The most definitive thing you can say about the PGA Championship this weekend at Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course in South Carolina is that it is wide open. None of the guys at the top of the ratings is playing particularly well, and the guys who are playing well are for the most part up-and-comers looking for that first really big breakthrough.

The one outlier from the above categories is Jordan Spieth, who is playing well and has already had his big breakthrough, the 2015 Masters.

According to alookatgolf.com’s computations, no one should be at lower than 25-1 odds to win, and no fewer than the top 11 picks are all 40-1 or less. That kind of bunching is rare. Of course, you won’t get anywhere near 25-1 at any sports book. Vegasinsider.com, for instance, has Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, Jon Rahm, Spieth, and Bryson DeChambeau all between 11-1 and 15-1.

The Kiawah Island Golf Resort is about 25 miles southwest of Charleston with the course located along nearly three miles of ocean on the southeast-facing side of the island. Golf Digest rates it one of the top 25 courses in the country. It “might well be Pete Dye’s most diabolical creation,” the magazine said. “Every hole is edged by sawgrass, every green has tricky slopes, every bunker merges into bordering sand dunes.”

The Ocean Course will be the longest course ever played in a major, 135 yards longer than Erin Hills, site of the 2017 U.S. Open. The Ryder Cup was played here in 1991 and the PGA in 2012 (won by Rory McIlroy by eight strokes). In the 2012 PGA, scrambling and accuracy off the tee were the two stats where player proficiency correlated most closely with success on the course.

Let’s break the field into two groups, the highly-rated guys and the guys playing well. At the top of the Hawley Ratings, the top eight are Rahm, McIlroy, Thomas, Xander Schauffele, Webb Simpson, DeChambeau, Daniel Berger, and Dustin Johnson. (That group includes the top seven on the Official World Golf Rating.)

• Jon Rahm – Had a respectable little streak of three straight top-10s, capped with his fifth-place finish at the Masters. Since then he has been 13th at the Zurich, missed the cut at Wells Fargo, and was 34th last week at the Nelson. He’s been in the top 10 in the PGA twice.
• Rory McIlroy – In the last two months, he has the memorable win at the Wells Fargo plus two missed cuts and a 31st-place finish in the Match Play. Statistically he is unremarkable in both scrambling and driving accuracy. On the other hand, he did win here in 2012, and he won the PGA in 2014 at Valhalla.
• Justin Thomas – Won TPC in March and hasn’t been in the top 20 in three appearances since then. Just average in scrambling and accuracy. Won this event in 2017 at Quail Hollow.
• Xander Schauffele – A third at the Masters is his only top-10 finish in seven events in the last three months. Nothing special in the two stats noted above, but he did finish 10th in last year’s PGA.
• Webb Simpson – has only played once (ninth at the Heritage) since finishing 12th in the Masters. Very much up-and-down earlier in the year.
• Bryson DeChambeau – Also very much up-and-down. Finished outside the top 40 in three of his last four appearances and was ninth in the other, the Wells Fargo. Early in the year he won the Palmer but also had a missed cut. Nothing to brag about in the stats. Fourth in the 2020 PGA but missed cut in this event the two times before that.
• Daniel Berger – Probably the best of this bunch in 2021 with one win (Pebble) and four other top-10s in nine appearances. Has one missed cut (Masters), two finishes in the top 20, and a 35th at the WGC-Mexico. Has four missed cuts in the PGA over the last six years.
• Dustin Johnson – Won the 2020 Masters, then won a Euro Tour event in Saudi Arabia in early February. Since then it hasn’t been a lot of fun as he has one top-10, one top-20, three finishes outside the top 40, and a missed cut in seven events since returning from the Middle East.

Spieth is the only guy in that lower-rated/ playing well/ established category. He started the year in 52nd place (Hawley Ratings) and has elevated to 27th. He began the 2021 season with a missed cut at the Farmers, and since then has reeled off five top-10s, including the Texas win, in seven appearances. He arrives in South Carolina with the win and two of the top-10s in his last three showings. He is in the bottom half of all U.S./ Euro pros in accuracy and scrambling. The resume includes three top-10s in this event.

And then, the up-and-comers who are playing well and awaiting that big win.

• Abraham Ancer – Since missing the cut at the Genesis, he’s been runner-up at the Wells Fargo, had two top-20s, and three other finishes no worse than 26th. Top 1 percent in accuracy off the tee and top quarter in scrambling.
• Sam Burns – He is burning hot, pardon the pun. The last three results were a second in the Nelson, the Valspar win, and a top-10 in the Zurich. Somewhat perplexingly, the 24-year-old native of Shreveport LA also missed the cut three events in a row in March-April.
• Corey Conners – Has been in the top 10 in four of his last six appearances, with a best of third at the Palmer. He’s in the top 2 percent in driving accuracy and top half in scrambling.
• Cameron Smith – Another guy coming in with three straight top-10s, the last being the win (with Marc Leishman) in the Zurich. Has never done well in this event in five tries.

Veteran players who are doing well recently include Keegan Bradley, Brian Harman, and Leishman. The flip side of that coin includes Patrick Cantlay and Tony Finau.

Some relatively fresh faces whose careers are on the upswing include Viktor Hovland, Joaquin Niemann, and Matt Wallace.

And this may sound strange but here is a guy who came a long way to play in this event and who may have a chance: Garrick Higgo is a South African who just turned 22 this week. He basically came out of nowhere (Hawley Ratings no. 308) to win two Euro Tour events in Spain and finish in the top 10 in two others (Spain/ Austria) within a four-week span that just ended on May 9. He’s up 78 spots in the rankings. Those fields were much softer than what he will face this week, but maybe he rises to the occasion.