Southern Hills Sets A Tough Test For Potential USPGA Championship Winners

Last month, we kicked off golf’s Major season with the Masters at Augusta, where World Number 1, Scottie Scheffler, continued his incredible run of form over the last few months to claim his first ever Major title.

Fast-forward a month, and the action now turns to Southern Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as the world’s top professionals will convene to try and take first spot in the second Major of the golfing season; the USPGA Championship.

And the entrants into the tournament could be set for a very tough test given the changes made to the course in the 2018/19 revamp, which not only extended the length of the course by around 300 yards in total, but which also saw a major reworking of the greens to make things much tougher for the elite golfers.

Remember, you have plenty of great golf betting options at bet365 Sport including the Six Shooter golf bets, as well as all the standard pre-tournament and In Play bets that you would associate with the site.

So before we take a look at which golfers are in the running to do well at Southern Hills, let’s first learn a little more about the USPGA Championship.

USPGA Championship – A Brief History

Established in 1916, this year’s USPGA Championship will be the 104^th running of the famous tournament. It has been held every year apart from 1917. 1918 and 1943.

Winning the coveted trophy not only gives you entry into all four Majors for the next five years, but you can play in the USPGA Championship for life (and a number of former winners will take up that benefit this week at Southern Hills).

The trophy awarded to the winner is the Wanamaker Trophy, named after Sam Wanamaker, the man who is viewed as the inspiration behind the development of the tournament.

The tournament was originally held in late August, but from 2019, when the professional golfing calendar was rearranged, the tournament was moved to the slot in May that was formerly occupied by The Players Championship (which is now played in March each year).

It means that the USPGA Championship is now the second Major of the year after the Masters and a month or so before the US Open in June, with The Open finishing things off in July.

The tournament was originally contested as a matchplay event up until 1958, when it switched to strokeplay.

Walter Hagen and Jack Nicklaus have won the most USPGA Championships with five wins each. Tiger Woods is second on the list with four wins, Sam Snead and Gene Sarazen have three wins each and there are a large number of players with two wins on their resume, including Lee Trevino, Byron Nelson, Gary Player, Ben Hogan, Nick Price, Vijay Singh, Rory McIlroy, Phil Mickelson and Brooks Koepka.

Phil Mickelson won his second USPGA Championship last year at Kiawah Island, and in doing so became the first 50-year-old player to win a Major tournament.

Mickelson though won’t be in attendance at this event as he remains in self-imposed exile from golf following the fallout from his comments about the USPGA Tour and its rival series, the Saudi-backed LIV Golf.

The United States has seen 59 of its golfers win the tournament 85 times in its 103-year history. Australia has five winners, with England, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Fiji and Northern Ireland all having two wins (all from one player), while there has been one winner from South Korea, Republic of Ireland and Germany.

The Course – Southern Hills

Designed by Perry Maxwell and opened in 1936, the 18-hole Championship course at Southern Hills has hosted seven Major championships, 4 USPGA Championship events and three US Open Championships.

The course has been tweaked several times over the years, but underwent an extensive update in 2018/19, when it was lengthened significantly and also saw remodelling take place on all the greens, to make it more difficult for poorly controlled shots to stay on the green, or on the fringes.

With the course featuring dog-legs on most holes, it is very much a course where your approach shot and ability to get the ball close to the hole around the green, is very much a key attribute, more so than being able to hit the ball huge distances from the tee.

In 1992, the Ben Crenshaw designed 9-hole West Course became a part of the club although this is not used for any part of the tournament.

Dave Stockton won the first USPGA Championship held at Southern Hills in 1970 and in 1982, Ray Floyd won at the course. In 1994, it was Nick Price who landed the win and lastly, in 2007, Tiger Woods landed the last of his four USPGA victories at the course.

Signature holes on the course include the 406^-yard 10^th, the 461 yard 12^th hole and the famous 18^th hole, a 491 yard par 4 which is one of the toughest finishing holes on any course in professional golf.

The course also features two 600+ yard holes, the 656-yard fifth hole and the 632-yard 13^th hole.

The par for Southern Hills is usually 71, but is often reduced to 70 for Major Championships.

Who Are The Golfers To Back For The USPGA Championship?

As mentioned previously, the Southern Hills course is one where being long from the tee isn’t necessarily the advantage it is on other courses. Certainly, it may well make the two 600-yard plus holes easier, but on the majority of holes, it is players who are accurate with approach shots and able to play controlled, creative golf around the greens that should do well.

There are a number of players for whom this is a good description. Justin Thomas, Xander Schauffele, Will Zalatoris and Russell Henley are all excellent approach shots, while Schauffele and Thomas are also very creative around the greens too.

However, my shout to win this, or at least being worth an each way bet, is Irishman Shane Lowry. He is also one of the best approach shots players in the game and also one of the very best around the greens.

Lowry is also a former Major winner, winning the British Open back in 2019 and he has started to come into some very good form of late and at odds of 28/1 (which have already come in from 33/1 at the start of the week), I think he is a very good value bet.

Scottie Scheffler is the 11/1 favourite with bet365 with Jon Rahm 12/1 and Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas both ranked as 14/1 chances.

And if you are considering another Tiger Woods miracle, assuming the golf legend plays this weekend, then you can back Woods at 75/1 to win the event.