The thing about Dustin Johnson, picking him is like picking the Golden State Warriors or the 2000s Tiger Woods or the 1960s Jack Nicklaus .. you’re going with the pick that is very frequently favored, and plenty of the misses can be categorized as near-misses. That’s where we are this week as the PGA Championship, fourth major of the 2018 golf season, is played at Bellerive Country Club near St. Louis.

Johnson, of course, is rated no. 1 in the world. That’s based on two years of results. If you look at just the last four appearances, Johnson is second only to Justin Rose, who withdrew from the WGC-Bridgestone at the last minute last week due to back spasms. Over the last nine events, Johnson is no. 1. Ditto the last 16 events. Ditto the last 25 events. He also appears to be a great fit for the course. Johnson has played 22 events going back to last year’s PGA. He has been called favorite on this website 11 times and won twice (Canadian and Northern Trust). For that matter, he’s been not-the-favorite 11 times and won two of those too (FedEx and Champions). As a non-winning favorite, he was in the top 10 five times, in the pack three times, and missed the cut once.

None of this is to knock a strong set of challengers, as in all majors. After Rose, the strongest appear to be Jason Day, Rory McIlroy, Rickie Fowler, and Justin Thomas. Johnson, Rose, and McIlroy can claim the best record in the 2018 majors among this list with two top-10s each. Day and Thomas have none.

You might want to give a nod to Thorbjorn Olesen, the 28-year-old Dane who surprised many with his third-place finish in the WGC-Bridgestone last week. And it wasn’t like he arrived in Ohio penniless – his prior six outings include the win in the Italian Open, a runner-up finish in the BMW International (Germany), a top-10 in the Irish, a top-15 in the British, and two deep-in-the-pack finishes in the U.S. and French opens. One stat we look at every week is how a guy has performed in his last four outings vs. his overall rating, and Olesen is no. 1 in the field in that category.

Also right up there with strongly improving recent play are Rose, British Open winner Francesco Molinari, McIlroy, Danny Willett (top-30 in the British, top-20 in the Scottish, top-10 in the Irish), and Eddie Pepperell (back-to-back top-10s in the British and Scottish).

With the presence of all the PGA club pros, you might consider this to be the workingman’s major. Somewhat along that vein, here is a list of guys outside the top 40 in the Hawley Ratings who are performing strongly in recent appearances (skipping over the aforementioned Olesen, Willett, and Pepperell): Ryan Fox (11 straight made cuts including back-to-back top-10s in the Scottish and Irish), Chris Wood (runner-up in France), Stewart Cink (five straight made cuts including back-to-back top-10s in the Travelers and FedEx), Russell Henley (back-to-back top-10s in the Greenbrier and Travelers before a missed cut at the British), and Jorge Campillo (seven top-10s on the Euro Tour this year before a missed cut at the British).

The last time they had PGA Tour players compete on the course was 2008, the first year after the BMW (nee Western Open) left Cog Hill after 17 years there. Camilo Villegas was the winner in 2008, and a somewhat unusual set of statistics – sand saves and putting, in that order – were most strongly correlated with success among that field of players. In the current decade, scrambling, driving distance, and sand saves, in that order, have most highly correlated with success on the typical PGA Championship course, per the Hawley course fit statistics. Using that latter set of stats as a guide, Day and Johnson are the players whose stat profiles are the best match for the course. Next are McIlroy and Thomas.