Finding value in the second golf Major of the season.
The 2026 PGA Championship runs from May 14-17 at Aronimink, just outside Philadelphia. The latest odds will tell you the same story as the last few majors since the early 2020s. But the real edge comes when you match a player’s strengths (and weaknesses) to the way this beast of a course is laid out.
Check the latest odds at Lucky Rebel.
Reading Aronimink Before You Read the Odds
Head straight to the outright board if you want, just to get a feel for what the odds are saying for the 2026 PGA Championship.
You’ll probably see the same names at the top and in the middle – Rory and Scottie, followed by longer odds for Xander, Cam Young, Rahm and Rose maybe.
But you’d be missing out on a lot of context.
Aronimink Golf Club is the real headline this week. You need to understand how this place plays if you want to find a real edge, to grab a legitimate plus-money sleeper or two. On paper, it’s a par-70 with long, demanding par 4s and bunkers that most players want to avoid more than taxes.
Start with length. The course stretches to just over 7,380 yards. Not crazy by PGA standards. But the quirkiness will affect every golfer. It brings more holes into range for the smaller hitters, so the leaderboard should be more crowded come Sunday.
Those quirks? The come in the form of 12 Par 4s, four Par 3s, and only two Par 5s. That means the usual birdie-fest you see at some PGA Tour stops likely won’t fly here. Birdies (and eagles) come mainly off of having four Par 5s on standard gold courses.
At Aronimink, that could add 6-10 strokes to an average player’s score over all four days combined. Players with control in their mid-to-long irons will be the ones scoring. Long-range bombers like DeChambeau and McIlroy won’t have as many second shot pitching wedges on a Par 5.
And about those bunkers? Aronimink packs over 170 of them, many sitting as traps for a drive that doesn’t find the fairway.
The greens at Aronimink average about 8,300 square feet, which sound like great big targets that players can use to throw darts and hit in regulation, but they demand precise approach play and leave nasty up-and-downs when you miss.
From a PGA betting angle, you should be looking at three things:
- who gains on approach
- who can handle long par 4s
- who can scramble when they miss greens
Scottie Scheffler leads the tour in overall strokes gained and scoring average, while Collin Morikawa ranks near the top in strokes gained on approach. Xander Schauffele is still among the best scramblers on tour. Pay attention to that last stat for Schauffele and players with similarly solid scramble stats. Nearly half the time at Aronimink, missed greens turn into bogeys. Guys who have an edge there will simply do better.
Two of the par 4s play at 490 yards or longer, and six are at least 450 yards – so driving distance still matters. But think about golfers who play long enough and keep it in play instead of grip it and rip it players. Aronimink’s rough is going to be thick, and with all those bunkers in play, aggression off the tee can quickly turn into double and triple bogeys.
Public money will skip over all that and the stats part, most likely. They’re more interested in betting the name on the bag, not the course. But boring might mean cashing in this weekend.
Early-Week Odds and Building Your Bet Slip
The early odds for the 2026 PGA Championship are lining up as expected: Scheffler sits at the top of the board at +500, with Rory next in line at +900 odds currently. The public money and the books don’t have it all wrong – major-winning history and plenty of length off the tee still matter. So don’t go auto-contrarian right away. But you can still build a smart money bet.
Casual bettors and sometimes the books themselves will overreact to past major wins or Ryder Cup highlights though. You’re paying a brand name tax on a player like Justin Thomas at +4500. Those are the same odds currently given for Morikawa, who has a game much better suited to the Philly course. He’s also #2 on the PGA Tour in SGA this season.
If you’re building a betting card right now, try to think in tiers instead of gunning straight for the top. Most of the value has been squeezed out of Scheffler and McIlroy anyway.
Instead, go with one or two short numbers with those two (maybe consider #3 Cam Young at +1200 – he has two firsts and two thirds this season already), then add a couple of mid-range guys who gain on approach and can scramble. If you want to go longer in a crowded field that could produce a surprise winner in a playoff, then add one or two longshots at +10000 or higher who check the course-fit box.
For the mid-tier or even longer, that could mean Brooks Koepka at a high-ish +4000. Koepka has serious major wins under his belt and he ranks first this season in strokes gained approach. Morikawa at +4500 is also worth a look.
PGA longshot picks? Players like Gary Woodland fit the criteria. He finished T12 in 2018 at the same course, and that was before his game was as well-rounded as it is today. Woodland is currently sitting +10000, not bad for a player who has a T8, a T17 and a win this season with the skills to match Aronimink.
You can also find solid edges in placement markets if you don’t want to go all-in on outrights. A guy like Matt Fitzpatrick is steady, he’s sitting top-5 in SGA, and he doesn’t go super-aggressive off the tee so those bunkers won’t be in play for him as much. He usually finds his way into the Top 10, Top 20 betting markets by the time Sunday wraps up.