While most of the eyes of golf will be on Scotland, where the Genesis Scottish Championship will be, before The Open Championship, at Keene Trace Golf Club in Nicholasville, south of Lexington, the Kentucky Championship will be played between July 11 and 14, which is one of the co-sanctioned events between the PGA Tour and the European Tour this week.
This tournament has been played since 2015, and as of 2018, it moved to this course with a par 72 and has 7,328 yards. The Swedish Vincent Norrman is the current champion.
Where can I watch it?
Golf Channel and CBS
2024 Kentucky Championship Top Contenders
Since most of the best golfers are in Europe playing the Genesis Scottish Championship, in Kentucky we find a great line-up of players who can take the title, among which stands out amateur Luke Clanton, who is the top favorite.
The 20-year-old American has played his first three tournaments on the PGA Tour this year, and last week, he achieved an incredible second place in the John Deere Classic with a card of 260 strokes, four strokes behind winner Davis Thompson.
In addition, a week before that, he placed 10th at the Rocket Mortage Classic and 41st at the U.S. Open in mid-June. He was the first rookie to post back-to-back top-10 finishes on the PGA Tour since Billy Joe Patton did it in 1958, and he is also the first in history to be the bookmakers’ favorite to win a PGA Tour tournament.
It’s certainly been an incredible month for Clanton that he probably didn’t expect, and to round that off with a title would be phenomenal. The only sad thing for him is that being a rookie (a sophomore at Florida State), he can’t win tournament money, so he has lost 804,776 dollars in two weeks.
Another of the youngsters dreaming of achieving his first title is Michael Thorbjornsen. At 22 years old, he has already played 11 tournaments on the PGA Tour where, as well as Clanton, his second-place finish at the John Deere Classic stands out.
This is Thorbjornsen’s first season on the tour, earning his entry last month after being No. 1 in the 2024 PGA TOUR University Ranking, so he will be on the tour for the remainder of 2024 and all of 2025. However, he has already had experience playing in other years as an amateur, playing, for example, three times in the U.S. Open.
Finally, we will go with veteran Chan Kim, who, with his 98th place in the FedEx Cup ranking, is the best positioned and one of the only two top 100 players. Kim, 34 years old and professional since 2010, has won eight titles, but none in the PGA Tour. The last time he lifted a trophy was at the 2022 Casio World Open Golf Tournament on the Japan Golf Tour.
In 2024, he has played 18 PGA Tour events, achieving two top 10s and three top 25s. His best finish was sixth place in April at the Corales Puntacana Championship, while last week, he was 12th at the John Deere Classic.
Last year the tournament was won by a rookie, so these youngsters are allowed to dream.
2024 Kentucky Championship Outside picks
Mac Meissner will be one of the young guys to watch. He has accomplished some good things in his rookie season and is poised to take his first title. He finished 20th last week at the John Deere Classic and has two top 10s this season, posting a 10th-place finish at the Valero Texas Open and a fifth at the Charles Schwab Challenge.
Speaking of Schwab, this time Matthias, is having a good season on the European Tour and has enough experience to win in a tournament where, as we see, there are many rookies and amateurs. Aged 29, this European golfer has been a professional since 2017, and this will be his first PGA Tour tournament in 2024, where, as the best result, he has an 8th place in the Corales Puntacana Championship in 2023.
Finally, we go with Daniel Berger, one of the most experienced golfers in this tournament, if not the most. With four PGA Tour titles under his belt, Berger hopes to draw on his experience to lift a trophy again after three years, the last being the 2021 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. He has not fared well recently, failing to cut in his last two tournaments.
2024 Kentucky Championship Podium Picks
1. Luke Clanton
2. Mac Meissner
3. Matthias Schwab
Prize bag
The Kentucky Championship is a tournament with a total purse of 4 million dollars, which is distributed among its participants.The champion will receive 720.000 dollars, in addition to 300 points for the FedEx Cup.
2024 Kentucky Championship Betting Odds
Luke Clanton – 11.7
Michael Thorbjornsen – 14
Daniel Berger – 28
J.J. Spaun – 28
Chan Kim – 29
Carson Young – 29
Mac Meissner – 30
Ben Silverman – 31
Joel Dahmen – 32
Michael Kim – 34
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