PGA Championship: Scottie Scheffler overcomes scare to claim third career major

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Scottie Scheffler has spent the last year and a half further establishing himself as the best player in the world. Jon Rahm has spent the last year and a half trying to remind the world that he still exists.

On Sunday at the PGA Championship, the two crossed paths — atop the leaderboard, and at a pair of back-nine greens — and Scheffler came out on top in impressive fashion, winning by five strokes over Bryson DeChambeau, Davis Riley and Harris English.

For Scheffler, it’s his third career major and first outside Augusta. The victory means Scheffler’s career trajectory continues to arc into territory occupied only by players with names like Woods and Nicklaus.

The week at Quail Hollow began with quite a few voices questioning whether the PGA Champioship ought to be at Quail Hollow in the first place. This course, while pristine and challenging, is also extraordinarily familiar — it’s the frequent site of the Truist (née Wells Fargo, née Wachovia) Championship, held annually since 2003 at roughly this same point on the calendar. So this year’s PGA Championship was less “Welcome to a fancy new locale” and more “Welcome to a familiar locale dressed up in its Sunday best.”

Critiques of the course — too broad, too anonymous, too kindly to the players — ranged from the devastating to the downright disrespectful. Hunter Mahan delivered the knockout blow — in an interview with The Athletic, he compared Quail Hollow to a "Kardashian. It's very modern, beautiful and well-kept. But it lacks a soul or character." (Quail Hollow president Johnny Harris swung back when asked about Mahan's line: "Tell me who that is?")

What Quail Hollow did not lack, at least early in the week, was water. Torrential storms dumped up to five inches of rain on the course during what should have been practice rounds, washing out all of Monday and a fair portion of Tuesday, as well.

Coming into the week, the two major stories centered on Rory McIlroy, just off completing his career grand slam, and Jordan Spieth, lacking only the PGA Championship to complete one of his own. For different reasons, the two brought an early end to their storylines — Spieth because he continued his years-long struggles and missed the cut; McIlroy because he drove the ball everywhere but the fairway his first two rounds.

McIlroy played those first two rounds in a supergrouping with Scheffler and defending PGA champion Xander Schauffele, and — much like many supergroups — the whole ended up being a lot less than the sum of the parts. All three players struggled to one degree or another, and Schauffele and Scheffler pinned the blame squarely on "mud balls" — the logical result of playing on a soaked course without the ability to clean off the balls following their shots.

“It's frustrating to hit the ball in the middle of the fairway and get mud on it and have no idea where it's going to go,” Scheffler said. “I understand it's part of the game, but there's nothing more frustrating for a player. You spend your whole life trying to learn how to control a golf ball, and due to a rules decision all of a sudden you have absolutely no control over where that golf ball goes.”

Others didn’t quite share Scheffler’s indignation. Max Homa, who briefly flirted with the top of the leaderboard during the week, noted that golf is “supposed to be entertaining, so seeing people who can look like robots for a while look completely silly isn't the worst except when it's you.”

The chaos that befell Scheffler, Schauffele and McIlroy resulted in a leaderboard that, over the first two days, looked like a collection of who’s-that-guy’s. Jhonattan Vegas, who’s won four times on the PGA Tour but struggled at every major he’s ever played, streaked out to the lead on Thursday. The first-night lead over Cam Davis and Ryan Gerard was two strokes, but could have been four had Vegas not double-bogeyed the 18th.

Vegas held onto his lead at the halfway mark, but Scheffler eased his way into position, finishing out at -5 and just three strokes back.

Scheffler turned on the heat on Saturday, torching the field by finishing the final five holes — including the entirety of the closing three-hole Green Mile — in five under par to finish the day at -11. The highlight: a dead-solid-perfect tee shot on No. 14 that landed inside of three feet to the cup for an eagle.

Scheffler thus began Sunday with a three-stroke lead on the field, a lead that — given that finish — felt like a 30-stroke lead. Rahm, meanwhile, had strung together a series of decent-but-unspectacular rounds — 70, 70, 67 — to start the day five back of Scheffler.

It’s a statistical truism that Scheffler is one of the best in the game at the bounce-back — erasing a bogey with a birdie on the very next hole. So when he bogeyed the first hole, it didn’t surprise anyone that he birdied the second; on the eight holes he bogeyed this week, he birdied the subsequent hole five times.

Still, Scheffler wobbled a bit on the front nine, He bogeyed the par-3 6th when his nine-foot par putt slid just past. And he bogeyed the massive 539-yard par-4 9th when he couldn’t get up and down from 61 yards out.

Meanwhile, Rahm stayed in the hunt with pars on his first seven holes, and then took advantage with birdies on the 8th, 10th and 11th holes. Combined with Scheffler’s bogey on 9, that run vaulted Rahm into a tie for the lead … for a moment, anyway.

Scheffler reached the green on the par-5 10th in three and had nine feet for birdie. At the same time, on the nearby 12th green, Rahm lined up for a 13-foot birdie putt of his own. As Rahm steadied himself, a roar arose from the 10th green as Scheffler birdied. Rahm wasn’t able to convert the birdie attempt, and Scheffler reclaimed the solo lead.

Rahm struggled on the next three greens, missing three potential birdie putts that, by all reasonable measure, should have dropped.

That left him a stroke behind Scheffler heading into the Green Mile. Scheffler, meanwhile, rolled in a birdie putt on the 14th to take a two-stroke lead with four holes to play.

Then things went sideways for Rahm. A bogey at 16, a water ball at 17 and a Scheffler birdie behind him turned a potential photo finish into a Sunday stroll for the World No. 1.

When he walked to the 18th tee, Scheffler had a six-shot lead — the engraver already at work on the Wanamker Trophy. It would be Scheffler’s, finally a major winner outside of Augusta National.