The last time the PGA Championship was played at the Ocean Course on Kiawah Island, South Carolina, it was as if Rory McIlroy got lost and ended up playing a different golf course. The four-time major championship winner won by eight shots in 2012 on a Pete Dye-designed layout that Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee described earlier this week as “the hardest golf course in the world.”
McIlroy shot 13 under par that week, with the runner-up David Lynn at five-under and the cut line was at six over par. For 2021, over 200 yards have potentially been added to the length of the course, stretching it to 7,876 yards, the longest in major championship history.
It’s unlikely that the Ocean Course will play to that length since the PGA has indicated that they could use multiple tee locations on as many as 14 holes. However, it is still going to present a strong challenge to 156 of the best players in the world, including 20 club pros that qualified through their finishes in the PGA Club Professionals Championship.
Jordan Spieth comes into the PGA Championship at +1400 as he looks to complete the career grand slam.
Last Year at TPC Harding Park
The 2020 PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco was moved to August due to Covid-19 and was won by Collin Morikawa after he shot a brilliant 64 in his final round to defeat Paul Casey and Dustin Johnson by two shots. It was Morikawa’s third PGA Tour title, and he has since added a fourth by winning the WGC – Workday Championship at The Concession in February.
Betting Odds for the 2021 PGA Championship
The scary part about Rory McIlroy, who in some ways is the defending champion, at least at the Ocean Course, is that he just won for the third time at the Wells Fargo Championship on the familiar Quail Hollow Club, and now he returns to the site of one of his most dominating victories. As the favorite at +1100, the two-time PGA Championship winner should be very dangerous this week over a layout he mastered the last time the 32-year-old Irishman played there.
Justin Thomas, at +1300, is a former PGA Champion, winning in 2017 at Quail Hollow by two shots over Patrick Reed, Louis Oosthuizen, and Francesco Molinari. The reigning Players champion is ranked second in both the FedEx Cup standings and the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR) but is coming off an unspectacular stretch of four tournaments where his best finish is a tie for 13th at the Valspar Championship.
At +1400 in the futures, odds are Jon Rahm, third in the OWGR and looking for his first major championship along with Jordan Spieth, who snapped out of a three-year slump with a win at the Valero Texas Open and is trying to complete the career Grand Slam. Bryson DeChambeau is next at +1500, but the winner of the U.S. Open in September and the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March hasn’t seemed sharp the last few weeks, despite sitting atop the FedEx Cup standings.
Other players of note are Dustin Johnson, number one in the OWGR at +1700, slumping but always popular Rickie Fowler at +16000, Sergio Garcia at +11000, defending champion Collin Morikawa at +2800 and one of last year’s runners up, Paul Casey, with odds of +5500.
