The second major of the year will take place next week as the top golfers in the world head to Southern Hills in Tulsa. This will be the eighth time that Southern Hills has hosted a major as it has previously hosted the PGA Championship four times and the US Open three times. There is no clear-cut favorite entering this tournament, but the handful of older golfers that are on the Senior Tour might have an edge as this was the site of the 2021 Senior PGA Championship.
The 2022 PGA Championship will be held at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma from May 19-22. This major was originally supposed to be hosted at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey, but it was stripped of host duties last January.
The Course
It will be tough to post low numbers at Southern Hills as this is a par 70 course that checks in at 7,556 yards. There are only two par 5s, and they are both well over 600 yards in length. Golfers will find it much harder to hit the green than it was when Southern Hills last hosted a major back in 2007, as the course has been significantly redesigned to keep balls from funneling towards the center.
Top Contenders
Jon Rahm will be seen as one of the favorites at Southern Hills. Rahm is currently ranked No. 2 in the world, and he ended a recent skid with a dominant performance at the Mexico Open. He led the event from start to finish, holding off three competitors on the final day of action. Rahm won the 2021 US Open and finished T8 in all four majors last year, so he must be considered one of the main contenders heading into this tournament.
We will see Scottie Scheffler take part in the AT&T Byron Nelson prior to the PGA Championship. Scheffler has been the hottest golfer on the PGA Tour over the last few months, winning the Waste Management Phoenix Open, Arnold Palmer Invitational, WGC Match Play Championship, and the Masters to become the top-ranked golfer in the world. He wasn’t great in his last event at the Zurich Classic, but he certainly can’t be discounted even if he struggles in Dallas this week.
Rory McIlroy has turned back the clock with his recent performances. McIlroy was the top-ranked golfer on the PGA Tour for much of the 2010s, and he claimed four majors (including two PGA Championships) during the early part of that decade. He won the CJ Cup back in October, and he finished runner-up at the Masters prior to a T5 finish at last week’s Wells Fargo Championship. McIlroy will skip the Byron Nelson in order to rest prior to the major.
Although Justin Thomas has yet to win a PGA Tour event this year, he has several T8 finishes to his name. Thomas finished T3 at the World Wide Technology Championship and the Valspar Championship, T5 at the Hero World Challenge and Sentry Tournament of Champions, T6 at The Genesis Invitational, and T8 in Phoenix and Augusta. The 2017 PGA Championship winner might be primed to win his second major in Tulsa.