2025 PGA Championship Pool Picks: Favorites, Sleepers & Value Plays

Value picks and data-driven strategies to give you an edge in tier-based pools for the 2025 PGA Championship at Quail Hollow.

Welcome to our PGA Championship Pool Picks Strategy article for 2025. In this article, we will update with news and information to consider when making your PGA Championship picks for your golf majors pools and other contests.

As we add new content throughout this week, we will link it in this section.

• Pick Strategies for Your PGA Championship Pick X Entries – Posted Wednesday, May 14
• Portfolio Advice and Building Your PGA Championship Entries – Posted Wednesday, May 14
• Potential PGA Championship Value Picks – Posted Tuesday, May 13
• Top 15 Favorites at 2025 PGA Championship – Posted Monday, May 12
• Best Golfers at Quail Hollow (Last 4 Years) – Posted Monday, May 12
• Majors Pool Strategy Articles – Posted Monday, May 12

Strategies for PGA Championship Pick X Pools

This section is for you if you play in a pool where you can pick golfers but are not restricted by putting them into tiers. This could include Majors pools, nominally designated as “One and Done” pools, which allow you to pick 3-5 (or more) golfers in each major.

We also have a strategy article for these types of pools, which you should review if you are in one. We will build on that by discussing some specific golfers for the 2025 PGA Championship options.

For PGA Championship-Only Pools or When Golfers Can Be Reused

If you are making picks ONLY for the PGA Championship, or your picks in this tournament do not impact how you can pick in the future, then this section is for your pool.

Follow the Rule of 24

The advice in our strategy article was to focus on the “Rule of 24” when making your picks. What we mean by that is to generally limit yourself to picks from among the Top 24 golfers in the field.

That means we will mostly limit picks from among the golfers in the 2025 PGA Championship who have win odds of +6600 or better. If you look at the Data Grid with all the golfers, we will consider golfers like Daniel Berger, Jason Day, and Russell Henley to represent the outer bounds of the golfers in consideration.

If you have to pick three golfers, you will choose one out of every eight golfers. If you have to pick five golfers, it will be roughly one out of every five golfers from among the Top 25.

Match Picks to Pool Size

Let pool size and payout structure dictate how unique you get and whether your picks are skewed toward the top contenders or mix in more of the guys in the 15-24 range in tournament odds.

Small Pools: If you are in a small pool, it’s fine to be a little heavier on picking from among the Top 12 golfers. If you are picking five golfers and are in a pool with only 50 entries, it is perfectly reasonable to have 3-4 of the Top 12 guys in odds on your entry.

Large Pools: If you are instead in a pool with 5,000 entries and only the top 1-2% cash, you may want to have more like two or three of the top 12 and have the rest of your picks be at lower popularity from the next tier.

Which Golfers Will Be Relative Fades or Values?

Among the Top 12, in a pool where you can reuse golfers, Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, and Bryson DeChambeau are in their own tier when it comes to both their odds and high popularity.

If you do not have to pick these guys, the pick you do make has to outperform them if you hope to win. So you have to be selective about which ones you avoid.

You should almost certainly have at least one of them in your pick set. If you have more than three picks to make, you might consider having two of them on an entry. At really small pool sizes and contests that require a lot of picks, you may want to include all three, even at high popularity, making it a contest where your other picks will have to win you the pool. If any of these three finish in the top 10, you are probably going to regret avoiding them.

Among the other golfers:

• Justin Thomas is the most popular of the next tier.
• Collin Morikawa is the least popular among golfers with similar odds in the next tier.
• Hideki Matsuyama and Patrick Cantlay are relatively more popular among golfers, with a 2% chance of winning.
• Tyrell Hatton and Viktor Hovland are a little less popular in that same group.

If You Cannot Reuse Golfers in Other Majors (Like a One and Done)

If you are playing in this type of pool but can use a golfer only once, that can impact the popularity and value plays.

If Your Pool Started With The Players Championship or The Masters

Scheffler and Morikawa were likely the most popular picks if your pool started with The Players Championship. Meanwhile, McIlroy probably showed up on many of the leading entries as the tournament winner (and those entries now cannot pick him for The Masters).

If your pool started at The Masters, those three were also likely among the most popular picks. Bryson DeChambeau was relatively less popular then, but that should just increase his popularity now, based on availability, for the PGA Championship.

If you have jumped out to a lead (by having McIlroy at the Masters or the Players Championship), you probably want to consider DeChambeau within your pick set now, and lean into some of the relatively more popular secondary picks, like Justin Thomas or Patrick Cantlay.

If you are trailing, Collin Morikawa is going to be the least popular and thus highest leverage pick to potentially come back if he contends. Jon Rahm is also relatively less popular compared to his odds. Picking McIlroy also makes a lot of sense as the leading entries probably already used him.

If Your Pool Starts Now

If you cannot reuse golfers, but are starting fresh, you need to consider your relative pool size.

In smaller pools, it may be fine to go with some popular picks, like DeChambeau, and play it more conservatively out of the gate.

If it is a larger pool, you should probably look to add more uniqueness in your picks. Balance using the top golfers (at most two of DeChambeau, Scheffler, McIlroy, Thomas, Schauffele, Morikawa, or Rahm) with mixing in some golfers with lower projected popularity, like Hatton, Hovland, Straka, Lowry, Berger, or Day.

Portfolio Advice and Building Your PGA Championship Entries

We have specific tier-by-tier pick recommendation options in our Golf Majors & Masters Picks product, based on how conservative or contrarian you want to be.

We currently list four pick set options in the product:

• Conservative: The best relative win odds within each tier
• Balanced: A blend of tier win odds and popularity, based on pool size and reflecting the top grades overall
• Aggressive: Similar to “Balanced” but with more emphasis on lower popularity
• Contrarian: The best win odds among the golfers who have below-average projected tier pick popularity

You can combine these categories to build entries as well. For example, building around some of the bigger favorites into your pool is a solid strategy, as long as you balance it.

For an analogy to another pool type, imagine making a popular NCAA tournament champion pick with relatively high win odds in a March Madness pool but adding in some unpopular value plays to the Final Four to differentiate your entry from the crowd.

So you could build an entry that balances some of the favorites in the “Conservative” pick set with some of the “Contrarian” or “Aggressive” picks in other tiers to create your unique entry. Our grades are designed to reflect pool size and payout structure, so you will naturally see some more contrarian/less popular plays rise in grade in the largest pool sizes compared to smaller ones. You can still use these categories to build out entries.

Building Portfolios For Multiple Entries

If you play multiple entries, you can build them with differentiated key picks and shared picks in other tiers.

For instance, you could build multiple entries, including 1-2 of the “Conservative” picks with those from the other pick sets, and alternate which tier you use the more conservative favorites from.

If you’re playing multiple entries in a pool, we suggest being a little more diverse in your final tier, especially if it includes the entire rest of the field.

While you don’t need to get too crazy in how far down the list you go, you also don’t want to be heavily concentrated on one of the longer shots that could sink several of your entries with a bad performance.

Specific Tiers and Builds for the 2025 PGA Championship

While every contest could have a slightly different tier structure, most are similar, with the biggest contenders in the top tier and then working down.

So, we thought we would discuss some potential strategies for building out tiers. For this exercise, we will use Splash Sports’ 8-tier structure for some of their contests, but a lot of the discussion should still apply to slightly different golfer tiers and total number of tiers.

Tier 1

Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy are the most popular picks, but that popularity is a bit lower than The Masters, with both projected in the mid-30% range in this tier. Bryson DeChambeau is also drawing picks. Overall, we project 85% of the public picks in this tier to be on one of the top three.

Of course, in a strokes-based scoring system, you have to consider whether you want to go contrarian or not, or try to win the pool with other tier picks, while going with one of the top three here.

We typically grade the top three as the better options here, but that may shift a bit in the largest of pools. You also may want to play it differently in a pool where you have already started at The Masters and the standings are cumulative, and you are trailing by a fair amount so far.

Tiers 2 and 3

These two tiers are more balanced in terms of both win odds and pick popularity, though we do see some popularity differences worth exploring.

Viktor Hovland and Tyrell Hatton are two golfers in Tier 2 who have both slightly above average win odds for the group, and below average popularity. Tommy Fleetwood, meanwhile, is slightly ahead of the others in win odds, though he is more popular. He makes the most sense on smaller pool entries.

In Tier 3, over half of the picks are expected to be on Sung-Jae Im, Daniel Berger, and Patrick Reed. That presents a value opportunity on some other golfers, especially in larger pools. Jason Day, Justin Rose, and Wyndham Clark are three golfers in this tier with at least average win odds, but low popularity.

Tiers 4 and 5

These tiers are extremely flat in terms of win odds, so popularity can be more of a driver here. In Masters pools, these tiers produced some of the biggest leverage picks, as Justin Rose and his 2nd-place finish, while others in the tier missed the cut, was likely vital for top finishers.

Just as with the Masters, most of these guys have “make the cut” odds in the 60%-70% range, so there are likely to be a couple of groups that produce quite the range of outcomes, from missed cut penalties to top-10 finishes this year. So, hitting on those better outcomes could be key.

You could either take a concentrated approach (hoping you hit the couple of golfers that perform relatively best from these tiers) or more of a balanced approach, where you take concentrated bets on key golfers in the earlier tiers, and then try to pair them with some combos here, hoping a couple end up working out well for your portfolio.

Some of the value options include Cameron Smith and Akshay Bhatia, who may be less popular based on minimal course history, and Will Zalatoris, who is the least popular here, but has odds similar to others, and may be getting the “he disappointed at the Masters after being popular” reaction.

Tier 6 and Beyond

Once you get to Tier 6 or higher (for pools with more tiers), these golfers’ odds of making the cut are under 60% (and in some cases well under 50%).

From a game theory perspective, you probably want to go with your best odds, with a big caveat. Avoiding the most popular picks here can have outsized value. For example:

• We project Davis Thompson’s popularity to be 30% and Harris English’s popularity to be 22% in Tiers 6 and 7 at Splash.
• That creates lots of leverage to pick someone else with similar win odds, like Matt Fitzpatrick, Rickie Fowler, or Andrew Novak in Tier 6, or Rasmus Hojgaard or Gary Woodland in Tier 7.
• Avoiding the most popular picks can set your entry up to benefit greatly if those popular picks, who have a high “missed cut” risk, flounder, and you can hit on a different golfer in the same tier.

We would not go too far down the odds list in the search for complete uniqueness, but avoiding a couple of the most popular plays typically makes sense in this range.

Potential PGA Championship Value Picks

Here are some early value picks for the PGA Championship, based on pick data and common tier setups in popular pools. Keep in mind that these suggestions are tied to general tier defaults in our Golf Majors & Masters Picks Optimizer. Depending on your specific pool’s tier structure and size, some golfers below may not appear as strong options in your customized picks.

For example, a golfer with the lowest win odds in a tier usually won’t be graded highly, even if he’s unpopular. But place that same golfer in a different tier, where he has a better shot at outperforming the rest, and his low popularity combined with stronger upside could make him a strategic play.

For the most specific advice, set up your pool at Golf Majors & Masters Picks. With that caveat, here are some intriguing potential value picks:

1. Scottie Scheffler

It’s pretty rare to get Scottie Scheffler as a value pick. Value here is relative, but Scheffler gives you one of the tournament favorites, and compared to other majors tiers over the last few years, he is relatively less popular than he has been at any point. Granted, he is still plenty popular, but Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau are splitting more of the “votes.”

Scheffler has had more arrests (1) than PGA Championship wins (0) so far, and he has also not played Quail Hollow recently, including sitting out last year’s Wells Fargo Championship for the birth of his son. The course, though, should not be detrimental to his game.

While you will need to hit on some of the other lower tiers, Scheffler makes a lot of sense as a top-of-tier pick on entries.

2. Tyrell Hatton

Tyrrell Hatton joined the LIV Tour two years ago. Unlike some bigger names on that circuit, he isn’t a former major winner and doesn’t come with the same level of hype. As a result, his pick popularity is usually lower than other golfers with similar odds.

He missed the cut when the PGA Championship was held at Quail Hollow (2017). In his most recent start at the course, the 2023 Wells Fargo Championship, Hatton bounced back by shooting 12-under and finishing third.

3. Will Zalatoris

It’s funny how quickly a golfer can go from popular to overlooked. Will Zalatoris was a trendy pick at The Masters thanks to his strong course history, but after missing the cut there, interest has cooled. Now he’s showing up in lower tiers and with lower pick rates compared to others in the same group.

The Masters was his only missed cut this season, but he’s now missed the cut in three straight majors. That said, he finished runner-up at the 2022 PGA Championship, losing to Justin Thomas in a playoff. If he finds his form this week, he could be a valuable differentiator in larger pools. There’s risk based on recent results, but every golfer in his tier carries some of that. The difference is that Zalatoris is coming in at about half the popularity of the players around him.

PGA Championship Odds: Top 15 Favorites

The PGA Championship betting odds and tournament win percentages will be displayed on the Data Grid on Monday. Throughout the day, it will populate with information like betting and popularity data.

Here are the top 15 (and ties) in betting odds to win the 2025 PGA Championship:

• Scottie Scheffler +400
• Rory McIlroy +450
• Bryson DeChambeau +950
• Jon Rahm +1800
• Xander Schauffele +2000
• Justin Thomas +2000
• Collin Morikawa +2200
• Ludvig Aberg +2200
• Joaquin Niemann +3500
• Tyrell Hatton +4500
• Brooks Koepka +4500
• Patrick Cantlay +4500
• Tommy Fleetwood +4500
• Hideki Matsuyama +4500
• Viktor Hovland +4500

If you are one of our Majors & Masters subscribers, you’ll see the odds of each golfer winning their respective tier, based on the tiers you’ve set up.

PGA Championship Picks: Sifting Through the Favorites

We cover course history in more detail below, but it’s worth noting that the PGA Championship is somewhat unique this year. While Quail Hollow hasn’t hosted this major since 2017, it’s a regular stop on the PGA Tour, typically for the Truist Championship. Although last week’s Truist event was held at the Philadelphia Cricket Club (since Quail Hollow is hosting the PGA Championship), many players in the field have recent experience here from previous years.

The top of the odds board sees some familiar favorites who have been contending and winning majors recently:

• Scottie Scheffler, the betting favorite, got his first 2025 win in his last start two weeks ago at the Byron Nelson Classic.
• Rory McIlroy is just behind Scheffler and has won both The Players Championship and The Masters so far in 2025.
• Bryson DeChambeau was in the final pairing with McIlroy at The Masters. DeChambeau finished 2nd at this event last year, before winning the 2024 U.S. Open.
• Xander Schauffele won the PGA Championship a year ago and followed it up with a win at The Open. He battled an injury early this year, but is rounding into form with three straight Top 20s at bigger events, though he has yet to be in real contention.
• Justin Thomas is back as one of the top golfers on the Tour with a great 2025. He won the RBC Championship last month and just finished in the Top 5 last week.

It’s worth pointing out that the odds of winning the PGA Championship drop significantly after the top eight contenders.

Best Golfers at Quail Hollow: Last Four Years

Quail Hollow is hosting the PGA Championship for the first time since 2017, but has been the regular annual host of the Wells Fargo Championship (which became the Truist Championship in 2025).

If you look at our Data Grid, you will see two sets of historical information. You will see Course History Strokes Gained. That is the Strokes Gained scores for that golfer at Quail Hollow. You will also see Tournament Previous Finishes. Those finish ranks are for the last four years at the PGA Championship.

So, while the course history and tournament finishes match up for most tournaments, they provide two different data sets this year. You can see how the golfer has done playing in the PGA Championship and how they have done at Quail Hollow.

Quail Hollow: Strokes Gained Leaders (Last 6 Years)

If we limit it to golfers who have played at least eight rounds in the last six years at Quail Hollow, here are the leaders in Strokes Gained over that span:

• Xander Schauffele: +3.6
• Rory McIlroy: +3.2
• Tommy Fleetwood: +2.4
• Adam Scott: +2.2
• Max Homa: +2.2
• Patrick Reed: +2.0
• Corey Conners: +1.9
• Justin Thomas: +1.9
• Viktor Hovland: +1.9
• Keith Mitchell: +1.9

Schauffele has finished top two here in his last two starts. McIlroy won the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow last year (and also in 2010, 2015, and 2021), and his last major win before this year’s Masters was also at the 2017 PGA Championship.

Interestingly, Scottie Scheffler has never played an individual tournament at Quail Hollow. He did play the 2022 President’s Cup here, going 0-3-1 combined in team and individual matches.

LIV golfers Tyrell Hatton (tied for 3rd in 2023), Bryson DeChambeau (tied for 9th in 2021), and Sergio Garcia (tied for 4th in 2019) played well here in their last starts at the course but have a more limited history since moving to LIV.

PGA Championship Majors Strategy Articles

We have written a Majors pool strategy article on how to think about tier-based Majors pools, which require picking golfers from different groupings. If you haven’t read it, you should review it, as some concepts will be discussed here.

We also have an article on strategies to consider when playing in “Pick X” type pools. In these pools, you do not have to select from within tiers, and the entire field is available, but you pick a preset number of total golfers, like Pick 5 or Pick 8 for the PGA Championship.

These articles complement the customized pick advice and data in our Golf Majors & Masters Picks product, which allows you to get advice after organizing specific golfers into tiers in your pool.

Depending on which golfers are grouped in tiers, each pool may have different value picks. We cannot cover every possibility in an article, but we hope to highlight some key strategies (and players, as we get into PGA Championship week).