The second major of the 2025 season has arrived with the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow. Host of the PGA Championship in 2017, and a regular tour stop as the Truist Championship (formerly Wells Fargo Championship), we’ve seen the best players in the world take on Quail plenty of times and know what to expect from this golf course. Let’s dive into the numbers for this week’s tournament with Bet The Number, the premier golf analytics platform.

The Course Blueprint 🗺️ 

Quail Hollow plays long at 7,626 yards as a par 71 and is a true bomber’s paradise. Length, relatively wide corridors, penal rough, and firm greens normally tell the story here. With the weather that has rolled through Charlotte this week, the course is soaked and will play even longer than usual. However, the greens are still relatively dry and firm as the sub-air system is on full tilt.

Quail has many hard holes; however, there are five easy holes that provide ample opportunity for birdies: the three par 5s and the two short 4s (8 and 14). Contenders will capitalize on these easy holes and look to maintain level par on the remainder of the course.

Let’s take a look at some of the key stats that tend to differentiate winners at Quail.

Key Stats

• Carry Distance: Players that can advance the ball as far as possible off the tee are going to have a significant advantage here, especially with the wet conditions this week.

  • Who does this favor? Players with the top carry distance in the field include giants like Rory McIlroy, Bryson Dechambeau, Xander Schauffele, and Ludvig Aberg. Some others that smash the ball come from the Danish fleet (both Hojgaards and Niklas Norgaard), the deceptively not Danish Michael Thorbjornsen, Min Woo Lee, Kurt Kitayama, and Keith Mitchell.

• 175-225 yard Approach Shots: Long approach shots abound at Quail Hollow. Those that can consistently hit greens from this range and attack pins on these contouring greens will find themselves in contention.

  • Who does this favor? Some of the top names from this distance include LIV golfers Phil, Brooks and Patrick Reed, Xander Schauffele, Scottie Scheffler, and Nicolai Hojgaard. Some flyers that excel from this range include Korn Ferry Tour number 2 Johnny Keefer, Michael Thorbjornsen, Nico Echavarria, and Ryo Hisatsune. Some other notables in the upper quartile: Viktor Hovland, Sepp Straka, and Keith Mitchell.

• Putts Within 10 Feet: Quail Hollow is one of the hardest courses to putt from mid-range and in on the PGA tour with lots of slope and contour on the tricky overseed greens. Players that can convert their shorter putts here both to save par on harder holes and convert birdies on easy holes will have a big leg up.

  • Who does this favor? The best putters from 4-10’ on overseed greens include the likes of Tom Hoge, Robert MacIntyre, Russell Henley, Nicolai Hojgaard, and Denny McCarthy. Some notably low-ranking players in this stat category? Collin Morikawa and Rory McIlroy.

The BTN PGA Championship Model

Let’s take a look at each strokes gained category as we dive into the BTN PGA Championship 2025 model:

• OTT: Long, long, long. The guys will be hitting driver on 12-13 holes this week, and carry distance will be a major factor with the wet conditions. Accuracy will help with how thick the rough currently is at the course. Standard SG:OTT and Carry Distance are two significant data points in the BTN Model. Consider adding accuracy to your models as well with the current conditions - and for the deep divers, left misses are especially penal here.

• APP: As mentioned in the key stats, expect plenty of long approach shots. 175-225 yards is the key distance bucket. The rough will play more penal than usual as well with how thick and wet it is. The BTN Model features standard SG:APP and SG:APP from 175-225.

• ATG: Quail is not an easy chipping course, but the conditions around the green are perfect. Chipping shouldn’t be much of a differentiator in determining the winner and is lightly weighted in the BTN Model.

• Putting: As mentioned in key stats, putting at Quail is hard. Lots of slope and grain on the overseed greens put a premium on converting mid-range putts. The BTN Model features standard SG:P and SG:P from 4-10’, both filtered to overseed greens.

This week’s BTN Model favorite is (🥁 drumroll please…) Scottie Scheffler, scoring a perfect 10. The top of the leaderboard is stacked though with Rory also scoring a perfect 10, Xander a 9.8, and J.T. a 9.8. Should be a fun weekend.

Matchup of the Week (3-4-1) 🤼‍♂️ 

Thorbjorn Olesen (-125) ✅ over Thomas Detry (+100) on DraftKings

The BTN Matchup Tool is firmly behind ThunderBear this week, and there’s good reason to trust it. Olesen has two top-10s in his last four starts, made the cut in 4 of his last 5 PGA Championships, and has deeper majors experience than Detry. He has pretty strong ball striking numbers as of recent and outperforms Detry in the key 175-225 yard approach range. Olesen is also a more accurate driver, and Detry could find himself in trouble this week if he’s finding the penal rough at Quail. The BTN Model ranks both players similarly, but a few key stats stand out for Olesen which makes him our play of the week.

Feature Spotlight 🔦

This week’s Feature Spotlight: Course Filtering on the Custom Model. When configuring your model, you’ll see the “Filter by Course” option at both the global level and individual column level. This feature allows you to create filters by course characteristics and specific courses. The features of this module are listed below:

1. Current Course Characteristics: at the top of the box are the characteristics of the current course the pros are playing - Quail Hollow in this case. This gives you context for relevant filters to apply.

2. Course Filtering Selectors: beneath the current course characteristics are selectors to filter results by each of these course characteristics. Choose any relevant filters for your columns, for example:

   • With an Approach column, you may want to filter by Green Size or Rough Grass

   • With a Putting column, you may want to filter by Green Grass (which we do all the time in the BTN Model)

   • With an Around the Green column, you may want to filter by Chipping Grass

   • With notorious designers, you may want to filter by Architect (take Donald Ross greens for example)

3. Included/Excluded Courses: These sections list all the courses that have been selected based on the filters you have applied.

   • You can select or deselect individual courses by using the blue X in the Included section and blue + in the Excluded section.

4. Handpick Comp Courses: For the data nerds that want to do their own course selection, this button lets you handpick comp courses by essentially filtering out all courses and letting you add individual ones back in.

The Course Filtering module in BTN is a powerful tool that lets you slice the data for your model however you want.

GS Luke’s Prop Preview ⛳️ 

GS Luke has been crushing it with the prop picks over on the BTN blog. Check out his PGA Championship picks and analysis here, and stay tuned to his X for more GS Luke content.

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There’s nothing better than a major. Enjoy this week and good luck with your bets!

Ben K.

Bet The Number