Draws and Fades: Ludvig Åberg ready for major championship ascension through congested crowd

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Draws and Fades: Ludvig Åberg ready for major championship ascension through congested crowd

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Draws and Fades

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PGA Championship: Odds analysis as Aronimink leaderboard logjam continues in Round 2

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Written by Jimmy Reinman

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — Another day of pure, unadulterated punishment unfolded at Aronimink Golf Club on Friday, and somehow the leaderboard only tightened further.

It’s almost miraculous how quickly fortunes are changing. One player strings together a pair of birdies and suddenly jumps to the front of the pack, only for Donald Ross and the late-spring winds to promptly drag them right back into the scrum.

At day’s end, only Maverick McNealy and Alex Smalley stand a single shot clear of the chaos at 4-under par. Behind them sits a traffic jam of contenders at 3 under, with just 21 players in red numbers from a field of 156.

That’s the beauty, or madness, of this leaderboard. If you made the cut, you’re still very much alive.

No player sits more than eight strokes off the lead, and with warmer temperatures and calmer winds potentially on the horizon, two rounds of 67 or better could absolutely earn someone the Wanamaker Trophy.

With that in mind, let’s look at the odds to win the PGA Championship after Round 2:

Scottie Scheffler (+340)
Cameron Young (+950)
Maverick McNealy (+1175)
Ludvig Åberg (+1200)
Jon Rahm (+1325)
Hideki Matsuyama (+1325)
Chris Gotterup (+1350)
Min Woo Lee (+1450)
Alex Smalley (+1500)
Justin Thomas (+2100)
Si Woo Kim (+2300)
Rory McIlroy (+3100)
Patrick Cantlay (+3400)
Aldrich Potgieter (+3500)
Harris English (+3500)
David Puig (+3500)

If conditions do turn friendlier, especially in the wind department, Saturday could feel like an entirely different tournament.

Last night in this column, I threw out a handful of names sitting on fire-sale discounts. With the leaderboard packed tighter than rush hour traffic, anyone who didn’t shoot 75 or worse still felt like a viable betting option at clearance-rack prices.

One of those names was Åberg, who was somehow hanging around at a whopping +7600 Thursday night. As the saying goes, yesterday’s price is not today’s price, but I still like where the Swede stands heading into the weekend.

So far at Aronimink, the combination of thick rough and gusty winds has amplified putting to an almost absurd degree. Sort the field by Strokes Gained: Putting, and you’ll find names like Aldrich Potgieter, Alex Smalley and Stephan Jaeger near the top, which happens to look a lot like the outright leaderboard.

Åberg’s edge happens to be that putting has actually been his weakest category this week.

He’s still gaining strokes on the greens, just not at the same level as the rest of his game, where he ranks fifth in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green and fourth in Approach.

If conditions soften, Åberg has the full arsenal to take flight and post a number that others may not be able to match. He made just one bogey Friday while hitting 17 greens in regulation. Entering the week, he had never made a cut at the PGA Championship in his young career. Now, he heads into the weekend in prime position to win one.

PGA Championship: Odds analysis as Aronimink leaderboard logjam continues in Round 2

Xander Schauffele, Top 5 (+640)

Yesterday, I pegged Schauffele as a prime candidate to separate from the pack and build on his opening 2-under 68. Instead, he spun his wheels to a 3-over 73 in the better side of the draw and drifted back into the lower half of the peloton.

But this feels like the inverse of the Åberg situation, where a proven commodity is suddenly back on sale because of leaderboard congestion.

Schauffele is sitting north of 6-1 for a top-five finish despite being one of the most bankable major championship players of this generation. He’s also riding a stretch of five top-12 finishes in his last seven starts.

This tournament remains absurdly bunched, and there’s every chance Friday ends up being Schauffele’s worst round of the week. Give me the two-time major winner to still be standing as this crowded pack begins to thin by Sunday evening.

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May 15, 2026