Golf’s second men’s major of the year, the US PGA Championship, will get under way on Thursday at the Southern Hills Country Club – and without defending champion Phil Mickelson.
The six-time major winner has been taking a break from the sport since the “fall-out from his explosive comments” about the PGA Tour and the Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf Series, said Sky Sports. He also missed the Masters Tournament for the first time in 28 years and has not played since February.
With his exile from golf continuing, Mickelson’s absence “looms large” over the 104th PGA Championship, said Tom Kershaw in The Independent. It has been the “major talking point” as players prepared for Southern Hills, “even more so than the appearance of Tiger Woods”.
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It was “inevitable” that Woods would be asked about the breakaway LIV Golf Series and his long-time rival Mickelson, said Matt Cooper on PlanetSport. And when it happened “he did not pull any punches”.
“I understand different viewpoints”, Woods said, but “I believe in legacies, I believe in major championships and big events, comparisons to historical figures of the past”. When asked about Mickelson he added that it’s “always disappointing when the defending champion is not here”, but “Phil has said some things that I think a lot of us who are committed to the Tour and the legacy of the Tour have pushed back against”.
1. Groups to watch and TV details
One of the groups to watch in the first and second rounds will be Woods, Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth – who between them have won 22 major championships. Another “marquee” group is Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm and Collin Morikawa, “the top three in the world”, said the BBC. In the rest of the field, high-profile groups include Brooks Koepka, Shane Lowry and Adam Scott, and the all-US trio of Patrick Cantlay, Dustin Johnson and Justin Thomas.
The 2022 PGA Championship will be shown live in the UK on Sky Sports Golf, all times BST:
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Thursday 19 May: first round live (1pm to 1am)
Friday 20 May: second round live (1pm to 1am)
Saturday 21 May: third round live (2pm to 12am)
Sunday 22 May: final round live (2pm to 12am)
2. Pundit predictions: who will win?
Masters champion Scottie Scheffler is one of the favourites
(Image credit: Andrew Redington/Getty Images)
Staff at PGATour.com have been selecting their picks for the winner of the PGA Championship. World No.1 Scottie Scheffler, the reigning Masters champion, is backed by Sean Martin to lift the Wanamaker Trophy. Scheffler has already won a Big 12 title at Southern Hills, so winning a major here “should be a piece of cake”, Martin said. Rory McIlroy won his fourth, and last, major at the PGA Championship in 2014. The “drought ends, fittingly”, said Cameron Morfit, it’s the major that’s been “the absolute best fit” for the Northern Irishman.
Jordan Spieth has had to wait “a long time to earn another major”, said Ash Wheldon on The Stats Zone. But the 28-year-old’s form over the past year “suggests that he could be in contention to complete a career grand slam” this weekend. Another top tip is Hideki Matsuyama, the 2021 Masters winner. The Japanese star “appears to have put his injury issues behind him” and a fourth Tour win in just over a year “would not be a shock”.
The Analyst’s AI-powered FRACAS modelling projects “who’s most likely to win the title, who’s in great shape to finish in the top 10 and which golfers are suited to the course to make the cut”. And according to the stats, Jon Rahm is favourite with a 7.4% win probability, followed by Justin Thomas (5.9%), Rory McIlroy (4.8%) and Patrick Cantlay (4.7%).
It would appear that we’re in for a “wild” PGA Championship week, “full of unexpected twists and turns but also a lot of familiar names atop the leaderboard”, said CBS Sport. Kyle Porter, the network’s senior golf writer, has tipped Irishman Shane Lowry to win this weekend. Lowry is “not often talked about as a star or superstar of the sport”, Porter said. “This week might change that.”
There’s a “Viktor Hovland debate” happening on GolfDigest. The 24-year-old Norwegian is yet to win a major, but is highly fancied by the magazine’s experts. “Everything’s lining up for Hovland’s first major”, said the Anonymous Caddie. “His only weakness is his pitching and chipping, which won’t be as much a factor this week.” Hovland has “somehow become the forgotten man among the elites”, said Pat Mayo. “Yes, it’s going to be devastating when he chips himself out of contention late noon Sunday afternoon, but his ball striking is so good that he’s not going to be scrambling nearly as much as the field.”
3. Betting odds
Scottie Scheffler is the bookies’ favourite to win at Southern Hills, according to Oddschecker. Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth are all highly fancied.
Mike Starling is the former digital features editor at The Week. He started his career in 2001 in Gloucestershire as a sports reporter and sub-editor and has held various roles as a writer and editor at news, travel and B2B publications. He has spoken at a number of sports business conferences and also worked as a consultant creating sports travel content for tourism boards. International experience includes spells living and working in Dubai, UAE; Brisbane, Australia; and Beirut, Lebanon.
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