LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY | It’s hard to imagine a weirder PGA Championship week than what just transpired in LOO-uh-vuhl.
Sadness and shock. Tragedy and triumph. Sixty-twos and 80-somethings – and a whole lot of birdies and eagles.
In the end, Xander Schauffele prevailed in an absolutely entrancing Sunday shootout.
Schauffele started with a 62 and ended with a walk-off birdie in a wire-to-wire victory at Valhalla Golf Club that buried forever the narrative that he can’t win the big ones. The Olympic gold medalist is now a major champion after shooting the all-time scoring record of 21-under-par to win the 106th PGA.
A week after getting run over by Rory McIlroy on Sunday at Quail Hollow to reinforce questions about Schauffele’s ability to close out big tournaments, the 30-year-old Californian shut up any detractors with a brilliant birdie on the par-5 18th hole, pouring in a nervy 6-footer to seal the deal by a stroke over a captivating Bryson DeChambeau.
“It was a hectic birdie, as well, but it was awesome,” a validated Schauffele said. “I kept telling myself, I need to earn this. I need to prove this to myself, and this is my time.”
Schauffele left no doubt that it was indeed his time. Bravo.
As for the rest of PGA week’s weird scorecard:
BIRDIE: Bryson DeChambeau. The LIV star displays the biggest crossover appeal in golf’s divide with an aggressive game and infectious enthusiasm that had the fans on his side. And he rates a gold star in class for the way he returned to the 18th green to congratulate Schauffele.
EAGLE: Scottie Scheffler. On his first competitive hole as a father, Scheffler holed out from 100 yards to open his PGA Championship. On his first competitive hole as a charged felon, he nearly did the very same thing from 92 yards, settling for a short birdie instead. How Scheffler handled his “big misunderstanding” arrest – shooting 66 and facing the media – was a masterclass in poise and maturity.
BOGEY: Big 3 momentum. World No. 1 Scheffler, previous Valhalla champ Rory McIlroy and defending PGA champ Brooks Koepka came into the week on winning streaks. Scheffler proved even he can’t overcome paternity-leave rust, an adrenaline-crashing arrest and a day off from his caddie. McIlroy’s putter was more debilitating than the distraction of a heart-breaking Monday divorce filing. Koepka had nothing more than just a dreadful Saturday 74 ruining his repeat chances.
BIRDIE: Shane Lowry. It’s hard to imagine being disappointed with a 62 in a major, but Lowry said “I should have had a 61” with a chagrined smile when his 12-footer at the end dove under the cup on a day when he made miles of putts. The 2019 Open champ wanted more than just a scoring record. “I don’t know where I hang that up,” he said. “I only want [to win majorwin a major] so much because I know what it feels like and I want to taste it again.”
PAR: Collin Morikawa. Despite channeling his inner Brooks Koepka with a proclamation that nobody was rooting for him, the two-time major champ put himself in the final pairing for the second consecutive major. He picked a bad day to then channel his inner Nick Faldo with a string of soul-crushing pars to drift into irrelevance on Sunday.
BIRDIE: Sahith Theegala. It’s really hard not to like someone so talented yet down-to-earth as Theegala. He stands a career-high 12th in the world ranking after a T12 finish. However, “It’s weird,” he said. “I don’t feel like there’s only 11 players in the world better than me, and obviously with the whole Tour/LIV thing, that’s not the case. There’s guys out on LIV that are better golfers than me from an objective standpoint, and subjective.” For the record, he beat all of them.
BIRDIE: Robert MacIntyre. Two weeks removed from bemoaning his homesickness while playing the American tour, Scotland’s Robert MacIntrye featured all week. His eagle finish Sunday lifted him into the top 10 and guaranteed a PGA Championship return next season at Quail Hollow.
BOGEY: Justin Rose. After a brilliant showing by the 43-year-old Englishman, his bogey-bogey finish on Sunday to tie for sixth with Shane Lowry at 14-under might prove to be costly. The top four finishers are exempt into the 2025 Masters. At No. 56 in the world, Rose has work to do to reach a 20th Masters start.
BIRDIE: Viktor Hovland. Last year’s PGA runner-up has been mostly lost this year after parting ways in the offseason with his former swing coach when Hovland seemed to have everything just right at the end of 2023. Credit to the Norwegian for reconnecting with Joe Mayo before the PGA and rekindling what worked so well when he was playing the best golf in the world late last year. It almost delivered a victory for Hovland, who finished third.
BOGEY: Ludvig Åberg. After his brilliant major debut as runner-up at the Masters, hopes of an encore quickly dissipated at Valhalla. He insisted that an injured knee that prompted him to sit out Quail Hollow as a precaution was not an issue. A double bogey at No. 12 on Friday proved costly in missing his first major cut by a shot.
BIRDIE: Thomas Detry. The fiery Belgian posted a bogey-free 66 on Sunday with a birdie at the last to finish T4 and earn his first trip to Augusta next April.
BIRDIE: Jeff Darlington. The ESPN reporter reacted on instinct when he saw Scheffler being handcuffed and jumped out of his car to record the incident and serve as not just a journalist but an important witness to what happened. Safe to say the situation unfolds differently without his quick response to show the world what happened in real time.
WD: Valhalla Golf Club. The PGA of America no longer has an ownership stake in the club. The ingress/egress had tragic consequences. A rain-softened course yielded a pair of 62s. The golf architecture snobs will be glad never to see those power lines across the Jack Nicklaus-designed course again. But Valhalla always puts on a good show, and Louisville turns out. It would be a shame never to see what Valhalla can produce again.
BIRDIE: Ted Scott. The guy drops the bag for one round to go home for his kid’s graduation and Scheffler shoots his worst round since last August and snaps his streak of consecutive rounds of par or better at 42.
BIRDIE: Louisville Metro Police Department. The LMPD deserves all the scrutiny it’s gotten since the Breonna Taylor tragedy four years ago. But regardless of how you feel about the way the Scheffler incident was handled, from cuffing to charging to booking to finger-printing to mug-shotting to releasing in a process that’s less than three hours roundtrip to the golf club is very strong work. Try that at the DMV.
BOGEY: Jon Rahm. His objection to being called “the other side” of golf’s divide didn’t resonate. “I’m still a PGA Tour member, whether suspended or not,” Rahm said. His longest active streak of 18 consecutive major cuts made ended by a shot at Valhalla. Now Hideki Matsuyama holds that distinction, with 16 straight.
BIRDIE: Hadwinning. After his majestic club launch into the lake at TPC Sawgrass in March, Adam Hadwin presumably wouldn’t want a return of his club that ended up in the water at Valhalla. But a young fan kindly stripped to his skivvies and socks and jumped in to retrieve it for the Canadian. Hadwin’s colorful wife, Jessica, with the update.
BIRDIE: Justin Thomas. The hometown Louisville favorite couldn’t pull it off and win his third Wanamaker, but Thomas appeared to be having a genuine good time in his T8 finish. His return to form on the big stages would be a very welcome thing.
TRIPLE: Tiger Woods. The 15-time major winner had gone 1,441 holes in the PGA Championship without a triple bogey. He did it twice in three holes Friday, on Nos. 2 and 4, en route to a 77 and a missed cut. The last seven official results since the 2022 PGA for the 48-year-old Woods are: WD, MC, T45, WD, WD, 60th and MC. Age is undefeated.
BIRDIE: Johnson Wagner. His on-camera re-creations and explanations of prominent things that happened during play will never not be the most entertaining parts of golf broadcasting. That the three-time tour winner willingly displayed his chipping yips and shanked on live TV is a profile in courage.
ASTERISK: Talor Gooch. Thanks to an eagle finish on 18 in the first round, the poster boy for LIV grievance managed to rally from 3-over and eventually make the cut on the number and finish T60. Guess this means they can cancel the asterisk on Schauffele’s victory.
BIRDIE: Mark Hubbard. Golf needs more characters, and “Homeless Hubbs” is just what the PGA Tour ordered. The journeyman pro, who will turn 35 on May 24 and had zero wins in 214 tour starts, threatened for a couple of days at Valhalla. He saw what others didn’t in Scheffler’s police report. “I’m like, Scottie’s bigger than me; there’s no way he’s 170 [pounds],” he said. “Like, I got to get in the gym and stop eating so much of my kids’ leftover mac and cheese.”
BIRDIE: Water. Kudos to whoever decided that bottles of water – essential to life, especially on 90-degree days like Sunday – should be free for fans to just grab and go at stations around the course. That’d probably cost $5 at a stadium near you.
EAGLE: Alejandro Tosti. Despite the tee not being moved up and No. 13 playing 349 yards to the small island green, the Argentine decided to take a chance with driver on Sunday and stuck the landing to 7 feet and made the putt for a 2. That’s easier to do when a Saturday 79 takes you out of the running.
BIRDIE: Braden Shattuck and Jeremy Wells. The PGA pros – from Springfield, Pennsylvania, and Fort Myers, Florida, respectively – didn’t shine quite like Michael Block last year, but they both represented their 21-man bloc of fellow club pros on the weekend against the touring pros.