PGA Championship Preview: Picks, Key Stats & Players to Watch at Aronimink

Aronimink Golf Club

Par: 70

Yardage: 7,394

Greens: Bentgrass

 

Key Stats 

• Strokes Gained: Approach
• Strokes Gained: Off the Tee – accurate 
• Scrambling 

 

We find ourselves in Western PA for the second major of the year. Scottie Scheffler ran away with last year's PGA Championship, and while we haven’t seen that form from him this season he is still the big favorite coming into the week. With a lot of bunkers around the course, accuracy and being able to scramble are big time keys for me as we approach the weekend. 

 

Cam Young 

 

Young has been a regular in this blog for me this season, and I’ve been saving him in my OAD pool for a time like this. He’s been the most consistently good golfer this year in my opinion, and this is yet another set-up that suits his game well. Young has completely transformed his iron play this season into the elite of the elite tier. He’s primed to pop off in a major at some point and I’m going to back him until he does. 

 

Ludvig Aberg

 

I was on Aberg pretty heavily last week, and I’m going right back to the well here in PA. My model loves him again, and after a disaster start to the season he has been playing extremely consistent golf as of late. Per datagolf he’s top-20 in this field in all of the major strokes gained metrics over the last month and he has been in the hunt plenty of times in majors – this could be the spot for him to finally put it all together. 

 

Nicolai Hojgaard 

 

I haven’t written up Hojgaard in a bit, but he still fits the mold in that second or third tier of golfers for me that are live any week. He’s one of the best ball strikers in the field and like many of these younger players, the putter is what consistently holds him back. He’s shown that he can compete in good fields – but we haven’t seen him string it all together on the PGA Tour quite yet. It’s tough for me to see him getting his first win here, but if the putter is on he will be in the mix on the weekend and I’ll take my chances once again at these numbers.