The 2024 PGA Championship starts today and it should be incredibly exciting. We have PGA and LIV golfers both competing in this one so tensions will be high, and pride will be on the line. Brooks Koepka won last year, making him the first LIV golfer to win a major championship while actively playing outside the PGA Tour. Phil Mickelson won the year before but had not joined LIV at that point despite rumors swirling around that he was close to a deal.
This will be a chance for the PGA Tour players to win it back and it comes at a time when it doesn’t seem like the PGA and LIV can work out a deal that they had established to keep the sport of golf together.
Big Storylines
Can Scottie keep it up? – Scottie Scheffler is the hottest player in the world right now. He won at Augusta to claim his second green jacket, and he has four wins this season. He welcomed a son on May 8, which certainly changes your lifestyle, and it will be interesting to see if he can stay hot with all the distractions now at home.
Is Rory back? – Rory McIlroy has won the last two starts he made on the PGA Tour. He did that once before leading up to the PGA Championship and he just happened to win. That was in 2014 when it was played at Valhalla…where it happens to be played this year. That PGA Championship 10 years ago was the last major that Rory won. What a story it would be to repeat now.
How will LIV fare? Brooks Koepka has the third best betting odds to win this weekend and he is the reigning champ. He has played well on LIV this season and we all know that Koepka loves showing up for the big moments and major championships. He tied Rory last year for major wins and those two will likely be battling it out all weekend long.
Who is in contention?
I’ve just named the three biggest fish in the pond in Scheffler, McIlroy, and Koepka but there are plenty of other golfers who you must respect. Jon Rahm is always lurking and is hoping to tally up more major championships. Rahm still hasn’t won a PGA Championship and it’s certainly on his bucket list.
Two PGA Golfers who will be tough to knock off as they are playing great golf are Collin Morikawa and Xander Schauffele. Morikawa has finished top 20 in his final three events and was T3 at the Masters. Schauffele came in second last weekend at the Wells Fargo Championship and has finished in the top five in his last five starts.
Prediction
A fairy tale ending here would be Rory McIlroy fighting off a LIV golfer to claim another major championship, his first in 10 years and finally end his drought. He has been playing well and loves this course.
But I am going with Max Homa this weekend. He was T3 at Augusta, has been showing up in majors recently and his game has improved immensely over the last two years. Now is his time for a major win.