The second major of the season has arrived as 144 professionals converged on Aronimink Golf Club outside Philadelphia for the 2026 PGA Championship. Scottie Scheffler is the defending PGA Champion and enters as the clear favorite, having finished runner-up for the third year in a row in his last three starts.
The first came at the Masters, where Rory McIlroy held off Scheffler’s frantic weekend charge to win his second consecutive green jacket and add his sixth major title. Two of LIV Golf’s biggest stars were absent from Sunday’s leaderboard at Augusta National, as Bryson DeChambeau missed the cut in spectacular fashion and Jon Rahm narrowly missed the weekend for a T38 finish. Since the end of the Masters, DeChambeau and Rahm’s lives have only become more complicated, with the future of LIV Golf now in question after losing funding from Saudi Arabia after the 2026 season.
While LIV’s future has dominated the headlines, Cameron Young and Matt Fitzpatrick have dominated play on the PGA Tour since the Masters. Both players will play the best golf of their careers heading into the PGA Championship and will be looking to win their first Wanamaker Trophy.
These names and more will appear on this week’s list of the nine most bet on players on Aronimink. First, let’s look at LIV’s star players. They are in dire need of a strong week to quiet the noise around them.
1. Bryson DeChambeau: It’s been a fascinating week for DeChambeau, with a devastating miscut at the Masters and LIV golf crumbling around him. He’s still looking for a big win outside of the U.S. Open, but he’s finished second in the past two PGA Championships and in the top four in four of the past five. There is so much uncertainty about what DeChambeau’s future holds, but will he return to the PGA Tour after a likely suspension? YouTube Do you play golf full time and only play in majors? Mysterious Option C? — He’s trying hard to quiet the noise and remind everyone that he’s one of the best golfers on the planet. He wants to be remembered as one of the best players of his generation, but that requires more and bigger trophies, and the PGA Championship has long favored his game.
2. Jon Rahm: Like DeChambeau, Rahm is busy dealing with all the noise about his future while LIV Golf’s financial future is in doubt. He also had a tough week at the Masters, but was able to continue his efforts heading into the weekend and found some positives with a quality final round effort. For some reason, the PGA has historically been his worst major, but last year’s top 10 at Quail Hollow seemed to awaken something in him. A PGA win would take him one British Open Championship away from a career Grand Slam, but it would also quiet some of the buzz about what’s next for the Spaniard. At this point, the PGA Tour appears to have all the leverage in potential negotiations to reinstate Rahm and DeChambeau. Their only chance to regain any real advantage in negotiations is to win some majors and give the tour a reason to want them back early.
3. Cameron Young: A breakout star this year with two big wins in his past five starts at The Players and most recently at the Cadillac Championship. He’s playing the best golf of his career, especially dominating with his putter, and is very comfortable with the pressure of weekend competition. The next step for Young is to win a major, and while it feels like there’s still time for the 28-year-old, winning a major when he’s playing at the peak of his powers is crucial. The PGA Tour is full of players who have peaked for several years and then fallen a tier or two lower. No matter how huge Young’s talent is, nothing is guaranteed in the future. The best time for Young to win his first major championship is now, with his entire game firing on all cylinders, and every course he appears to be on track to reach.
4. Jordan Spieth: Spieth, once one of the world’s most talked-about stars, is returning to the PGA Championship as he looks to complete a career Grand Slam. Spieth provided another glimmer of hope early on in Doral, but stumbled over the weekend, reminding fans that he still has a ways to go to recapture the magic of a decade ago. He’s producing enough rounds to make you wonder if there’s a guy out there somewhere who won three majors in three years, but Spieth has long lacked consistency. Still, all he needs is one week at the PGA to make everything click for him to join the ranks of golf’s immortals with a career Grand Slam.
5. Matt Fitzpatrick: Like Young, Fitzpatrick is suddenly playing the best golf of his career and there’s no better time than now to win his second major title and prove he’s one of the game’s elite. Much has been made in recent years about his improved distance, and Fitzpatrick has improved his distance along with quality ball striking, putting, and scrambling, making him an incredible all-around player. It’s very rare for a golfer to have all four aspects of their game working at the same time, so it’s important to hit while the iron is hot. Fitzpatrick could go from being considered a great player in the majors to being one of the most skilled Brits to ever play in another major title.
6. Scotty Scheffler: The reigning champion has little to prove this week after winning his first major outside of Augusta, Ga., at Quail Hollow last year and then closing out the year with another win at the British Open. Still, Schaeffler’s 2026 hasn’t been as dominant as we’ve become accustomed to over the past few years, mainly due to a slow start. The good news for Schaeffler is that he has found a way to dominate the weekend and stay in contention, as evidenced by three consecutive runner-up finishes, but a slow start has cost him his third green jacket and two signature event wins in his past three starts. If he can figure that out, or if he can drop enough in the final 54 holes to override a mediocre first round, he could become just the third player to win back-to-back rounds on the PGA, joining Brooks Koepka and Tiger Woods (twice).
7. Tommy Fleetwood: No one played better golf to end 2025 than Fleetwood, and it looked like his Tour Championship win could catapult him into a star on the next stage of the PGA Tour. Instead, it hasn’t been a factor so far this season. He hasn’t played bad golf, but he still hasn’t found his A-level play in 2026, and as a result, he’s been overtaken by Young as the player most likely to be next in the ranks of major champions. Aronimink is being looked at as a second-shot golf course, and while it currently receives little attention, now is probably the best time for Fleetwood to slip into contention and ultimately emerge as a serious threat in 2026.
8. Rory McIlroy: Palmer. Knead. Sarazen. Jones. Verdon. These are the last names that could potentially tie McIlroy for all-time major wins if he adds a seventh major win to his resume. McIlroy entered the Masters with the weight of joining the game’s all-time elite for a long time. Now, it seems like he’s truly free of the burden of expectations and could be on a tear in the majors again like he did early in his career. Each win moves him up a notch on the all-time list, but rather than be crushed by the weight of history, McIlroy seems to be seizing the opportunity to move closer to golf’s Mount Rushmore.
9. Brooks Koepka: McIlroy’s second Masters win tied him with Koepka for the most major wins in this era. There’s some question as to whether Brooks still maintains his major championship form, but considering how dominant he has been on the PGA so far in his career, if there’s ever a time for Koepka to find it and back down against McIlroy, this could be the week. His approach play this year has been phenomenal and has always brought out the best in Koepka at major tournaments, especially the PGA and US Open. His T12 at the Masters shows he still knows how to hone in major conditions, and if he can find a little something off the tee and warm up his putter, perhaps he can finish tied for second all-time behind Tiger Woods in his fourth PGA Championship.
