The PGA Championship 2024 Chalk 💣

Severe weather has already disrupted this week’s proceedings as practice rounds and even press availabilities were postponed on Tuesday. More rain expected Wednesday will have the course nice and soft ahead of round one before even more weather rolls in on Friday. Much like the third round at Oak Hill last year, the second round could be a real slog — so players that can take advantage of the easy conditions on Thursday will be well positioned going into the weekend.

For final analysis on weather advantages and tee times, make sure you tune into the Nut Hut live chat starting around 9pm ET for the latest and final thoughts on the weather this week...GET IN THERE

Xander Schauffele -231 ($10,900) vs. Brooks Koepka +180 ($10,800)

We usually don’t feature the very top of the price sheet, but even with just a $1k difference in DFS pricing, the mismatch in betting odds is too great not to point out. The sharp overseas oddsmakers have Xander Schauffele as a MASSIVE favorite over 72 holes against defending champ Brooks Koepka.

Koepka is one of a few relevant names who was here for the 2014 PGA where he finished a very respectable T15 in just his fourth major start. While this will be Xander’s first trip to Valhalla, the 30-year-old has proven he has the game for these types of events with eight top-20 finishes in his last nine appearances in the US Open and PGA Championship.

Both of these guys are among the most popular DFS plays this week as according to our Nut Hut ownership projections available in the Discord, Brooks is expected to be in over 17% of lineups while Xander is closer to 15%

Tommy Fleetwood -129 ($8700) vs. Patrick Cantlay +106 ($10,000)

We’ve got a huge disparity between DFS pricing and betting odds with Tommy Fleetwood and Patrick Cantlay as the latter is a big underdog in a 72-hole matchup despite a $1300 difference in price tag on DraftKings.

Of the two, Fleetwood is the only one who was present for the 2014 edition at Valhalla, but the Englishman missed the cut in what was his first career major start. As for history on similar setups, these guys have a combined eight top-25 finishes in the PGA/US Open over the last three seasons.

The public seems to be tailing the bookies here as Fleetwood is by far the more popular play with roughly 12% ownership while Cantlay is among the lower-owned players this week at 6%

Akshay Bhatia -124 ($7200) vs. Tom Kim +102 ($7800)

Lastly, let’s highlight Akshay Bhatia who the sharps have as a -124 favorite over Tom Kim in a 72-hole matchup despite the Korean’s higher DFS price.

Both hot shots are too young to have been here in 2014, but what about prior major experience? This week marks Akshay’s third-career major appearance with his best finish being a T35 in this year’s Masters. Meanwhile, Kim is making his 10th major start and he boasts two top-10 finishes from last year’s US Open and Open Championship.

According to our Nut Hut ownership projections, Bhatia is the more popular player at this price point at roughly 7% ownership while Kim is being avoided like the plague at around 2% owned.

*DISCLAIMER: The Chalk Bomb is CHALK for a reason! This is a ballsy call. We're simply giving you 1 player projected to be highly owned that we think could warrant a fade in order to gain leverage in DFS GPP Tournaments. Sack up & fade OR Ignore the play. 

It feels good to be back for the year’s second major after a strong Chalk Bomb showing at the Masters back in April.

A second-round 77 in Augusta saw our old pal Rory McIlroy reward those brave enough to fade him as he limped to a T22 finish — far from good value given his $10,800 price point and 17% ownership.

Much like Scottie Scheffler, yours truly is in position to capture the second leg of the ‘Chalk Bomb Slam’ with another successful fade at the second major of the year.

If you’re a newcomer to the Tour Junkies newsletters, the Chalk Bomb is all about identifying a player who will be a popular play in DFS that could be a good option to fade. Our self-imposed threshold limits us to players who are coming in at over 15% projected ownership according to our Nut Hut data available in the Tour Junkies Discord each week.

Usually, strong fields such as we have this week at Valhalla mean plenty of big names to choose from when selecting the Chalk Bomb, but Scheffler and McIlroy’s red-hot form is hoovering up all the ownership near the top of the board and leaving just three other players above the 15% ownership threshold: Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka and Xander Schauffele.

Now, I normally wouldn’t give away such a big hint so early in the column, but I thought it might be fun to see if you can guess which of the top five I’m selecting before we reach the full reveal (don’t scroll ahead you cheaters!)

If you know anything at all about Valhalla or the PGA Championship in general over the last few years, you know what types of players have a chance to be successful this week. Length off the tee, accuracy with long irons and a knack for avoiding trouble will all be required to win here just like we’ve seen at these major championships going back several years now.

For better or worse, the PGA has evolved into a bit of a ‘US Open lite’, and we can expect a similar challenge once again this week. With that said, we can almost guarantee that one of the top 20 or so players on the odds sheet will hoist the Wanamaker Trophy when all is said and done on Sunday.

But who won’t win? Taking a look at the models courtesy of our friends at Bet the Number, I’ve identified a big-name player who leaves a bit to be desired when looking at some of the key performance indicators at Valhalla.

Let’s start with Bogey Avoidance where this week’s Chalk Bomb ranks 86th in this week’s field over his last 20 rounds of ShotLink data. With thick rough and relatively few birdie holes out there, keeping the big numbers off the scorecard will be key to contending this week and that has me slightly nervous about this player.

The field will also need to take advantage of the Par 5s this week as they are some of the only true scoring opportunities, but that area isn’t exactly a strength either for our Chalk Bomb. Over his last 20 rounds, he ranks 110th in the field in Par 5 Scoring with an average of 4.78 strokes/hole. This is a bit surprising considering his ample length off the tee, but his ability to convert good drives into birdies has lacked as of late as he ranks 114th in the field in Greens in Regulation %.

At the risk of giving away another big hint here, it should be noted that these rankings are built with ShotLink data which is currently not available for LIV Golf events, but we can still glean some valuable intel from these numbers.

But there’s also plenty of data that points to this player winning this week. For instance: he ranks 11th or better in this week’s field in SG: OTT, ARG and Putting. Oh, and he’s the defending PGA champ and the best ‘hard setup’ player of this generation — maybe ever?

But as we referenced in our matchup section above, he’s also a massive underdog according to the sharp oddsmakers to the likes of Xander Schauffele, Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and even Bryson DeChambeau.

As the fifth-most expensive player in DFS and the third highest-owned per our projections at 17%, I’m prepared to risk it all and fade none other than Brooks Koepka as this week’s Chalk Bomb!

People that don’t have an “innie” belly button will never understand the struggles of keeping lint out of there.

It seems weird to wash your car at night, but there’s no reason you couldn’t do that.

Is a seedless watermelon a vegetable?

I wonder why there’s no polite comment for a cough like there is for a sneeze.

Even though the ends of our fingers don’t all line up, they do when you curl your fingers in. Science.

I am of the opinion that it’s BS we have to press the shift key for a question mark.

Alright, that’s all I got for this week for the 106th PGA Championship at Valhalla. May all your screens be green and we all bend over our bookies have their mouths washed out with soap. So it said, so let it be done. Bome!