2024 PGA Championship Course Preview and Breakdown for Valhalla Golf Club

10 months ago by Joe I (TourPicks)

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Tucked in the rolling hills of Kentucky, Valhalla Golf Club is one again set to host the best players in the game for 2024 PGA Championship. Over the years, the course has undergone strategic enhancements and carefully executed resotrations to meet the demands of modern Major Championship tournament play. From the dramatic scenes of Tiger Woods playoff victory in 2000, to Rory McIlroy bombing one into the group in front of him, and even the electric atmosphere of the 2008 Ryder Cup, Valhalla Golf Club was built for moments like this.

I wanted to use this piece to hopefully highlight a few different angles and elements that may be less spoken about to provide some value in this course preview. It's not a golf course that is going to appeal to those with a keen eye on course architecture, but nonetheless, it's shown its cards so we know exactly what to expect and how to attack this tournament. We are going to dive into great detail in an attempt to digest the statistical data and historical stats to create actionable info for you to utilize for building lineups and making your bets for the 2024 PGA Championship. Let's go!

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An Introduction to the Course

In 1986, the greatest Major Champion to ever live, Jake Nicklaus, and his design team established Valhalla Golf Club located just outside Louisville, Kentucky. The goal from the very beginning was to create a golf course that was capable of hosting and challenging the best players in the world. Nicklaus deployed his traditional tactics in golf course design. Thin fairways, strategically placed bunkers, rolling hills, and hazards that present numerous risk/reward opportunities are just some of the many nuances around Valhalla that remain true today.

This course was built with Championship level bones that have been reinvigorated by Kerry Haigh and PGA Championship committee in charge of setting up this tournament every year. Valhalla now sports a rather unnatural waterfall landscape that tends to stick out amongst some of the other more rugged, natural components of the golf course. Exposed limestone and rock is one of the more recognizable features of the golf course and tie in the lineage of rural Kentucky to give the course its identity.

Valhalla has hosted a total of six significant professional golf tournaments prior to 2024. Three PGA Championships, won by Mark Brooks, Tiger Woods, and Rory McIlroy, all of which were jam-packed full of drama down the stretch. Two of those events were won in a playoff, and McIlroy edged out Phil Mickelson in 2014 to win by 1 stroke. Valhalla also hosted the Senior PGA in 2004 and 2011. Lastly, Valhalla was the host site for 2008 Ryder Cup which was won by the United States 16.5 to 11.5 that year.

Until 2022, Valhalla Golf Club was owned by the PGA of America. on June 1st 2022, the PGA sold the club to a group comprised of local members. The members have made some changes to the course and conditions over the last couple of years which we will likely see play out over the next week. This will be the 4th time Valhalla has hosted the PGA Championship, tying it for the second-most all-time with Oak Hill which we saw last year.

Recent Winners:

2014: Rory McIlroy

2000: Tiger Woods

1996: Mark Brooks

Inching closer & closer to these views at Valhalla. 🏆#PGAChamp pic.twitter.com/q3yIfxkLM8

— PGA Championship (@PGAChampionship) April 18, 2024

Scorecard

Course Specs

As you can see from the scorecard, Valhalla has beefed up the total yardage pretty significantly in preparation for hosting this event. They have added over 150 total yards and 4 new tee boxes that will be in play since the PGA was last hosted at Valhalla in 2014. The two most consequential changes will likely be the ones made to the 1st and 14th hole. A new tee box was added on the other side of the cart path on the first hole, making it much more difficult to for players to take it over the dogleg corner on the hole aptly named "Cutting the Corner".

The other significant change made was on the par-4 14th hole. The club cleared some additional land and added a new tee box way, way back. They were able to lengthen the hole 37 yards and it will now play 254 yards in total, making it one of the longest par-3's in the history of the PGA Championship. Given the fact that the green is canted on an angle, it's going to be extremely difficult to hold with a long iron or wood. My gut says that most players will elect to hit 3 or 4 iron into that front bunker and then do their best to get up and down for par. This hole is going to be a brute!

Another major change for this year is the grass. Two years ago, after hosting the Girls Junior PGA Championship, the new ownership group elected to rip up the Bent grass on all the tee boxes and fairways to replace it with Zoysia grass. The Zoysia requires far less maintenance and water year-round. That said, the growing season for Zoysia predominantly comes later in the summer, so you may see the course look a little browned out in sports. Here is what Kerry Haigh had to say about that change which I believe is notable.

“With the switch of the fairways to zoysiagrass, it will be slower growing in May than in August,” Haigh says. “That’s the one variable we’ve not had at Valhalla. From the two years we’ve had zoysia there, we know it plays faster and firmer than the bentgrass fairways ever did, so hopefully there will be more run on the ball."

Walked around Valhalla this morning a couple weeks away from @PGAChampionship. Course is beautiful, in great shape. So many cool holes with risk/reward decisions. Rough is STURDY and gonna keep growing. You know how I know? Because they were fertilizing it when I was walking up… pic.twitter.com/IqmbLc7Xje

— Aaron Flener (@AaronFlener) May 2, 2024

Statistical Considerations

Like most Major Championships, I would firmly expect the difference maker to be long-iron play. It's the stat that separates the strong from the weak better than any other data point for professional players. There are seven total par 4's that will play longer than 460 yards and a handful playing right around 500 yards. I do think the course should have some bounce which doesn't completely rule out shorter players, but ultimately the ability to hit your long irons is always properly rewarded on these type of tests.

One area where I think that Valhalla could differ from what was hyper-important at Augusta National and will be again at the US Open at Pinehurst, is around the green game. Despite the greens being smallish in size, they are pretty flat and Valhalla does not feature some of the tightly mown run-off areas that really make chipping around the greens difficult. Instead, we are going to get thick, and sometimes gnarly rough that adds a bit more randomness to chipping and alleviates some of the skill required.

There is only 23 total acres of fairway on this golf course that stands 7,600+ yards. That would make it the smallest amount of total fairways that we have seen in a Major Championship since Pebble Beach. I think this means you either have to be super accurate or extremely long with the ability to hit greens from "other than fairway". Players will need to excel in one area or the other, those who fall in the dreaded average zone in both won't have a distinct advantage this week. You can filter your driving into looking into these specific stats and it should give you a proper indication.

Lastly, do yourself a favor and look into Major Championship pedigree. The amount of times where a player has come out of nowhere to win are few and far between. You need to possess the proper tools, but also be equipped with the mental capacity to handle Major Championship pressure. We see it come into play all the time, and it is often the reason we find similar names penned in the top of Major leaderboards every year.