With Quail Hollow being a regular PGA Tour stop, there isn’t much of a secret on how to play the golf course and what skill sets you should be looking at while dissecting the field. Overall off-the-tee play and carry distance with your driver has been one of most popular discussion points when handicapping this event. Players who are long can take advantage of certain angles off-the-tee this week and give themselves shorter irons into these greens.

In the Rabbit Hole, you can filter on what players have gained the most strokes OTT on long, driver heavy golf courses. Over the last two years, with a minimum of 50 rounds, here are the top 12 players in the field in this category:

What more can possibly be said about Bryson DeChambeau and his fit at Quail Hollow? He is the best driver of the ball in the world at the moment (yes, that includes Rory McIlroy), and he also has tremendously improved around the greens and remains an excellent putter. Bryson finishing top-five at the Masters despite losing four strokes on approach was terrifying, as his ability to win golf tournaments now extends far beyond the simple strength of his driver.

The two-time U.S. Open winner already possesses two top-10 finishes in four prior appearances at Quail Hollow and is coming off a victory at LIV Korea in his prior start where he gained 6.7 strokes off the tee and 4.1 strokes on approach. His win equity feels comparable to Rory and Scottie, and yet the market is pricing him a tier below that. I would highly recommend taking advantage of that. Your dentist already made the bet too.

It’s that time of the year where you have limited options in your OAD pool. It’s also the time of the year where if you are out of the money, you need to start getting different and select a golfer that is projected to be lower owned.

I have built an even bigger lead in our ISN staff OAD with a T2 finish from Justin Thomas last week at the Truist Championship (shoutout Shane Lowry). If you are front running in your pool, I wouldn’t overthink it and just take Bryson DeChambeau. He’s going to be by far the most popular pick this week for good reason. I will be personally taking Bryson this week in our staff OAD.

For those who need to get different, I would look to use the defending champion Xander Schauffele. I really liked what I saw from him last week at Truist, especially in round 4. If you want to use a LIV golfer and save a PGA Tour player for the signature events, I would take the chance on Jon Rahm. If you want to get really weird, I wouldn’t be opposed to using Tyrrell Hatton.

For every major championship, I do a snake draft with a couple of friends where you pick six golfers and whoever’s team has the lowest cumulative score at the end of the week wins. I decided to rank my top golfers going into the PGA Championship that I used for my draft last night.

To begin with, Scottie, Rory and Bryson are in a league of their own. I have Rory as the top golfer due to his recent form and insane course history at Quail Hollow. I was really tempted to have Bryson ahead of Scottie, but it’s so hard to have the number 1 player in the world not in the top 2.

Ranking the rest of the top 10 was pretty tough and will probably spark debate in our discord. I had Morikawa and Xander as “4a” and “4b” respectfully. I ranked Morikawa at 4 over Xander due to his elite long iron play, even though Morikawa is not long off-the-tee. I still love Xander, but he is the defending champion, which could be a distraction this week.

As big of a Justin Thomas fan I am, his major championship resume since his 2022 PGA Championship win at Southern Hills has been somber. I had a hard time ranking JT over Ludvig Aberg due to his stellar play in major championships, despite much experience. I am not the biggest Jon Rahm fan, but I do believe he is due to contend in one of these majors this year.

I snuck in Shane Lowry at 9 and Patrick Cantlay at 10 due to their recent form. Lowry has been playing some of the best golf of his career this year and seems to really thrive in major championships. Cantlay is one of the hottest ball strikers over the last month.

This was a really fun exercise so feel free to call me out in the discord or on twitter about my rankings.

Every major championship week, my inbox is filled with messages from friends about who to take in their office tiered pool. Instead of answering all of those texts individually, I thought about just giving my favorite plays in each tier in our newsletter:

(for reference, I used the tiers on Easy Office Pool)

Tier 1: Scottie Scheffler

This tier is really just selecting between Scottie, Rory, and Bryson. I believe there’s a solid chance that Rory and Bryson are higher owned than Scottie. As good and popular as Scottie Scheffler is, it seems like Rory and Bryson are stealing the storylines. I don’t necessarily think Scottie is under the radar, but let’s go with him here.

Pivot: Bryson DeChambeau

Tier 2: Tyrrell Hatton

Hatton hasn’t had the best year on LIV, but he finished T14 at the Masters. He is plenty long off-the-tee to compete and has a sneaky short game that could be useful this week. I love Hatton to play well and finish inside the top 10.

Pivot: Patrick Cantlay

Tier 3: Tony Finau

After struggling for majority of the year so far, Finau showed some signs of life last week at the Truist Championship. Quail Hollow is a great course fit for Finau as he is plenty long off-the-tee and historically a great long iron player. I believe Finau is due for a big week soon and it just might be this week.

Pivot: Akshay Bhatia

Tier 4: Davis Thompson

Quail Hollow is setting up to be a driver and putting test for the professionals. Those two skillsets scream Davis Thompson. DT has had a solid year so far with a T13 at Genesis and a T10 at the Players Championship. He has found some consistency with his iron play, which will be very important on a wet golf course.

Pivot: Daniel Berger

Tier 5: Benny An

When talking about off-the-tee play this week, Benny An is one of the best drivers in the field. He is very long off-the-tee and has performed well on long driver heavy golf courses, as we talked about above. Last year at the Wells Fargo Championship hosted at Quail Hollow, he finished solo third to Xander and Rory. The course fit is perfect for Benny An to have another great week.

Pivot: Taylor Pendrith

Tier 5: Harris English

He won the Farmers Invitational this year at Torrey Pines, which is also a course that is long and difficult. Outside of the win, he finished T12 at the Masters, gaining 1.28 strokes per round on approach. You are going to have to make a ton of putts this week to compete and English ranks 14th in the field strokes gained on Poa Trivialis greens.

Pivot: Stephan Jaeger

This week, the PGA Championship returns to Quail Hollow Golf Club. And while my opinion of the golf course isn’t as severe and negative as other contributors and subscribers at Inside Sports Network, I am bummed out. Not only will the 2025 PGA Championship be played on a golf course we see every single year, and not only will it be set up very similar to how we see it every single year, but it’s also literally being played at the exact same time of the year. 

Forget the PGA Championship. It’s the Wells Fargo 2.0 presented by Michelob Ultra.

And Quail Hollow is not the only repeat offender we’ve double dipped with at major venues in the past 6 years. The USGA has delivered gamblers and fans their own versions of sequels that no one really asked for. They served up the AT&T Pebble Beach-Pro AM 2.0 in 2019, as well as the Farmers Insurance Open 2.0 in 2021. Each tournament essentially turned into a slightly harder version of the PGA Tour event we see every single year, highlighted by Jon Rahm fulfilling the narrative street of all narrative street handicapping by winning at his favorite golf course on Planet Earth.

At least it appears the days of having to watch the same Par 4 over and over at Torrey Pines on Father’s Day weekend appear to be over. But with the USGA’s obsession to set nearly its entire venue spots between now and when I’m planning on my forever dirt nap (almost every venue is locked in between now and 2051), there are very few spots available to add a non-traditional venue.

The PGA of America does have flexibility over the next 15 years (only the next 6 venues are locked, with a seventh also scheduled in 2034) to add not only a wider variety of golf courses to its portfolio, but also ones that have been abandoned by the USGA. It’s already done so by adopting the Olympic Club. But there’s another West Coast venue that deserves a second chance as well…

Make no mistake about it – the 2015 U.S. Open at Chambers Bay was a bit of a shit show. Most will note the abhorrent conditions of the fescue greens, which was invaded by poa annua and rolled like a golf ball would over a broccoli patch. Players also complained about the severe topography of the former site of the Pacific Bridge Rock Quarry. 

This was also the first professional tournament hosted by FOX Sports, and it struggled with growing pains. Between some irrational hatred of Joe Buck calling golf, to the nonsensical blathering of Greg Norman on the color commentary, to serious audio syncing issues through the weekend, the broadcast complaints were certainly flowing on Twitter. And not to mention the first 36 holes featured some of the most embarrassing golf that Tiger Woods has ever played, lowlighted with a cold top on 18 that found the centerline bunker that wasn’t in play for literally anyone in the field. That certainly didn’t help the viewers’ perceptions of the tournament.

The cards were stacked against Chambers Bay.

But since then, the golf course addressed the greens by converting them to poa annua to ensure consistent putting surfaces for both recreational golfers and the (hopefully) return of professional golf to the course. While they roll much fairer, poa annua is still one of the most difficult and vexing surfaces to putt on. It’s often a competition of who is more befuddled with poa annua greens – the players incredulous that their five foot putt didn’t sniff the hole, or the gamblers incredulous about how the bums they bet on continue to miss said five footers over and over.

Will it play as firm as it would in June for a May PGA Championship? Likely not. But the average high in May still ranges in the mid-60’s and the stereotypical monsoons we expect from a Pacific Northwest climate begin to taper off as it heads into summer. And there is plenty of daylight available for golf, with sunrise around 5:30 AM and lasting all the way until almost 8:40 PM. There would be no concerns about a lack of sunlight to accommodate a full field of 156 players.

But even if it’s a little softer than the conditions we last saw it in 2015, it still has plenty of defenses. With its severe undulations, fall-offs and collection areas, players would continue to have a tall task to get up and down off the tight fescue lies. Some of the best tests of golf are when players are asked to chip off tight lies onto severely contoured greens – Chambers Bay tests exactly that. And as seen in 2015, players would continue to utilize the slopes to get the ball close to the hole rather than fire at pins aimlessly like they were at TPC Craig Counsel. 

And with its utilization of flexible tees on multiple holes, the golf course can range from just under 7,400 yards to over 7,600 yards in any given day. That’s more than enough yardage to handle the plethora of ball-speed imposters who seek to overpower the golf course. This also would keep the players on their toes the entire tournament and planning for multiple setups within the same event.

To cap it off – we as fans would be big winners, especially for those on the East Coast. Prime time golf is utterly delightful. Many of us would happily enjoy a nice evening of taking in the breathtaking views of the Puget Sound with a nice drink and, for all the fathers out there, a living room devoid of children screaming at you to turn on Gabby’s Dollhouse instead.

Kerry Haigh -- do right by the passionate sports fans and golfers of the Pacific Northwest. Secure a future PGA Championship spot for a return to Chambers Bay.

Our very own RB stays hot in the outright market. Not only did he have Sepp Straka at the Truist Championship at 50/1, he hit Martin Couvra at the Turkish Airlines Open at 100/1. It’s so impressive hitting one outright, but two in a given week? Let’s see if RB can stay hot at the PGA Championship!