The 108th PGA Championship tees off Thursday May 14 at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, with the strongest field of the spring major slate and a storyline that has been building since Scottie Scheffler beat Bryson DeChambeau by three at the Masters two weeks ago. Scheffler now needs only the PGA Championship to complete a career grand slam at age 29, which would be the youngest completion of the modern slam since Tiger Woods finished his at 24. The course favors his game. Quail Hollow runs 7,626 yards and rewards the long, accurate iron play that has carried Scheffler to two green jackets and the world number one ranking he has held for 167 of the last 180 weeks.
Rory McIlroy is the other obvious contender. He has won four times at Quail Hollow, most recently in 2021, and he finished tied for fourth at Augusta after starting the final round three back. The course profile fits him better than any major venue on the calendar. He averages 318.4 yards off the tee at this layout and the par fives at 7, 10, and 15 give him three legitimate eagle looks per round. McIlroy has not won a major since the 2014 PGA Championship at Valhalla, which is a number he is openly tired of hearing, and his form on the East Coast swing has been the best of his year.
The field this week is the deepest a major has assembled since the LIV and PGA Tour merger officially closed in February. All 154 players in the field are eligible under the unified world ranking system that took effect April 1, which means Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka, Joaquin Niemann, and Tyrrell Hatton are competing alongside the full PGA Tour membership for the first time since 2022. Koepka is a five time major champion and won this event in 2018 and 2019. Niemann has won four LIV events this season and his Official World Golf Ranking has climbed from 81 to 14 since the merger.
Quail Hollow itself plays differently in May than it does during the Wells Fargo Championship in early May or the Presidents Cup in fall. The Bermuda overseed should be in peak condition. The famous Green Mile closing stretch from holes 16 through 18 has averaged a half stroke over par across the last three majors held here, which is roughly the gap between winning and missing the cut over four days. Holes 16 and 17 each stretch over 240 yards into prevailing wind. The 18th finishing hole runs 494 yards with water down the entire left side and ranked as the hardest closing hole in major championship golf in 2017.
The young American group is the deeper story below the McIlroy and Scheffler headline. Ludvig Aberg, 26, is coming off a win at the Houston Open and has top ten finishes in his last three majors. Sahith Theegala has been the most consistent ball striker on tour this year. Akshay Bhatia and Cameron Young, both former North Carolina amateurs, have local ties and have spent the last two weeks playing practice rounds at Quail Hollow. Bhatia in particular has been working with putting coach Stephen Sweeney and ranked first in strokes gained putting at the Wells Fargo two weeks ago.
Television coverage runs across ESPN and CBS with Featured Groups streaming on ESPN Plus from 7 a.m. eastern Thursday and Friday. CBS picks up the weekend coverage at 1 p.m. eastern Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. The purse is 19 million dollars with 3.42 million to the winner, up from 18.5 million last year. The Wanamaker Trophy goes to the winner along with a five year exemption on the PGA Tour, a five year exemption into all four majors, and a lifetime PGA Championship exemption.
For Charlotte, this is the third PGA Championship the city has hosted at this venue since 2017 and there is talk of Quail Hollow joining a permanent rotation similar to what the U.S. Open has at Pebble Beach and the Open Championship has at St Andrews. The Charlotte Sports Foundation estimates the tournament will pump 187 million dollars into the local economy across the week, which is up 22 percent from 2017 thanks to corporate hospitality demand and a sold out spectator pass that capped at 35,000 per round. Hotel occupancy across Charlotte and Concord is already at 94 percent for tournament week.
The betting market opened Scheffler at plus 425, McIlroy at plus 850, and Aberg at plus 1600 across the major books. The smart money has been moving on Aberg and Hatton this week. The dark horse most pros are mentioning quietly is Tom Kim, who has shown up early and put four full rounds on the card already.