Follow our live coverage of the 2022 PGA Championship.

Hello, friends, and welcome to the second major of the 2022 PGA Tour season.

We’re at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma this week for the PGA Championship. Much of the attention in the run-up to this major has been about its defending champion, Phil Mickelson, and his association with PGA Tour threat LIV golf. Mickelson pulled out last week, an extremely rare occurrence for the previous year’s winner, and that will result in more attention being played to the golf.

Scottie Scheffler, the Masters winner, will be looking to go back-to-back. Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas are coming off top-five finishes at Byron Nelson, and both of them could certainly use another major win on their resumes. Same for Rory McIlroy. What about Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka, former No. 1s that have fallen on lean times? And then there’s the usual suspects, like Jon Rahm and Collin Morikawa.

Also, that Tiger Woods guy is in Tulsa and will be playing this week. Kind of a big deal.

The Athletic will have news, analysis and more from Southern Hills throughout the week, including what Dustin Johnson, Zach Johnson, Shane Lowry and others had to say during their press conferences.

(Photo of Scottie Scheffler: Orlando Ramirez / USA Today)

TULSA, Okla. — Jordan Spieth was confused, at best. Angry, at worst.

His 2022 Masters ended on a Friday. A bizarre turn. Only four days earlier, on Tuesday, he was unflinching in his confidence, telling gathered media members that he’d “struck the ball beautifully” in his rounds leading up to the week and that “my game’s in a great spot.” Lord knows how many bets were placed on him after that press conference. The man sounded locked in.

Then came rounds of 74 and 76, and Spieth’s first missed cut in nine career Masters appearances.

So, yeah, the 28-year-old was feeling vexed, if not a little betrayed by his game.

In the past, who knows where Spieth might’ve gone from there. Some kind of spiral, most likely. A swirl around the drain to some dark places. Maybe he’d blow up his swing, do something radical. He’d get in the lab with swing coach Cameron McCormick and break all the beakers. All the progress that he’d made in the previous year, climbing from those solemn days of early 2021 — when he was in the woods, so lost it was hard to watch and he very nearly fell out of the top 100 in the world — maybe he’d trash it and start all over again. Maybe he’d allow those two days to be bigger than they were.

Sure, it’s all a hypothetical — what the old version would do. But it’s a hypothetical laid out by Spieth himself on Wednesday, back on a major championship stage, this time at the PGA Championship.

“The old me a few years ago,” Spieth began, “may have tried to go back to the drawing board and said, ‘How do I fix this, what do I need to change?'”

Jordan Spieth has waited for the career Grand Slam. Now he might finally have the patience to win it

Tiger Woods is -125 (Bet $125 to win $100) this week at the PGA Championship after he made the cut at the Masters in his first tournament action since his car accident.

Will Woods make the cut at Southern Hills? Our golf betting expert Dennis Esser and I are in agreement that the best bets is on Woods to miss the cut. Making the cut at the Masters isn't that difficult if you don't blow up due to the small size of the field and the number of previous champions competing that have almost zero chance of making the cut. It's just a lot more difficult to do.

On top of that, Woods knows how to get around Augusta National more than any other golfer in the world. Southern Hills is a newly remodeled course that Woods won't know every nook and cranny of.

On the other side of the coin, John Hayes thinks Tiger will make the cut. Here's his thoughts from his best props bet column: I made this play at The Masters and I’m doubling down here at the PGA Championship. Tiger wouldn’t be here if he didn’t think he could compete. He definitely wouldn’t be here if he didn’t think he could make the cut. Big Cat has spent the last month recovering from his superhuman feat at Augusta and prepping for another shot at glory.

Best matchup and prop bets for PGA Championship

Bryson DeChambeau has withdrawn from the PGA Championship, less than 24 hours before his first-round tee time.

DeChambeau has been attempting to come back from hand surgery last month in order to play in the second major of the year, going so far as to play multiple practice rounds this week. He had expressed cautious optimism, making it clear Tuesday that he was not sure if he could do it and be confident he could play 72 holes.

Denny McCarthy is now in the field.

Read more about DeChambeau's injury here.

Bryson DeChambeau has withdrawn from the PGA Championship due to a hand injury. pic.twitter.com/TB09t4IqQh

Golf sports betting expert Dennis Esser has made his list of best prop bets for the week. Here they are. All odds via BetMGM.

Collin Morikawa -150 top 30 finish

Jordan Spieth lead after 1st round and Win +12500

Corey Conners Boosted +8000 to win

Bet365 Group E Keegan Bradley +350

Hole in One No -163

Tiger Woods to miss the cut at +100

Winner without Rahm, Scheffler, Thomas, McIlroy, and Spieth: Xander Schauffele +1600

Jon Rahm (-110) vs. Scottie Scheffler (-110)

It’s a battle between the most recent No.1 players in the world, with the Texan Scottie Scheffler currently wearing the crown. Both players tee off in the same group at 2:36 p.m. ET on Thursday. When you’re as good as these two guys you have to dive into the numbers to figure out where a potential flaw might be. Rahm’s really struggling with his short game and Scheffler is excelling in that area.

Last 24 rounds vs. the field

With wind expected this week, and greens-in-regulation coming at a premium, players are going to have to excel around the greens. This, combined with Scheffler’s torrid streak of great golf, means I’m squarely in the new world No.1’s camp.

The boring answer is I think this sets up well for Jon Rahm to dominate, but we don’t like picking boring favorites here. Well, actually I’m going to give you the most boring of all the top golfers on tour — Patrick Cantlay (+2200). He’s so well rounded with no weakness in his game. He’s in fantastic form with a second-place finish at RBC Heritage and a team win at the Zurich. He has the mental fortitude (Patty Ice!). I’ve long been a believer Cantlay is the least appreciated golfer on tour, and he gets his first major this week.

Shane Lowry (+3500 at BetMGM) comes into this week fifth in the field in both strokes gained on approach and in total over his last 24 rounds. Over his last five measured tournaments, he is averaging 4.4 strokes gained on approach. He has five straight top 15 finishes with three of them being third or better. The Irishman will feel right at home with the course as Perry Maxwell designed it with St. Andrews in the back of his mind. The former Open Championship winner is in such a fine run of form that it would be silly to overlook him this week.

Justin Thomas, Hideki Matsuyama among our experts’ best bets for PGA Championship

It's interesting watching the range during Golf Channel's coverage the last few days, and the difference in how some guys prepare. There's a lot of staring into a TrackMan, or guys who take a swing and then stop to get immediate feedback from caddies and coaches.

And then there's Tiger Woods, who just ... hits balls. He spoke about this Tuesday, about the need to be efficient because his body simply cannot take long range sessions. He is working on the range, with little need for a critique of every shot or to look at the box to tell him whether it was good or not. It's Tiger Woods. He knows.

He played nine holes, per the broadcast, as a final tuneup and is off the course.

(Photo of Tiger Woods, left, and Joe LaCava: Orlando Ramirez / USA Today)

A year ago, golf collectively celebrated as one of its beloved legends turned back the hands of time at Kiawah Island. Paired on Sunday against this era’s preeminent major championship alpha, Brooks Koepka, 50-year-old Phil Mickelson claimed his second Wanamaker Trophy, becoming the game’s oldest ever major winner.

The series of circumstances, quotes and events surrounding Mickelson in the following 365 days have been somehow even more unpredictable than his victory at Kiawah. His absence this week at the PGA Championship makes him the first non-injured (at least, with no injury publicly reported) major champion not to defend his title since Ben Hogan won his only ever start at The Open in 1953.

Though Lefty’s shadow lurks the grounds at Southern Hills early this week, the abundance of storylines assures it won’t overwhelm the proceedings. Here are 10 key notes to know entering the 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills.

Ten notes to know on Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods and more ahead of 2022 PGA Championship

Here's what the weather forecast for Southern Hills says about this week's PGA Championship. The good news is the players won't be facing temperatures of more than 90 degrees. The bad news? It's going to be very windy and there's a chance for a thunderstorm on Friday afternoon which could delay this championship and force a second-round finish on early Saturday morning. If I'm looking for a weather advantage, it's the people starting on Thursday morning early and then playing again on Friday afternoon. They will have to deal with less wind.

Forecast from Accuweather and wind forecast from the Windy app.

Thursday: High of 91. Winds in the morning only have gusts of up to 15 mph before it gets more windy throughout the day with gusts up to 30 mph late in the afternoon. Little chance for storms or rain.

Friday: High of 88. Sustained winds of 15-20 mph in the morning with gusts up to 40 mph. The wind should gradually slow down on Friday before a threat of thunderstorms late in the afternoon.

Saturday: High of 67. Chance of rain in the morning with winds between 15-30 mph pretty much all day.

Sunday: High of 71. Winds dying down to between 10-20 mph all day Sunday with little chance for rain.

For all the attention Rory McIlroy gets for his major drought, Justin Thomas is quietly sneaking into the same head-scratching territory. The 14-time PGA Tour winner’s lone major came at the 2017 PGA Championship — back when he was 24 and on a rocket ship to a No. 1 world ranking. Now JT is 29 and still waiting for No. 2. While his shaky putter remains worrisome, his recent strokes gained tee-to-green and approaching the green point to his game being dialed in for a strong showing this week. At Southern Hills, I want to roll with a pick who can hit it close and use the contours of the greens to score, not someone reliant on sinking putts for four days. Thomas fits.

Zach Johnson, the 2023 Ryder Cup captain for the United States, just spoke to the media in Tulsa. Some notes on what he said:

When playing golf in Tulsa, the ground does the talking, you do the walking. The city resides in Oklahoma’s northeastern corner. It’s squeezed between the edge of the Great Plains and the foot of the Ozarks, resulting in the topography of rolling hills and deep forests. Elevation ranges from a low of 534 feet above sea level to a high of 1,093 feet. Up and down, up and down.

The region known as Southern Hills is — shockingly — south of downtown Tulsa and pretty hilly. That’s where, in 1936, famed architect Perry Maxwell, navigating both the terrain and the Great Depression, choreographed an army of mules and strong men to push and shape the earth, carving out a golf course. It evolved into one of the sport’s great theaters, ultimately hosting 11 USGA national tournaments, including three U.S. Opens (1958, 1977, 2001), four PGA Championships (1970, 1982, 1994, 2007), and two Tour Championships (1995-96). Modern architects Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner recently oversaw a historical restoration, returning Southern Hills to its original glory and, this week, the course will stage the 2022 PGA Championship.

That, as it stands, is the very polished, ironed-pleats, proper golf history of Southern Hills Country Club.

And then there’s the other history.

This is where things get weird. This is where you wonder if maybe there’s something in the water down there. This is where you wonder what this week might hold.

(Illustration: Wes McCabe / The Athletic)

The wild history of Southern Hills, the 2022 PGA Championship’s host site — life, death and naked hippies

Corey Conners (+6600). He’s one of those guys who steadily play well in majors the past three years, with three top 10s at Augusta and finishing top 20 or better in three of the four majors last season. He’s one of the most accurate drivers on tour. He’s been in solid form all year. He’s just trustworthy. I mean, do I trust him to win tournaments? Not really, but I trust him to play well more than most in the group above +5000 to win.

We'll update as events warrant, but Tiger is undergoing final prep in advance of Thursday's first round.

Woods did not play a practice round Tuesday, hitting balls on the range before his media responsibilities.

Tiger out for nine holes with Anirban Lahiri this morning pic.twitter.com/2VQAB6EffW

One good subplot for this week's PGA Championship is the health of Bryson DeChambeau, and whether or not he'll be able to tee off on Thursday. After a practice round Tuesday DeChambeau Tweeted "Held up nicely today. Let's see what tomorrow brings."

That's a promising sign for DeChambeau, who has dealt with hip and hand injuries. He had surgery on the latter after missing the cut at the Masters, finishing near the bottom of the field. The former major winner has really fallen off the map since the Ryder Cup, not making a cut in a small handful of starts.

4 weeks and 2 days since surgery. pic.twitter.com/shymowoCBU

TULSA, Okla. — By now it’s an accepted reality that the PGA Tour, and golf as a whole, is indeed entering a new world. For a while, the LIV Golf Invitational Series seemed like a distant threat from the flank. Now it’s head-on. This competing league will be up and operational soon enough. Tickets are being sold. Broadcasts are being planned to stream on YouTube. This is going to happen, despite Rory McIlroy saying two months ago that LIV was “dead in the water.”

Sure, it could still prove to be a Fyre Festival-level disaster, but it is happening, nonetheless, and it’s an unavoidable topic.

“I might have been a little presumptuous,” McIlroy said Tuesday morning at Southern Hills Country Club, site of this week’s PGA Championship.

It’s hard to take a step back in hot, humid Tulsa, but before this thing gets underway, it’s probably worth noting that everything in golf is about to change, and that this major championship might represent the last remnants of the game as we know it.

Plenty of PGA Tour players are about to take the payday that Greg Norman is offering. We know a few — Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood and Kevin Na. Notable names, true. And there will be others. All varieties of players who are sort of relevant, but … sort of aren’t.

This PGA Championship and the final gasps of the way it’s always been

PGA Championship first-round tee times

(All times E.T. Local time is C.T.)

8 a.m. — John Daly, Shaun Micheel, Y.E. Yang

8:05 — Ryan Palmer, Robert MacIntyre, Alex Noren

8:11 — Takumi Kanaya, Matthew Borchert, Troy Merritt

8:16 — Adri Arnaus, Colin Inglis, Jinichiro Kozuma

8:22 — Dean Burmester, Kyle Mendoza, Chris Kirk

8:27 — Mackenzie Hughes, Michael Block, Sadom Kaewkanjana

8:33 — Nic Ishee, Mito Pereira, Sam Horsfield

8:38 — Hideki Matsuyama, Xander Schauffele, Tony Finau

8:44 — Kevin Streelman, Shaun Norris, Carlos Ortiz

8:49 — Tyrell Hatton, Bryson DeChambeau, Max Homa

8:55 — Matt Kuchar, Cam Davis, Rikuya Hoshino

9 — Viktor Hovland, Will Zalatoris, Cameron Smith

9:06 — Stewart Cink, Jason Dufner, Padraig Harrington

9:11 — Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods

9:17 — Kramer Hickok, Abraham Ancer, Thomas Pieters

9:22 — Patrick Reed, Justin Rose, Bubba Watson

9:28 — Richard Bland, Matt Jones, Garrick Higgo

9:33 — Kevin Na, Lucas Glover, Daniel van Tonder

9:39 — Beau Hossler, Tom Hoge, Si Woo Kim

9:44 — Cameron Young, Sam Burns, Davis Riley

9:50 — Shawn Warren, Pablo Larrazabal, Ryan Fox

9:55 — Francesco Molinari, Lee Westwood, Gary Woodland

10:01 — Zac Oakley, Yuki Inamori, Sebastian Munoz

10:06 — Brian Harman, Ryan Vermeer, Oliver Bekker

10:12 — Brendan Steele, Casey Pyne, Bio Kim

10:17 — Dylan Newman, Lanto Griffin, Laurie Canter

1:25 p.m. — Brandon Bingaman, Talor Gooch, Ryosuke Kinoshita

1:30 — Ryan Brehm, Wyatt Worthington II, Min Woo Lee

1:36 — Tim Feenstra, Anirban Lahiri, K.H. Lee

1:41 — Nicolai Hojgaard, Sean McCarty, Justin Harding

1:47 — Rich Beer, Jesse Mueller, Alex Cejka

1:52 — Cameron Tringale, Hudson Swafford, Adam Hadwin

1:58 — Russell Knox, Seamus Power, Scott Stallings

2:03 — Shane Lowry, Brooks Koepka, Adam Scott

2:09 — Jason Kokrak, Corey Conners, Christian Bezuidenhout

2:14 — Dustin Johnson, Patrick Cantlay, Justin Thomas

2:20 — Martin Kaymer, Marc Leishman, Keegan Bradley

2:25 — Jason Day, Rickie Fowler, Harold Varner III

2:31 — Zach Johnson, Russell Henley, Cameron Champ

2:36 — Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa, Scottie Scheffler

2:42 — Webb Simpson, Branden Grace, Henrik Stenson

2:47 — Daniel Berger, Louis Oosthuizen, Ian Poulter

2:53 — Sepp Straka, J.J. Spahn, Adam Schenk

2:58 — Kevin Kisner, Tommy Fleetwood, Billy Horschel

3:04 — Matthew Wolff, Joohyung Kim, Keith Mitchell

3:09 — Sergio Garcia, Charlenes Schwartzel, Matt Fitzpatrick

3:15 — Chad Ramey, Austin Hurt, Lucas Herbert

3:20 — Harry Higgs, Joaquin Niemann, Erik van Rooyen

3:26 — Tyler Collet, Chan Kim, Maverick McNealy

3:31 — Alex Beach, Bernd Wiesberger, Jhonattan Vegas

3:37 — Luke List, Paul Dickinson, Patton Kizzire

3:42 — Jared Jones, Aaron Wise, Joel Dahmen

2-8 p.m. on ESPN

2-8 p.m. on ESPN

10 a.m.-1 p.m. on ESPN

1-7 p.m. on CBS

10 a.m.-1 p.m. on ESPN

1-7 p.m. on CBS

ESPN is premiering "The Championship with Joe Buck and Michael Collins," which is being billed as something similar to the popular ManningCast. It'll air on Thursday and Friday from 1-2 p.m. on ESPN and 2-5 p.m. on ESPN2. It'll be on ESPN from 9-10 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday, then 10 a.m.-1 p.m. on ESPN+.

All featured group coverage is on ESPN+.

8:38 a.m. — Hideki Matsuyama, Xander Schauffele, Tony Finau

8:49 — Tyrell Hatton, Bryson DeChambeau, Max Homa

9 — Viktor Hovland, Will Zalatoris, Cameron Smith

9:11 — Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods

2:03 p.m. — Shane Lowry, Brooks Koepka, Adam Scott

2:14 — Dustin Johnson, Patrick Cantlay, Justin Thomas

2:25 — Jason Day, Rickie Fowler, Harold Varner III

2:36 — Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa, Scottie Scheffler

Southern Hills Country Club is located in Tulsa, Okla. It is designer Perry Maxwell’s greatest course and it was rebuilt in 2018 by architect Gil Hanse. Nearly every hole on the course bends left or right to create difficult tee shots. It’s one of golf’s old-time tests and it has hosted three U.S. Opens and this will be the fifth time it has hosted a PGA Championship.

Maxwell worked on a lot of famous courses with Dr. Alister MacKenzie including Augusta National, Crystal Downs and Oklahoma City Golf and Country Club. He also helped renovate Pine Valley, Merion and Colonial.

Hanse said he’d sit on the 10th hole if he was at the course and the 18th hole should provide an interesting challenge coming down the stretch on Sunday.

Woods won the 2007 PGA Championship here and shot a 63 in the second round to propel himself to that championship. He finished the weekend with a pair of 69s and beat Woody Austin by two strokes.

From the first tee, you can see downtown Tulsa and the fairways are lined with trees. Hanse reduced the number of trees in the recent redesign, but they’ll still come into play this week when golfers hit wayward tee shots.