Alright, folks, PGA Championship time again. Always gets me thinking about who might jump up and surprise people. Finding those ‘dark horses’ is half the fun, isn’t it? So, I thought I’d walk you through how I usually go about picking out a few potential longshots.
First thing I do is grab the full player list for the week. Just the names, nothing fancy yet. I scroll through it, get a feel for who’s actually teeing it up. You immediately see the big names, the favorites – your Scotties, Rorys, Jon Rahms, whatever. I mentally set those guys aside. They’re great, but that’s not what we’re hunting for today. We’re looking for the unexpected.
Digging a Bit Deeper
Okay, so favorites are out of the way. Now the real work starts, but honestly, it’s not super complicated. I don’t have some secret formula. It’s mostly about looking at a few simple things and using a bit of intuition.
Recent Form Check: This is key for me. I start looking at who’s been playing decent golf lately. Not necessarily winning, but who’s been making cuts consistently? Who’s been sneaking into the top 25s or top 10s over the past month or two? If a guy is playing well coming into a major, that momentum counts for something. It tells me their game isn’t lost in the woods.
Course Fit Musings: Then I think about the course itself – Valhalla this year. I don’t dive into super deep stats like strokes gained this or that. I just think basics. Is it a bomber’s course? Do you need to be accurate off the tee? Are the greens tricky? You look for players whose general style seems like it might fit. Valhalla usually asks for good driving and solid long iron play. So, I lean towards guys known for that, even if they aren’t household names.
Building a List
This is where I actually start making notes. I look for players who tick some of those boxes:
- Playing well recently (making cuts, maybe a high finish).
- Game seems to suit the course type (e.g., good driver for a long course).
- Usually ranked outside the world’s top 30, maybe even top 50. Not the guys expected to win.
- Sometimes, I look at guys who’ve shown up in big events before, even if they faded. Shows they can handle the pressure, at least for a while.
I’ll have a list, maybe 10-15 names long at this point. Just guys who caught my eye based on the simple stuff above.
Narrowing it Down
Now, I look at that list and try to trim it. Maybe one guy’s putting has been truly terrible lately – that’s usually a red flag for majors. Or maybe someone just seems a bit off, hasn’t played the course well before if they have history there. It’s more gut feeling here. I try to whittle it down to 3, 4, maybe 5 players I genuinely think could hang around near the top of the leaderboard longer than people expect.
And that’s pretty much it. That’s my process. No fancy algorithms, just looking at who’s playing well, who fits the course roughly, and who isn’t getting all the media attention. It’s fun to have a few underdogs to pull for. Makes watching the coverage way more engaging when one of your longshot picks is making a move on Saturday. Of course, they’re ‘dark horses’ for a reason – they usually don’t win. But sometimes, they do make things interesting.
