You won’t have to listen to too much commentary regarding this week’s PGA Championship to learn that Jordan Spieth has a chance to become the youngest player ever to win the career grand slam – i.e. victories in the four golf majors, not necessarily in the same year. The numbers agree that Spieth steps to the first tee as favorite. Another perspective is that someplace else might be a better place for him to go for the record. The host course is the Quail Hollow Club, normally the home of the Wells Fargo Championship in early May. Spieth’s only appearance here was in 2013, his rookie year on the Tour, and he finished in the top 40, eight strokes back – okay but not great. Also, per the Hawley course fit statistics, driving distance and scrambling are the statistics that correlate most closely with success at Quail Hollow. Spieth is onlyslightly above average in the field this week in terms of how his statistical profile aligns with success at Quail Hollow. You have to grant that Spieth is having a very good year. He won the Travelers and British Open back-to-back earlier this summer and has an early-season win (Pebble), a second, two thirds, a fourth, and three other finishes in the top 15 among 18 starts.

Six players have won the career grand slam – Ben Hogan, Bobby Jones, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Gene Sarazen, and Tiger Woods. Woods was 24 and six months when he finished the slam in the British Open of 2000. Spieth just turned 24 last week and will be older than Woods was in 2000 the next time the PGA comes around.

There are lots of other ways to pick a player in this event. Going by the aforementioned course fit statistic, Rory McIlroy is no. 1, with long-ball hitters Dustin Johnson, Rickie Fowler, and Tony Finau right behind. Johnson of course is the no. 1 player in the Hawley rankings (not to mention the OWGR), which is worth something. Looking just at a window of the last four starts, Hideki Matsuyama, winner of last week’s Bridgestone Championship, is no. 1, with Spieth, Paul Casey, and Brooks Koepka just behind. For a list of the world’s top players over the last five months, just shuffle the previous list – from March thru July it is Casey, Koepka, Spieth, and Matsuyama, in that order. And finally, another way to look at it is who’s improved the most over the last four events. That list gives us Matsuyama, 30-year-old New Zealander Ryan Fox, Ian Poulter, and Zach Johnson. Fox is strictly a Euro Tour player.