CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Striding down the 15th fairway Sunday at Quail Hollow, Scottie Scheffler couldn’t help but glance over his left shoulder, across the pond, as the only man standing between him and the Wanamaker Trophy was shrinking from the moment.
Scheffler knew what Jon Rahm was capable of; it wasn’t long ago that he was measuring himself against Rahmbo. But things are different now, the stakes higher, their trajectories reversed. That was before Scheffler’s mind-bending consistency has kept him atop the world rankings for 140 weeks, third-most all time. That was before Rahm bolted for LIV, stunting their budding rivalry by limiting their on-course battles. And that was before Scheffler put up numbers not seen since peak Tiger Woods.
Because with another display of surgical execution and steady nerve on the back nine of a major, it’s clear they’re all no match for Scheffler right now.
Not just Rahm.
The rest of ’em too.
Scheffler took another step toward becoming a player for the ages by stabilizing himself after a few early wobbles, executing to near-perfection down the stretch and, ultimately, leaving little doubt. He won this PGA Championship by five shots – and that, he said modestly, was with nowhere near his best stuff.
“I felt like this was as hard as I battled for a tournament in my career,” he said.
In his increasingly legendary career, Scheffler has won with stirring comebacks at the Olympics and The Players. He has won with commanding coronations at the Masters and recent Byron Nelson. But this major runaway will be remembered for his grittiness and his tenacity, for his chilling effectiveness in crunch time.
It’s why he raised his arms as the crowd chanted his name. It’s why he spiked his hat and screamed. It’s why, as he approached his family, his father Scott told him: “Words cannot describe what we just witnessed. You are so tough.”
With a three-shot advantage at the start of the final round, Scheffler found just two fairways and four greens on the opening side to drop into a share of the lead with the hard-charging Rahm. Battling a left miss, Scheffler asked caddie Ted Scott if he noticed anything askew in his setup. Trying to lighten the mood, Scott quipped, “Aim further right,” but he actually may have been onto something. On the 10th tee, Scheffler closed his shoulders slightly, made a fuller turn and laced a 312-yard tee shot down the left side of the fairway.
“There he is,” Scott said.
From there, Scheffler didn’t miss a shot. He peppered the fairways and hit approaches pin-high and experienced not even the slightest bit of stress on the greens. He birdied the drivable 14th with a slick bunker shot and added a deft, two-putt birdie from the back edge on the reachable par-5 15th. He played the fearsome “Green Mile” stretch with a six-shot lead as Rahm, forced to get aggressive, imploded.
“Most people throw in the towel, and he just has a way to dig deep,” Scott said later. “He has an ability to be like, Oh, no – you’re not coming after me, bud. Sometimes you have the game, sometimes you don’t. But when he’s feeling it, he’s so tough.”
Scheffler’s major triumph had weighty historical significance, as it nudged him ahead of not just Rahm, his former rival, in the two-major club but the rest of those in his age division, too, from Xander Schauffele to Justin Thomas to Collin Morikawa. For the 28-year-old Scheffler, Brooks Koepka (five majors), Rory McIlroy (five) and Phil Mickelson (six) are also squarely in his crosshairs over the next few years.
Of course, Scheffler doesn’t view his career achievements through that comparative lens. He wasn’t a grand goal-setter, didn’t plaster posters on his bedroom wall, never made any bold declarations about what he could become. When he ascended to No. 1 in the world for the first time in spring 2022, he said, earnestly: “I never got this far in my dreams.” When he admitted to sobbing before the final round of the Masters that year, it was because he had no earthly idea how, or why, life was coming at him so fast.
And so even now, with a simple home life and extravagant career, he finds comfort in his inner circle and calm in the monotony of his simplistic routine.
“When I can be by myself and I can just practice, it’s one of the most fun things for me,” he said. “It’s so peaceful, and I love the pursuit of trying to figure something out. You’re always battling yourself, and you’re never going to perfect it. There’s always something you can do better.”
Of course, just when it seemed like he was running out of areas of improvement following a nine-win season, Scheffler suffered a freak hand injury over the holidays that required surgery. As he crammed for a return to competition without his usual practice, preparation and gym time, Scheffler battled the occasional wild miss off the tee, wasn’t as sharp with his scoring clubs and looked streaky on the greens. His frustration grew. He slammed clubs. He looked and sounded grumpy. Temporarily indisposed, only able to rack up five top-10s, other players filled the void. For them, at least, it was a welcome respite from his suffocating dominance.
“A little fire in the belly doesn’t bother me in the least bit. Sometimes you have to let that out,” said Scheffler’s longtime swing coach, Randy Smith. “You can sit there and you can take jabs, and you can jab yourself. You’ll be all right. Just don’t throw any uppercuts into your own jaw, that’s all.”
McIlroy was the story of the first half of the year, nabbing three significant titles and etching his name in history, but it may have been a brief diversion. The remember-me? reminder came three weeks after McIlroy’s Masters moment, when Scheffler shot 31 under par at the Nelson and romped to an eight-shot win in his hometown. Here at Quail Hollow, he became the second player since 1985 to win consecutive events by at least five shots.
Scheffler on set: Most proud of how I responded
Scottie Scheffler joins the set on Live From the PGA Championship, reflecting on the nerves he still feels before major Sundays, walking through some of his best shots and sharing what he’ll remember most about the win.
Just like that, his early-season fits have already been forgotten, his stats normalized, his mood lightened.
“He never left in the first place,” Smith smiled.
No, statistically, Scheffler is as good, if not better, than he’s ever been.
Not since Woods two decades ago has a player possessed this rare combination of precision, touch and poise. Scheffler is the most accurate driver among the elite players. He is – by far – the most lethal iron player. He’s turned into an elite putter. He routinely ranks among the top scramblers. He records the fewest bogeys and, on the off-chance he does drop a shot, has nearly the highest bounce-back birdie percentage.
“He’s maturing as a player,” Smith said, “and when you add good decision-making with good golf, he’s putting together some nice work. And it’ll get better and better.”
His best work at Quail Hollow came in spurts.
During a scratchy opening round, he overcame a mud-ball double bogey and played 2 under the rest of the way to get into red figures for the day.
Needing to separate from a crowded leaderboard on Saturday, Scheffler hit eight perfect shots on Quail’s stout closing holes and gained more than five shots on the field in a five-hole stretch to snag a three-shot lead. Cameras captured Si Woo Kim and Max Homa’s dazed expressions in the scoring room after Scheffler vaporized them on his way to a 65 that marked the first time in his major career that he fired the lowest round of the day. “If I can hit it just as well and make every putt I look at, I’ll have a chance,” Matt Fitzpatrick snarked later. “But I don’t see Scottie bobbling it.”
Actually, Scheffler did – three bogeys, uncertainty with his swing, a blown lead – and yet it still didn’t matter. Beginning with his striped tee shot down 10, he played six perfect holes to seize control of the tournament while everyone else around him folded.
“The greatest gift that he has,” Scott said, “is his mental thought process and his ability to do what he did today, to not have his game, hang in there, stay tough, stay resilient, and then all of a sudden you find a little something, start hitting it good – and now you’re winning by a lot.”
That’s happening more and more often these days.
All three of Scheffler’s major victories have been by three or more shots, becoming the first to do that since Seve Ballesteros. He also joined Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods as the only players to win 15 times (including three majors) before the age of 29.
The consistency, the dominance, the completeness of his résumé – it gives the impression that he’s not battling this current crop of players as much as he is the legends of the sport.
“He’s got that fire, and there’s been no signs of dimming,” Smith said. “In fact, I think that fire is just going up a little bit.”
Isn’t that a terrifying prospect?
“Nope, not for me,” Smith said.
“And not for him, either.”
