Allan Fabrykant 
It has been a torrid start at the PGA Championship, with some of the best in the world struggling against an extremely tough course. We all expected a stern test of golf from Oak Hill. Just how tricky the course eventually played on Thursday particularly surprised many. Let’s hope for something easier for our PGA Championship 3rd Round Picks.
Perhaps nothing sums up the difficulty in predicting this week more than Sihwan Kim. Becoming somewhat of a laughing stock on the LIV Golf tour, Sihwan has finishes of 43, 45, 47, 48, and 48 in his last five starts. He has looked well out of his depth on a tour with just 48 players. He currently sits 35th this week beating the likes of Xander Schauffele, Cam Smith, and Jon Rahm.
Unfortunately, it has been a difficult start for our pre-tournament selections as well. One of the most disappointing showings came from Wyndham Clark, who for a moment at least came close to salvaging a made cut. We nearly saw a performance akin to what Clark did a few weeks ago at the Mexico Open, prior to his win for us at the Wells Fargo Championship at 75/1. Clark was 3-under through his first 10 holes. An untimely double bogey on the 2nd hole came after just finding one of the very deep fairway bunkers, where he was forced to advance the ball less than 100 yards. It effectively killed his momentum for the round.
We are now looking to Top 20s from Jaeger and Moore, as well as a Top 40 from Smalley at big odds, to salvage something from the week. Let’s aim for some redemption in these PGA Championship 3rd Round Picks.
A Small In-Play Add
Sepp Straka
0.5pts E/W +35000 (Unibet 4 places 1/5odds)
And
2.5pts Top 20 +188 (William Hill/TAB)
Certainly, Sepp Straka looks to be a straight misprice over at Unibet. This price of 350/1 is for a player who is currently in 10th place and 5 off the lead. Straka is 4th for SG: T2G and SG: OTT, 2nd for SG: APP, and 8th for driving accuracy. Also, he leads the field for greens in regulation and has only missed 5 greens all week.
He’ll need to find the putter to challenge for the lead, but I’d rather be searching for a hot flatstick than ball striking improvement. Also, with rain forecast all day Saturday, this could lend a hand to Straka in some slower greens and softer conditions. Of course, we all saw what he did at the Honda Classic in wet conditions Sunday. I’m happy to take a very small stake for an unlikely win, but mainly the plus money on a Top 20. I like him down to 250/1 for the win and 3/2 for a Top 20.
PGA Championship 3rd Round Picks
Cameron Davis over Dustin Johnson
2.5pts at +145 Unibet or +155 Draftkings (Both Ties are Void)
Certainly, Dustin Johnson has leaned heavily on the putter across his first two days play. According to Data Golf, Davis has hit 10 poor shots. However, of those 7 were putts. Conversely, DJ has hit 9 poor shots. 8 of these have come from ball striking, with 4 poor drives and 4 poor approach shots. I’ll take the inflated price on Davis here, with any semblance of above average putting likely to get the job done
Taylor Moore over Pablo Larrazabal
2.5pts -140 Bet365 (Tie separate bet) or -185 Draftkings (Ties are void)
Next in our PGA Championship 3rd Round Picks is Moore over Larrazabal. Pablo Larrazabal crawled to the cut line holding on for dear life. He has only hit 7 fairways across two rounds and has been doing everything with his short-game. Additionally, Larrazabal lost a whopping -3.54 on APP in Round 2.
Moore, on the other hand, is one of the best on the PGA Tour for long irons over 200+ yards. He lost -0.68 strokes on approach in round 2. However, when you dive deeper into his figures that included losing -1.83 on Hole 1 (his 10th). That means he gained +1.15 for the remaining 17 holes. Additionally, Data Golf have Moore ranked has 33rd in the world and Larrazabal as 269th. I’m happy to take that sort of ranking disparity on.
Jon Rahm over Cameron Smith
2.5pts -175 Unibet or -185 Draftkings (Both Ties are Void)
Undoubtedly, we saw a much better Rahm in Round 2, finding 14 GIR and 9/14 fairways. In contrast, Cam Smith has only found just 10 fairways all week and is relying heavily on his scrambling to keep it going. Particularly, this included a chip-in for birdie on 2, chipping to 23in away on 7th and 7in away on 17th to save par in his 2nd round.
Certainly Rahm is much longer off the tee, and I’m happy to take him here on a day that promises wet conditions with reduced roll on the fairways.
1pt Treble Davis/Rahm/Moore (Ties are void)
+505 Unibet, William Hill, or Draftkings
Summary: PGA Championship 3rd Round Picks
Sepp Straka
0.5pts E/W +35000 (Unibet 4 places 1/5odds)
And
2.5pts Top 20 +188 (William Hill/TAB)
2.5pts Cam Davis over DJ at
+145 Unibet or +155 Draftkings (Both Ties are Void)
2.5pts Moore over Larrazabal
-140 Bet365 (Tie separate bet) or -185 Draftkings (Ties are void)
2.5pts Rahm over Cam Smith
-175 Unibet or -185 Draftkings (Both Ties are Void)
1pt Treble Davis/Rahm/Moore (Ties are void)
+505 Unibet, William Hill, or Draftkings
DFS Player Pool PGA Championship 3rd Round Picks
Weather: With rain predicted all day, we may see some of the best scoring all tournament on Saturday. Heaviest rain is set to fall between 10am-2pm. Winds are steady all day, mild prevailing winds but some gusts up to 15-20mph are expected. However, winds are highest in the morning and then set to drop for a window between 1-4pm before rising again into the evening.
DFS Core: Cantlay, Svensson, Davis
Top (over 8.5k, in order of preference) Cantlay, Scheffler, Rahm, Hovland, Koepka, McIlroy, Morikawa
Mid (7.3k-8.5k, in order of preference) Svensson, Davis, Lowry, Theegala, Conners, Rose, Scott, Bradley, DeChambeau
Dumpster Diving (6k-7.2k, in order of preference) Straka, NeSmith, Suh, Jaeger, Pereira, KH Lee, Pendrith, Kitayama, Buckley
Thank you reading our 2023 PGA Championship 3rd Round picks. For an article with some insights on my golf analysis process, check this link here!
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