Greatness stops in Charlotte: Scheffler posts memorable PGA Championship win
It is unclear how — or if — future generations will remember this PGA Championship.
The tales of professional golfers bemoaning mud balls and preferred lies will die by next week. The same will be true of the arguments regarding Quail Hollow — is it interesting enough, penal enough for a major championship? Springing up more will be the lack of late drama on Sunday — a runaway finish on the heels of that April Sunday in Augusta, when Rory McIlroy fell to his knees and golf climbed back into the public zeitgeist.
More likely, this third weekend in May will endure because it will be one of many. It will no longer exist as a singular event but the collection in a legacy.
Scottie Scheffler rolled to victory at the PGA Championship, firing a Sunday round of 71 to finish the tournament 11-under — five better than a trio of golfers — Bryson DeChambeau, Davis Riley and Harris English — in second at 6-under. North Carolina’s J.T. Poston finished tied for fifth with Jhonattan Vegas and Taylor Pendrith at 5-under.
“Finishing off a major championship is always difficult, and I did a good job of staying patient on the front nine,” Scheffler said. “I didn’thave my best stuff, but I kept myself in it, and I stepped upon the back nine.”
Jon Rahm, who through 11 holes was tied with Scheffler for the tournament lead, crumbled on Quail Hollow’s famed Green Mile. He finished with two double-bogeys and fell all the way to 4-under, seven back and tied for eighth with nine other golfers.
Rahm, though, forced pressure on Scheffler — who lined up a birdie putt on the 10th hole with a massive scoreboard just to his left showing he was tied with Rahm at 9-under. And that’s where the pressure dissipated. Scheffler made his bridie putt. Not 30 seconds later, Rahm missed his at the 12th ... then failed to sink makeable birdie chances on 13, 14 and 15.
Across Quail Hollow’s massive pond as Rahm walked to the green of the Green Mile’s first hole, a roar erupted. Scheffler sunk his birdie putt to snag a two-shot lead. Rahm, meanwhile, kept his head down. He didn’t need to look up to know what was happening — what was going to happen.
Scheffler rolled into Charlotte in a group of 89 others with two majors. He exits the Queen City as one of 47 with three.
From there, you can start cherry picking stats punctuating the 28-year-old Scheffler’s historical place. Such as: He joins Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus as the only three players with a pair of Masters victories and a PGA Championship win before the age of 30.
“It means so much to him because you want to win the majors,” Scheffler’s longtime coach, Randy Smith, said after. “Doing that today and having a little ebb there before the flow happened — you know — I think it’s gonna mean a lot more to him.”
Now, these things can be fickle. Following his victory at the 2014 PGA Championship, McIlroy joined another Woods-Nicklaus club: Four majors by age 25. Then McIlroy went dry, failing to win another major until his April breakthrough.
In 2017, Jordan Spieth’s Open Championship victory gave him three-fourths of the career grand slam before his 24th birthday — something only Nicklaus had accomplished. Speith hasn’t won a major since.
All that is to say, we’ve done this before. A young star bursts on the scene, racks up some quick majors, joining some group only previously occupied by Woods and Nicklaus, and we begin projecting their eventual major count. Could he get to seven? Ten? Thirteen?
Then someone new comes along and a drought begins.
And, still, knowing that: Scheffler, who grew up mastering golf in Dallas, feels different. He does not so much bludgeon his opponents as he withers them down like wind and rain eroding a mountaintop. He requires them to be perfect because his ‘B+’ golf game is often good enough to win.
Think about it: This PGA Championship began on Thursday with Scheffler shooting a round of 69. He hooked a mud ball into the water at 16 and made double bogey. He then gave an ensuing lecture on golf course conditioning and explained how rulings outside of his control turned the tournament into a crap shoot. He went to sleep that night five shots off the lead.
By Saturday night, he led the field by three shots — after a third round with a cramped leaderboard and the feeling that a dozen or so guys had a legitimate chance to win the tournament. Then Scheffler played the final five holes at 5-under. He breezed through Quail Hollow’s treacherous Green Mile — holes 16, 17 and 18 — birding the final two and, suddenly, it seemed silly to think anyone else could lift the Wanamaker.
In a span of about 30 minutes, Scheffler went from two shots back to three shots ahead. From in the hunt to running away with the tournament. From an inevitability at Quail Hollow to inevitability to win how many more majors? Pick a number: seven? Ten? Thirteen? Sure! Why not?
If that does happen, if the man so unflappable remains at his current form, it is likely we will look at this PGA Championship as one of a bunch. Sort of in the same way the Michael Jordan titles in the 1990s can blend together as time goes on — he won three, retired, then won three more.
Or how Woods’ majors kind of scramble together. There was the 1997 Masters, then a bunch of majors really quick and then he won the 2019 Masters.
True greatness requires so much winning that it is separated into sections — for everyone but those lucky enough to bear witness. Thankfully, greatness stopped in Charlotte.
This story was originally published May 18, 2025 at 6:51 PM.
