Zach Thompson details his best bets for Round 1 of the PGA Championship this week at Aronimink Golf Club.
For the second major of the season, the PGA TOUR is ready to tee off at Aronimink Golf Club, just outside of Philadelphia. Aronimink hosted three PGA TOUR events in the last 15 years, but it hasn’t hosted the PGA Championship since 1962. The PGA Championship has the largest field of all major championships, and there are plenty of great options to consider from all across the variety of markets available on DraftKings Sportsbook. Let’s pinpoint a few of my best bets for Round 1 of the PGA Championship.
The tee times for Round 1 begin at 6:45 a.m. ET with players scheduled to tee off from both No. 1 and No. 10 in two waves. The weather could be an issue with potentially went and soft conditions early but wind a little later in the day.
Tough scene for the “you can’t hold a major in the Northeast in May” crowd. Weather looks great at Aronimink next weekend — and as every major should have (but obviously can’t plan), a combo throughout of heat, coolness, breeze, wet and dry will test players’ ability to adjust. pic.twitter.com/pvIdS6LoqB
— Jason Sobel (@JasonSobelGolf) May 10, 2026
In this post, we’ll focus on my three best bets for Round 1 of the PGA Championship on Thursday, May 13. Let’s tee it up!
Hojgaard is coming off a strong T2 finish last week and will be one of the first groups off in the morning, teeing off at 7:07 from No. 1 along with Johnny Keefer and Rico Hoey. Aronimink is a par-70, so the 25-year-old from Denmark just has to finish under par to deliver the win in this prop.
He posted four consecutive rounds under par last week at Quail Hollow and has been under par in nine of his last 12 rounds dating back to the Masters. He missed the cut at the Masters, but has four top-10 finishes and seven top-25 finishes in his 11 events this season. He posted a runner-up finish in Houston behind Gary Woodland in addition to last week’s runner-up.
Last week, Hojgaard ranked in the top 12 in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, Strokes Gained: Approach, and Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green. He also ranks in the top 25 in the field over the last three months in Strokes Gained: Approach, Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, and Total Strokes Gained.
This will be his fifth straight PGA Championship, and he has made the cut in each of the last three years. While he hasn’t posted a top-25 at a PGA Championship, he did finish T14 at The Open Championship last summer. Hojgaard has good upside for DFS this week as a bargain play, but he also should be able to deliver an under-par round to get the week started if the course conditions are soft from the overnight rain.
In bigger fields like this, 3-Balls are some of my favorite props to target, so let’s double up with two crushable three-balls for my Round 1 best bets. In the first trio, McCarty tees off alongside Jhonattan Vegas and Y.E. Yang in the 7:29 tee time off home No. 1.
McCarty is coming in blistering hot compared to the other players in this group. McCarty has eight top-25 finishes on the PGA TOUR this season, including five straight coming into this tournament. He put up a T10 at the Truist last week, a T9 at Doral, a T10 at the teamup event in New Orleans, a T12 at the RBC Heritage, and a T24 at the Masters. Over the last 20 rounds, McCarty ranks in the top 25 in Strokes Gained: Approach, Total Strokes Gained, and Strokes Gained: Putting. The only drawback is that he’s only played the PGA Championship once in his career and missed the cut last year.
Yang won the PGA Championship all the way back in 2009, and the 54-year-old South Korean has 13 wins as a pro. He won the Ascension Charity Classic on the PGA Tour Champions circuit in 2024, but he hasn’t contended seriously on the PGA TOUR in a long time. He has missed the cut or been disqualified in each of his last eight PGA Championships, with his last made cut coming back in 2015. He’s a seasoned pro and a solid player but not really a threat to McCarty if the lefty stays in form.
Appropriately, Vegas is the wild card in this matchup. He did spike for a T18 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and T14 at the Texas Children’s Houston Open, but he has missed the cut in four of his 11 tournaments this season, finishing outside the top 50 in nine of his events. He turned in a T5 at last year’s PGA Championship but missed the cut in his previous two trips over the last six years. The 41-year-old Venezuelan still has good weeks occasionally, but he hasn’t been nearly as consistent as McCarty, so McCarty is a great option at this price for Thursday’s 3-Ball.
In the afternoon wave, Bhatia, Thorbjornsen and Castillo make up a fun trio of young players on the rise that tee off at 12:37 p.m. ET. All three have huge long-term potential and are options I like to use for DFS contests, but Bhatia is the most in-form and accomplished of the trio, making him most likely to emerge with the win after Round 1.
Bhatia ranks third in the entire field in Strokes Gained: Putting over the last three months, while Thorbjornsen ranks 110th, and Castillo ranks 66th. Bhatia ranks 15th in Strokes Gained: Approach over that span, while Thorbjornsen ranks 84th and Castillo ranks 100th.
Thorbjornsen has the edge in pure driving distance and Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, but he finished T53 at the Cadillac Championship because he lost strokes on approach. Bhatia was T23 at the Cadillac and followed that up with a T37 at the Truist.
Bhatia had some adventures at Augusta, where he missed the cut, but he has seven top-25 finishes in his last 10 tournaments overall and is having a very solid and consistent season overall. The 24-year-old lefty got a win at the Signature Event at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in a strong field, and the next big step for him will be contending in majors, where he has missed the cut in half of his 10 appearances.
While it should be a very entertaining trio to watch, I think Bhatia is the most likely to go low and come out on top.
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