When Tiger Woods was dominating weekly tournaments in his prime, there was a pace to his walk that bordered on cocky and boasted of confidence. It didn’t matter how good Phil Mickelson was playing, he was coming second.

That’s how it looks and feels with Rory McIlroy right now. And Sergio Garcia, even playing arguably the best golf of his career, just has to watch as McIlroy takes it to everybody.

Amazingly, even after his WGC-Bridgestone Invitational win, McIlroy is still 425 points behind Jimmy Walker in the FedEx Cup standings, which shows just how well Walker played earlier this year.

Oh, and McIlroy is now No. 1 in the world again after Adam Scott finished out of the top five in Akron, faltering behind three straight bogeys late in his round. And Woods? Well, he seems to be making more trips to the doctor than a pharmaceutical rep.

So here we are, the year’s final major tournament. The PGA Championship returns to Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky., for the first time since 2000 when Woods won his fifth major championship. Mark Brooks won his only major in 1996 when Valhalla first hosted. It also hosted the 2008 Ryder Cup.

The Jack Nicklaus design measures a length of 7,540 yards for the par-72 course. That’s long, so length of the tee will matter and should set up similar to Firestone, but with less birdies. Form entering is highly critical this week since no one’s seen Valhalla for a while.

There’s five weeks left to the season after “Glory’s Last Shot,” so buckle up and hit the gas pedal for a fast and furious rush to the finish. Below you’ll find a look at this week’s PGA Championship fantasy challenges in Risk, Reward, Ruin.

RISK

We’re beginning to see a clear cut line of elite golfers and those that hover underneath, capable of winning but needing a right blend of circumstance and course to match the game they currently display. Elite golfers don’t care if we’re in England or Phoenix, facing a breeze or thick rough. But for many fantasy owners, it will be the sub-elite that need to be utilized down the stretch in order to make up ground or hold off challengers. One other interesting component to this week and next is those golfers who currently sit outside the top 125 in the FedEx Cup standings need to make a push immediately. A little extra focus goes a long way, which should be our approach as owners. Here’s five risks to take a long look at this week.

Harris English

You’re going to need a Yahoo C golfer to pair opposite normal favorites like Garcia, Charl Schwartzel, Graeme McDowell or Jimmy Walker. Harris English isn’t bad by any stretch and up until a final-round 73 at Firestone shot 69-68-68. That’s steady and is more similar to the form he started the year with, when he picked up a win. He hits a ton of greens, but needs putts to drop. English has seven top-10s on the season and a T61 in his debut last year. He’s definitely a risk but has shown potential before.

Phil Mickelson

Mickelson fired a final-round 62 at Firestone to reach 5-under for his tournament, but doing so with no pressure in the morning wave of a no-cut event is much different than this week. He’s had a tough time stringing good rounds together this year as he’s still in search of his first top-10. That’s amazing right? The 2005 PGA champion ranks 84th in FedEx Cup points, so I’m sure there’s some motivation there, especially since his main sponsor The Barclays would love to see him in good form heading to its tournament as the opener to the Playoffs schedule. Mickelson does have nine top-25s this year, and has experience at Valhalla from the Ryder Cup and from finishing T9 in ’00 and T8 in 1996.

Geoff Ogilvy

While all the attention was on Akron, the PGA Tour kept rolling in Reno, Nev., this past week at the Barracuda Championship. In a tournament that relies on modified Stableford scoring, being aggressive is a key. Ogilvy was striping the ball down the fairway, hitting greens in abundance and making big points as he finished as champion. He looked like a former major winner, as he did at the U.S. Open in 2006. I won’t discount that win in the least, since it netted 300 important FedEx Cup points and puts him in a similar hot position entering Valhalla as Gary Woodland’s win did last year. Woodland didn’t capitalize at the PGA, but he did at the Barclays. There’s no reason Ogilvy can’t either. He’s had good finishes four times before at the PGA: T11 (’12), T6 (’07), T9 (’06) and T6 (’05). His key will be putting, which proved strong this past week, but he’s a great value for Golf Channel group D.

Hideki Matsuyama

Matsuyama makes his return to this category, which is to say he proved he’s one to watch for. It took him two rounds to get comfortable at Firestone, but once he did, he was lights out, shooting 65-68 on the weekend. Call it a good warm-up for Valhalla, where he’ll need to get off to a good start but should be jitter-less. He’s been solid since his win at the Memorial and a T12 at the Bridgestone Invitational is a good feeling entering his second PGA Championship. Matsuyama finished T19 last year, shooting 72-68-73-66 for a solid debut.

Patrick Reed

Hard to believe we’re really just now talking about Reed again. As a result of Dustin Johnson’s “personal issues,” we’re looking at Reed as a Ryder Cup selection. Fortunately for Americans, he’s playing like a guy we want on the team. He shot 5-under Sunday, netting him a T4 after a 67-78-71-65 week. That comes on the heels of a T11 at Congressional and a T26 at The Greenbrier. Reed, of course, has two wins earlier this year before his first child came and affected his golf game. His first win came at last year’s Wyndham and this is proving to be the second-year pro’s hot time of year, right as he makes his PGA debut.

REWARD

How are you guys doing on starts? I have a couple dilemmas, which is that I have one start left with McIlroy and two with Adam Scott. That’s going to make the FedEx Cup race very interesting, but at this point in the season, you’ve got just to burn golfers when they’re hottest and figure the rest out as you go. The PGA Tour is so balanced right now that there are still plenty of good golfers to choose from and the key is balancing your lineup with a mix of favorites and underdogs. All of the golfers below come in looking like favorites and for very good reason. They’ll be heavily populated across lineups. Are you willing to go a different route?

Rory McIlroy

Why should we back off him now? Back-to-back wins on two different landscapes means Valhalla won’t ruffle his feathers. Don’t forget, he’s already won the Wanamaker Trophy once before in 2012. That win started a run of three wins in four starts. He has eight top-10s on Tour this year, hasn’t missed a cut in 12 starts and nearly had a third win at the Honda Classic. In addition to ’11, McIlroy has a T8 in ’13, T3s in ’09 and ’10. I’m going to go back and forth on him all week, considering his one remaining start would serve me well when he heads to Boston. Unless you’re in my position, run him right back out there.

Keegan Bradley

Bradley is getting hot and heading to a spot where he won his only major championship in 2011. If not for a couple late miscues, Bradley could have easily been higher than the T4 he finished at in the Bridgestone. I doubt he’ll complain too much about rounds of 68-67-67-69, especially after the T19 he had at The Open. Preceding that he’d turned in T4s at the U.S. Open and The Greenbrier. Bradley tied for third in his PGA defense and earned a T19 last year with a final-round 66.

Adam Scott

Scott probably didn’t know where he needed to finish to stay world No. 1, but when he plopped a ball in the water late in his final round at Firestone, it pretty much nailed it down that he would slip to No. 2. Now, he’ll no doubt want it back. That means grabbing the last major title of the year and one he has yet to win. Scott is so mechanically sound; he in his prime is just as captivating to watch as McIlroy. In 12 Tour starts, he has 11 top-25s and eight top-10s and is on a run of five straight top-10s since his win at Colonial. Scott’s last three years at the PGA have landed him a T5, T11 and solo seventh. He’s never played Valhalla, but Scott does also have T12 (’07), T3 (’06), and T9 (’04) results to round out an already spectacular young career.

Sergio Garcia

Sure, his driver began giving him problems down the stretch at Firestone, but that doesn’t detract from what he continues to do week after week. A little time on the range and a look at another second-place paycheck will sit just fine with him as he heads to Louisville. That’s now three consecutive runner-up finishes, including The Open and The Travelers. Garcia also has two fairly recent thirds to round out his eight top-10s this season, while also starting his year with a win on the European Tour. While the PGA Championship hasn’t been the kindest through the years, he has a T12 in 2011, T2 in ’08, T3 in ’06 and T10 in ’02. He tied for 34th at Valhalla in ’00 and played on the European Ryder Cup team there in ’08.

Justin Rose

Rose was right there at the top of the leaderboard at Firestone, finishing T4, just as he was at the British Open, just as he was when he won the Scottish Open. His game is made for major championships, he’s just not flashy. While Rose missed the cut at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Memorial, since his T34 in March at the WGC-Cadillac Championship he’s posted T8, T14 (The Masters), T8, solo fifth, T4 (The PLAYERS), T12 (U.S. Open), first (Congressional), T23 (The Open) finishes on the PGA Tour. Rose started 68-66 last year before being undone by a third-round 77. He finished T3 in 2012.

RUIN

In a perfect world, everyone playing a major tournament would enter healthy and with a golf game finely tuned. That would make for some major fireworks. But golf has different starting points for everyone. It has different ups, different downs and different twists of face. Unfortunately, that means injuries play a big part in outcomes, as does general fatigue or jet lag. It means the birth of a new baby can drain focus or the resulting birth of a child can take away from preparation. It happens to everyone on Tour at some point and majors don’t care what’s happening in the minutiae. As a result, it’s important for fantasy owners to wade through that minutiae to get an understanding of who to pick and who to avoid.

Tiger Woods

Wow, fancy seeing him here. There’s no choice but to with the recent tweak of his back. Tiger makes so much money from Nike and other sponsors that he can up and leave a tournament at any point. While he won at Valhalla when it last hosted the PGA Championship in 2000, we know that Woods isn’t the same golfer as the one that teed it up 14 years ago. I do sincerely hope that his back problems go away and he can play an entire year healthy. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Woods, but this will likely be the last we see of Woods this year, barring a late addition to the Wyndham Championship. He currently is far outside the top 125 in the FedEx Cup standings and would need a win this week or the Wyndham to get in. His Ryder Cup chances also are significantly diminishing by the wince.

Jason Dufner

After I pegged him as a risk last week, it came out that Dufner’s been playing with two bulging discs in his neck. Probably from all that Dufnering, which is exactly the opposite of the posture your mom berated you about when you were younger. Despite a yearly hot streak at this time of year, it’s time to view the defending PGA champion as a wasted pick this season. He missed the cut at The Masters and the U.S. Open, finished T51 at the British and T66 (14-over) at Firestone. Dufner also ranks 171st in strokes gained-putting, which is not something you’re going to figure out on major championship greens.

Jason Day

It’s been nearly crickets out of Day since he won the Accenture Match Play Championship way back in February. Of course, he’s been derailed by a thumb injury, which seems to still be lingering and affecting his preparation. He even withdrew from his PGA Championship prep by succumbing to dizziness two holes into the third round of a non-eventful Bridgestone Invitational. I know he had a T4 at the U.S. Open, but he’s still so rusty, he’d make the Tin Man blush. Day is 2 for 4 in his PGA starts with a T10 and a T8. When healthy, he’s a great pick.

Lee Westwood

I’m not buying that Westwood has shaken the funk he was in. His game is extremely temperamental. Yes, he shot a final-round 63 at Firestone. He wouldn’t have even been playing Sunday if it wasn’t a no-cut event. His challenge has always been competing well when the pressure is highest. His resulting finish at the Bridgestone says T19, but he shot 72-71-70 in rounds where birdies were well available. Additionally, he missed his three of his previous four cuts on American soil, missed the cut at The Open and hasn’t challenged in his last two PGAs. Oh and he played in 2000 and finished T15 (72-72-69-67) when things were going well.

Brooks Koepka

If you’ve paid attention, you’ve seen Koepka’s name pop up on some leaderboards at the beginning of the tournament. It’s also disappeared just as fast, which isn’t a slight on Koepka’s high talent, but more his seasoning when it comes to key moments. Following a T4 at the U.S. Open, he shot 65 and 68, respectively, to open his next two tourneys before fading. This is his second PGA Championship and I’m sure it won’t be his last, but any fantasy owner making such a deep and extremely risky, if not egregious pick should immediately begin draft prep for the NFL fantasy season.

Thankfully, McIlroy is in Yahoo B, which means I’m probably shelving him this week. I may put him on the bench and wait to see how it goes the first two days. I’d like to use him somewhere else in the FedEx Cup playoffs. There’s enough good picks for four slots that I can get away with it. I’m strategizing around potential bonus points it could net someone (namely by hard-charging brother-in-law) behind me that could cut a 50-point lead quickly.

I’m going to go back and forth on this, so if you’d like to talk more about starts strategy, lineups, or the PGA Championship in general, comment below or find me on Twitter @bricmiller. Best of luck on your week and as always thanks for reading!

This week’s picks 

Yahoo!

Group A: A. Scott (S), P. Mickelson

Group B: K. Bradley (S), J. Rose (S), H. Matsuyama, R. McIlroy

Group C: S. Garcia, C. Schwartzel

(Last week: 196 points; Summer segment: 937 Summer rank: 27,802; Season points: 4,703; Full Season rank: 3,150 – 96th percentile)

PGATour.com

R. McIlroy, A. Scott, S. Garcia, J. Rose

(Last week: 212 points; Season: 7,878; Rank: 4,177)

Golf Channel

PGA Championship

Group 1: A. Scott

Group 2: K. Bradley

Group 3: M. Leishman

Group 4: G. Ogilvy

(Last week: $612,500; Season: $14,575,662; Mulligan: $26,980; Rank: 10,039 of 41,033)