PGA Championship 2022: Round 4 Head-to-Head Best Bets

by Matthew MacKay |
May 22, 2022

At last, the final round of the 104th PGA Championship has arrived. Round 3 had the worst conditions of any day at Southern Hills Country Club, with 20 mile-per-hour wind gusts and early rainstorms that slowed the pace and curve of bentgrass putting surfaces. Nevertheless, Mito Pereira continued to deliver an impressive performance on Saturday, finishing one-under-par on the round and extending his lead to three strokes over Matt Fitzpatrick and Will Zalatoris, sitting T2 at six-under-par.

Wind gusts will still be present on Sunday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but its highest will reach 15 miles per hour and taper down to a softer 10 miles per hour in the last few hours of the afternoon. As a result, the bermudagrass fairways and bentgrass greens will be untouched by precipitation, which is a good sign for all players, as they will not be forced to adapt to new conditions on an already challenging course.

Two of my Round 3 head-to-head best bets were pushed. Matt Kuchar (+1) and Kevin Na (+1), plus Stewart Cink (+1) and Chris Kirk (+1), all finished one over par, resulting in a push, rendering these best bets invalid and returning the original money staked. Cam Smith (+3) had a worse Round 3 than the previous four players mentioned, but the Aussie still scored lower than Viktor Hovland (+5) by two strokes, making it a successful Round 3 head-to-head best bet.

Below, I walk through my three best head-to-head bets for the final round of the 2022 PGA Championship. All plays below are one unit each, or 1% of your betting bankroll.

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Odds courtesy of DraftKings Sportsbook.

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Matt Fitzpatrick over Mito Pereira (-170)

Remember, weâ€™re betting on the final score of Round 4, not the overall score and finish. Matt Fitzpatrick is T18 in final round performance percentage, which is a metric that measures the percentage of time a playerâ€™s finish position improves or remains unchanged in the final round. Fitzpatrick sits at 75 percent, while current first-place leader, Mito Pereira, is T44 at 69.23 percent.

We saw how Fitzpatrickâ€™s first-ranked total strokes gained ability allowed him to climb the leaderboard in Round 3. He shot his best round at Southern Hills in gusty conditions, finishing three-under-par on Saturday. Pereira shot six-under-par on Friday but could not replicate that type of performance again on Saturday, finishing just one-under-par to nurse a slight three-stroke lead over Fitzpatrick and Zalatoris.

Pereira will feel the pressure once he tees off, while Fitzpatrick is accustomed to being inside the top ten during Round 4. In his last event, Fitzpatrick just finished T2 at the Wells Fargo Championship, so expect him to deliver another stellar performance in good conditions to wind up with a lower Round 4 score than Pereira. This is reflected in the -170 odds placed on Fitzpatrick, so add this head-to-head best bet into your parlay as a sure-fire leg that will hit.

Tony Finau over Viktor Hovland (+115)

Tony Finau is another player who saves his best performance for last. The 32-year-old American did turn in a terrible Round 3 performance at four-over-par but still managed to stay a stroke lower than his Round 4 matchup opponent, Viktor Hovland.

Hovland has strong irons and is a pretty good putter in terms of strokes gained putting but the month off from competition could be hindering hr 24-year-old Norwegian from performing to the best of his abilities. Both players are T45 entering Sunday, but Finau is ranked 17th in terms of final round performance percentage at 77.78 percent, while Hovland is ranked T37 at a flat 70 percent.

Finau only has one top-ten finish this season, and heâ€™s hungry for more, whereas Hovland has four top ten finishes, including an outright win at Mayakoba back in November. Nevertheless, Finau has the upper hand in terms of his ability to be a closer, so at +115, I like investing in Finau to finish with a lower score than Hovland on the final day at Southern Hills.

Seamus Power over Abraham Ancer (-120)

Seamus Power and Abraham Ancer find themselves hovering around the top of the leaderboard at Southern Hills heading into Sundayâ€™s final round. Power, a 35-year-old Irishman, has played in 19 events on the PGA Tour this season and has four top ten finishes, including one in third-place. He has among the best greens in regulation conversion rates at 71.1 percent, allowing him to use his lethal putter to bury birdies and maintain par on more challenging holes.

Abraham Ancer doesnâ€™t have all of the same statistics to back up supporting him to score lower in the final round at the 104th PGA Championship. The 31-year-old Mexican has been tremendous all weekend in Tulsa, scoring three-under-par on Thursday, but his score has worsened in each of the following rounds, as Ancer finished at even par for the first time on Saturday. Power, however, scored his best round to date, going three-under-par on Saturday to climb the leaderboard into sixth place, one position lower than Ancer.

When it comes to final round performance percentages, Power has a massive upper hand, ranking T28 at 72.73 percent. However, comparing it to Ancerâ€™s T173 at 33.33 percent makes it evident that the Irishman has a much better outlook of finishing with a lower score on Sunday than Ancer. At -120, Power is a healthy betting favorite in this head-to-head matchup.

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