Scottie beams himself up to another level
Scheffler's PGA Championship win is his third major, and reaffirms his No. 1 status.
For Scottie Scheffler it’s never over until it’s over. For 71 holes his fists are normally un-pumped, his hands firmly on the wheel. Only when he finishes the job, long after the rest of the field has raised the white flag, is he inclined to celebrate. At the PGA Championship on Sunday, he hugged caddie Ted Scott, shook everyone else’s hand, and suddenly threw his cap on the green, yelled, “That’s what I’m talking about!” and vigorously high-fived Scott. He had won his third major championship by five strokes.
It’s almost like Scheffler keeps all demonstrations of emotion in a safe room, not to be unlocked until the scoreboards are full. But they’re always there. When he won the Masters in 2022 he said he was a sobbing basket case on the morning of the final round, not so much uptight over how he would play, but overwhelmed by the accessories of victory that would descend upon his life. He’s obviously made peace with all that. He won nine times worldwide in 2024, including a Masters and an Olympic gold medal. He hadn’t won a tour event before Phoenix in 2022, the same day the Rams beat Cincinnati in the Super Bowl, and now he has won 15.
A month and five days after Rory McIlroy won the Masters and captivated people who wouldn’t know a wedge from a salad, Scheffler widened his lead in the World Golf Rankings. He has played nine events in 2025, won two, and finished in the top 25 in all nine. He hasn’t missed a cut since late 2022 and he’s finished in the top five 49 times, or in 35 percent of his starts. Tiger Woods did that in 43 percent of his starts. We will never see another Woods, but he had challengers that occasionally got the best of him, like Phil Mickelson or David Duval or Vijay Singh. We haven’t been lucky enough, at least not yet, to see a true Scheffler vs. McIlroy hoedown on the back nine somewhere in Scotland or Augusta or Oakmont, the site of next month’s U.S. Open. But Scheffler is as unquestioned a No. 1 as Woods ever was. The only thing restraining him was a 2-for-22 performance in majors, but on Sunday he began working on that.
Afterward, Scheffler said he was happiest about the way he scored, about the way he stayed in the mix through his indifferent play on Thursday and Friday. It rained unmercifully early in the week at Quail Hollow, in Charlotte, and when it stopped raining the balls picked up mud, making them hard to control. But the PGA wouldn’t let the players improve their lies, known colloquially as “lift, clean and cheat.” Scheffler wasn’t pleased. On the 16th hole, he, McIlroy and Xander Schauffele all made double bogeys. “I made double and I didn’t lose the honor,” Scheffler said. “Probably the first and last time that’ll happen in my career unless we get some crazy weather conditions.”
But Scheffler was still five-under-par after 36 holes. On Saturday he sidled up to the contenders and then left them coughing, as he toured the final five holes in five-under. That included an eagle at the driveable par-4 14th, and birdies on the troublesome 17th and 18th, part of a 3-hole coda known as the Green Mile among Quail Hollow members. Scheffler now led by three and, early on Sunday, stretched it to five, and the CBS announcers braced for a long afternoon of analyzing whether Davis Riley or J.T Poston would finish second.
Drama then made a cameo appearance. Jon Rahm, the former Masters and U.S. Open champ who took the LIV Tour money and effectively disappeared, birdied the 10th and 11th. Scheffler was fighting an inconvenient hook at the time and shot 2-over on the front. When he got to the 10th tee he was tied with Rahm, and he asked Scott if he’d seen any swing problems. Scott suggested he start aiming more to the right, which is kind of like the layman’s turn-it-off, turn-it-on solution. But that sometimes works. Scheffler birdied 10, birdied 14 and the par=5 15th while Rahm was going par-par. Now forced to gamble, Rahn doubled 17 and 18, and Scheffler’s runners-up were Riley, Bryson DeChambeau and Harris English.
Five times during the week, Scheffler followed a bogey with a birdie or an eagle. His game is coldly logical, with the dangerous side-effect of convincing the novice that it’s actually not that hard. Woods never made it look easy. He was in his own realm, but he was obviously working at it, and he never bothered to bottle his anger. Scheffler isn’t a robot, certainly, but when things are going well he has no trouble spreading monotony.
Not that he’s ever standing still. In 2023 Scheffler ranked 162nd in strokes-gained/putting. Last year he was 66th and this year he is 12th. He has slipped from fourth to 42nd in strokes-gained/around the green, but the putting has compensated for that. The analytics folks maintain that the long game is more of a determinant, and this is the third year in succession that Scheffler has led the tour in approach shots. Grounded by longtime teacher Randy Smith, Scheffler seeks improvement without stealing his own identity, the way Padraig Harrington and Viktor Hovland sometimes have. He’s always going to execute the happy-footed Scheffler Shuffle when he swings. But he’ll also keep his ear open for constructive advice, like the time he decided to go to a mallet putter and went on a streak. That suggestion came from McIlroy, during a TV interview.
Meanwhile, McIlroy was finishing 47th. He had little idea where his drives were headed, and he ranked 67th in the field on approach shots. He also had back-to-back birdies only once, and he snubbed the media after all four rounds. Perhaps he was miffed that the authorities singled him out for using a non-conforming driver, which is not as sinister as it sounds. It can happen through overuse, at which point the player merely replaces the head. Scheffler, when asked, admitted he had to do the same thing.
Perhaps McIlroy was still struggling with new goals after his Masters win, his third of the year, gave him the lifetime Grand Slam. Perhaps he assumed that the PGA would be a coronation instead of a competition, because he had won the tour event at Quail Hollow four times, including a five-stroke win in 2024. His long-iron mastery should give him an edge at Oakmont, which is as vicious an inquisition as the pros ever face. As usual, his issues will command attention.
Meanwhile, Scheffler continues his pursuit, even with nobody in sight.