PGA Championship predictions 2023: 5 last-minute bold predictions for Oak HIll

2. Viktor Hovland makes it three straight Top 10 finishes at majors

While Collin Morikawa was winning two majors and Matthew Wolff contended at Winged Foot, people were waiting on Viktor Hovland to join his peers by contending in one of the big four — it just hadn’t come to fruition — but it’s starting to.

Hovland was in the final group at The Open Championship last year at St. Andrew’s and was close to the mix at Augusta this year, registering two straight Top 10 finishes in majors, which happen to be his two best finishes in majors.

Now we come to Oak Hill, a place that should suit him. Moreover, he’s been overall playing perfect golf to succeed here with his ability to be dialed on approach into small greens and as a long, accurate driver. He still needs to take another step to win, but he’ll be on the first page of the leaderboard for the third consecutive major week.

1. Rory McIlroy gets major with third PGA Championship win

As a parody of myself with precisely zero self control and a strong willingness to abandon all logic, I’ve once again arrived on Rory McIlroy winning the 2023 PGA Championship at Oak Hill.

The last two times that we’ve seen Rory was The Masters and Wells Fargo, which resulted in a missed cut and T47. He’s not been in form, he’s clearly struggling to deal with off-course things mentally — evidenced by skipping the RBC Heritage — and there’s a reason he’s not among Rahm and Scheffler at sub-10/1 odds.

And yet, when I think about a course that requires long driving with an emphasis on long carries too and a course that is going to play extremely long, I can’t help but think about how that fits the best version of McIlroy. It would also be oh-so-fitting for Rory to get back to winning majors for the first time in nearly a decade when he’s been in bad form and no one is truly expecting it.

This is probably going to be immensely wrong, but rest assured that I’ve now convinced myself of it.

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