Lee to win their two-balls at 6/4 (William Hill, 888sport)
2pt double Aberg and Rahm to win their two-balls at 6/4 (bet365, betway)
1pt four-fold Scheffler, Lee, Aberg and Rahm at 5/1 (General)
The theory goes that with each passing round of any golf tournament, we inch closer to finding out who wins it. That, along with a few others, has been blown out of the water by the PGA Championship at Aronimink, which is as open now as it has ever been.
With just 18 holes to go, Alex Smalley is about the same price Scottie Scheffler was at the beginning of the week, despite being two ahead. He’s the marginal favourite from JON RAHM and Ludvig Aberg, part of a big share of second, with Rory McIlroy next. He’s now within striking distance from three back and into single-figure prices.
Smalley though won’t play with any of those titans this evening, paired instead with Matti Schmid, and you’ll do well to find a less decorated final group in a major championship. Between them they’ve almost 250 PGA Tour starts without a win to show for them; neither has won a tour-level event as a professional.
That makes for a fascinating conclusion made more complex by the variety and number of players in the mix. Also tied for second are Nick Taylor and Aaron Rai, while Patrick Reed, Xander Schauffele, and Maverick McNealy are alongside McIlroy to round out the top 10.
It’s very hard to know what to expect but while Smalley fought back admirably from a rocky start on Saturday, this is something else entirely. He’s won nothing of note since his amateur days (though his success then included titles here in Pennsylvania) and, more significantly, ranks first in putting. His long-game has been no better than good.
That goes against the grain not just of the PGA Championship but majors in general and while these fearsome greens could take us all the way to a winner who holed everything he looked at for four days, there’s a good chance the putts dry up today. Even without a world-class golfer across the tee box, this is an enormous challenge for a 29-year-old who has never held a 54-hole lead in his life as a professional.
Schmid adds to the strange vibes of this tournament as you will go along time before coming across another member of a final two-ball who can be backed at 28/1-plus, but he too has no winning form as a professional and this seems a question of which more established players can mount a challenge.
We have Aberg on-side and he’s been the clear best player in the field from tee-to-green. He really ought to be in that final group, having ranked 68th in putting on Saturday, missing countless chances and somehow making bogey having stood over a 15-foot birdie chance early in the back-nine.
Whether that club can come to life in time will determine whether it’s now or sometime in the future that he wins one of these and it’s a similar story for Rahm, second in the tee-to-green stats but quiet on the greens. My view is that he is the most likely winner and with a strong each-way bet on Aberg already advised, some cover makes sense.
But let’s be clear about tonight: this is going to be a fantastic spectacle, one with any number of viable outcomes, including that Smalley keeps them all at bay. Given what we’ve seen from Aronimink, the thin line between outcomes, surely nobody could hold a strong view as to how this is settled in the end, except to say that it’ll be well worth watching.
It’s been a disappointing week for two- and three-ball selections, both of yesterday’s leading into the back-nine but well beaten in the end.
Today, SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER and MIN WOO LEE made for a likeable 5/2 double against David Puig and Max Greyserman respectively.
Scheffler suffered a horrendous putting day but won’t go down without a fight and is still dangerous here if getting on a roll early. That didn’t happen on Saturday as he missed from inside five feet on the first but despite being about five shots worse than Puig on the greens, he shot the same score as the Spaniard.
Lee’s putter hasn’t really fired this week but he signed off round three with a lengthy birdie putt and this is a fantastic golf course for him. Power has in the end still been a key factor, if not to the extent anticipated, and his short-game is among the very best in the sport.
When his irons fire the Aussie is world-class and as they’ve been better than Greyserman’s he’s a strong fancy to pull clear of an out-of-form PGA Tour maiden with limited experience in majors.
Among the later groups, RAHM and ABERG can outclass shorter-hitting opponents who are in the mix at this level for the first time.
Rai folded timely in the Myrtle Beach Classic just last week while Taylor, a fairly frequent PGA Tour winner, may find it tough to keep pace with a charging Rahm. So far the Canadian hasn’t translated his form to majors and his driving may be found out in the end.
Posted at 08:45 BST on 17/05/26
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