Drains putt on 14 to extend lead

Scottie Scheffler was going to win the PGA Championship no matter what.  It wouldn’t have mattered what golf course or what conditions were in the mix.  Ever since, Scottie won his first event in at the Phoenix Open in 2022, the image of the next dominant competitor on the PGA Tour has been in the offing.  Scheffler was a terrific ball striker who hadn’t yet found the putting stroke of a PGA professional that needs to be executed every week.  Subsequent to the victory at Phoenix, Scheffler began to dominate the PGA Tour rising to the No.1 position for the past 3 years with a couple of majors.  Other players such as David DuVal, Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka had assumed dominant positions on tour and then faded away.  In year 4 of his reign, Scheffler had not won in 2025 and I would attribute this result to the holiday mishap hand injury, which had some impact on his competitiveness.  He wasn’t playing poorly but he just wasn’t winning.  Scheffler has a steely confidence in his game that is very personal and humbling.  The confidence he has in his swing affords him the ability to analyze and correct faults within the competition, which most players cannot even consider doing in competition.  Scheffler has won 8 tournaments out of his last 8 attempts when he is the 54 hole leader going into the final round.  I believe he should be in the class of the Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Ben Hogan discussion as a player that can be one of the best players of all time if he continues to roll on.  Many players make subtle or substantive swing changes as they try to get better and maintain a dominant position on tour compromising their foundation.  Curtis Strange and David DuVal are two examples of great players that decided they needed to make significant changes in their game for driving length and they went from the top of the game to the ordinary very quickly and never recovered.  Scheffler is completely dialed in and has the foundation to keep adding majors to his impressive resume.

Scheffler stayed close at Quail Hollow lurking while the leaders leapt to the front as journeyman, Jhonattan Vegas took the lead but you knew that he wouldn’t be able to put four good rounds together.  Scheffler lurked through the first 36 holes and then burst to the front with 65 in round 3 in difficult windy conditions.  It was game over-Scheffler was not going to lose focus in this final round and it would take something special from Bryson DeChambeau to try and catch him.  Scheffler had an easy pairing with Alex Noren, who had a great third round as well, but after a bunch of injuries, Noren was not comfortable in his final round position.  Scheffler struggled with driver accuracy on the front nine and at one point in the final round, DeChambeau had tied him in the lead.  Scheffler would birdie the par 4, 10th hole and it seemed that the all the victory green lights came on.

Jon Rahm would make a spirited run for the lead having come out of the pack in round 3 and was chasing Scheffler with some momentum.  My sensation is that eventually, despite Rahm’s considerable skills, his LIV situation deprives him of that competitive elixir that generates great things out of his game.  My belief is that LIV deprives the professional of the stress and drive to do extraordinary things in pressure situations.  Rahm made a ton of mistakes coming in trying to find that elixir including smashing his tee shot on 17 into the water for a game ending double bogey.  If you’re going to beat Scheffler, you better play against him every week.

The tournament was actually over when Rahm made par on the short par 4, 14th while Scheffler came through and made birdie on 14 and then 15 while Rahm started to implode coming in.

DeChambeau was also disappointing.  He had a great chance to win this event but he is currently having a problem capitalizing on his spectacular drives.  His iron play is essentially in deep yogurt as he could not convert those huge drives into birdie attempts that could have applied some pressure to Scheffler.  Iron play has now haunted DeChambeau for this event as well as the Masters as his short game kept him in contention.  Unlike Rahm, he seems up to the competitive challenge mentally, but he needs to spin that abacus to figure out why his iron play is not creating the birdie attempts needed to win that major.

I think the PGA needs to find a permanent venue for its Championship and its not Quail Hollow.  The course was in great shape and a very nice venue but I’m not crazy about a course where the professionals are 500 over par for the last 3 holes.  I’m not a fan of the Green Mile as the holes are too difficult to attack for players that are trying to catch the leader.  The Green Mile murdered all the leaders on Sunday including Rahm, DeChambeau, Noren, Poston etc. in a fury of carnage of bogeys and double bogeys.  Scheffler strolled up the 18th fairway in triumph with what turned out to be a 5 shot victory albeit that victory was really closer than that until the Green Mile intervened.  I would nominate the following venues for the PGA:  Kiawah Island, East Lake, or Torrey Pines.

Scheffler has the game and momentum to win more majors, and  this year’s US  Open at Oakmont should be a great venue for him to add another major title.