2023 PGA Championship: Top 10 Power Rankings at Oak Hill CC
Golf’s second men’s major championship is here. The 105th edition of the PGA Championship is at historic Oak Hill Country Club in Pittsford, New York, near Rochester.
The club is nearly as old as the tournament itself. It was established with modest beginnings in 1901 as a nine-hole course.
In 1921, the University of Rochester offered a land swap, which Oak Hill eventually accepted.
Acreage increased from 85 to 355 acres for the country club, which allowed it to build two 18-hole courses.
Famed golf architect Donald Ross built the East and West courses. The East course is the main tournament course.
It’s a par-70 measuring 7,390 yards.
Oak Hill has hosted two U.S. Amateurs, three U.S. Opens, one Ryder Cup, and two Senior PGA Championships. This year will be the fourth PGA Championship.
The 2019 Senior PGA Championship was the last big event Oak Hill hosted.
Recent renovations have removed hundreds, if not thousands, of trees from the property. That could be beneficial to bombers, but the fairways expect to play tight.
Bentgrass has been swapped in with new putting surfaces replanted two years ago to give it time to be ready for 2023.
Shapes of several putting surfaces have also been altered. They’re fairly large complexes, which will put an emphasis on accurate iron play to find the right quadrant.
Bunkers have been renovated and recontoured and filled with new sand.
Lastly, what used to be the par-3 sixth hole has been shortened and is now the fifth hole. The old fifth hole is now the sixth and now stretches over 500 yards.
Weather for the week looks pleasant with temperatures in the 40s in the mornings warming to 60s and 70s. Some rain could pop up on the weekend, but it looks like it’ll be fairly dry with winds at or below around 10 miles an hour.
Field strength is always high at the PGA Championship, and that’s the case again. Notable absences due to injury include Will Zalatoris and Tiger Woods.
Jordan Spieth had to pull out of last week’s AT&T Byron Nelson with a wrist injury. He’s committed to play this week, but, spoiler alert, that has spooked me from placing him in the top 10.
Speaking of that top 10, let’s get to it:
Cameron Young hasn’t yet been able to solve the U.S. Open with three missed cuts at America’s national championship, but we’ll worry about that next month.
Young’s balled out at the other three majors. In his young career, the budding star has always seemed to play well at the bigger events.
He’s still got to get the monkey off his back of winning a standard PGA Tour event, but winning Rookie of the Year despite that is illustrative of his talent.
Last year, Young took T-3rd at the PGA Championship at Southern Hills and was a ridiculous up-and-down by Cameron Smith away from reaching a playoff at The Open Championship. Young settled for solo second at St. Andrews.
While he wasn’t a big factor at Augusta National this spring, Young bounced back from a missed cut at the 2022 Masters to take T-7th.
The Wake Forest product nearly won this year at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play. He ran out of gas in the championship match.
Young comes to Oak Hill on a streak of 13 straight made cuts worldwide.
The 26-year-old should be a good course fit this week. He’s plenty long ranking second on the PGA Tour in driving distance (318.2) and 18th in strokes gained per round off-the-tee (.543).
Young’s slow, but powerful swing can help him take on this long course while also assisting him out of the rough that could skew more U.S. Open-like based on pre-tournament reports.
I think Young will need to win at a non-major first, but his time at a major is coming soon. Another top-10 this week will be a harbinger.