Humble and quiet Scheffler lets his golf do the talking
Before the US PGA Championship, various players were asked by Golf Digest’s Shane Ryan if they had to trade one part of their game with another player, what would they change? The question got a variety of responses, with Rory McIlroy shutting down the question by saying he would not trade anything. Scottie Scheffler, meanwhile, was magnanimous in his praise of McIlroy and other players. He called McIlroy the best driver the game has ever seen, he said he’d take Spieth’s short game, Rahm’s passion and Tiger Woods’s whole persona.
When it came to the tournament though, Scheffler was first in the field in tee-to-green stats, and 23rd in putting, his old weakness becoming a strength, as he won the tournament by five shots. Scheffler was happy to praise his rivals while he must have known deep inside he would not trade anything, he has all the shots in the bag.
His win this week came a year after being arrested at the same tournament for a bizarre driving incident. A different golfer could have made more of that. Scheffler has little interest in fame, he does not even have a Twitter/X account, and is happy to let his golf do the talking for him.
Jon Rahm blows up but relights fire for the first time in a while
There are only so many “what ifs” you can have when Scheffler won the PGA Championship by five shots, but it briefly got exciting around the turn on Sunday. Jon Rahm charged up to nine under and after Scheffler had got back to 10 under, the Spaniard had a brilliant putt to tie the lead at 13 that agonisingly lipped out. Had that gone in, Rahm had a short par 4 and a par 5 to follow and looked like setting a formidable target for Scheffler to beat. At the next hole, a fine tee shot took an awful bounce into a bunker when it looked like it might roll on to the green for an eagle putt. A poor bunker shot then began a series of terrible shots down the stretch as Rahm collapsed from challenging the lead to tied eighth on four under.
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There were similarities between the PGA Championship and the Olympics last year where Rahm looked set for gold and bogeyed and double bogeyed his way in to miss out on a medal. Rahm said he was embarrassed by his finish at Quail Hollow, but better to be embarrassed and hurt than to be coasting and not have any feeling at all. It was good for golf to see Rahm back contending again at a Major on Sunday, even if it did not go to plan in the end.
Wyndham Clark’s club throwing should be punished
Golf is a frustrating game for even the best players, and there were several examples of foul-mouthed tirades and thrown clubs on video, from Max Homa to Rory McIlroy to Shane Lowry. An incident with Wyndham Clark, however, showed there may need to be stronger sanctions on club tosses and petulant behaviour. Clark responded to a wayward drive with a violent smash of his driver against advertising boarding.
The club went through the Rolex board and his driver shaft and club head were broken into pieces. Luckily, there was not a large gallery around, but it came near a marshal, who said it “scared him to death” and whom the American did not acknowledge or apologise to. It was reckless behaviour, the sort that may in the future deserve penalty shots or disqualification, like defaulting in tennis, for course conduct.
McIlroy has joyless week in Charlotte
In the splendour of Rory McIlroy’s Masters win, there was plenty of talk about how he would be relieved of pressure and burn up Quail Hollow, one of his favourite courses in the world. Instead, he thoroughly underwhelmed on the course, finishing tied 47th. The PGA may have come too soon after Augusta to have the sort of focus he would like, but even if he did not win, it would have been expected that McIlroy might get a top 20 with a smile on his face, an “aw shucks, at least I have a green jacket” attitude.
Instead, McIlroy skipped media duties on all four days at Quail Hollow, no doubt influenced by the news that his driver had been found nonconforming before the tournament. Only hitting a handful of fairways on Thursday, he shot a three-over-par 74 and essentially knocked himself out of winning. While it may have been at protest over someone leaking the supposedly confidential information, it was an odd look for McIlroy to avoid all media on a week where they may have expected to see him in a jovial mood in the aftermath of the biggest moment of his career.
Quail Hollow set up like a Major, but doesn’t feel like one
Before the tournament, Hunter Mahan caused a stir when he said “I guess I would say Quail Hollow is like a Kardashian. It’s very modern, beautiful and well-kept, but it lacks a soul or character.”
There was nothing particularly wrong with how Quail Hollow was set up for the PGA Championship. The course played a hard but fair test, the ability of the greenkeepers to maintain firmness on the greens despite all the rain was impressive, even if they could not avoid some mudballs. The “Green Mile” proved to be a fitting finale to a Major, which rewarded the best player in the world with victory.
But there was something amiss in that Quail Hollow was hosting a Major around the same time it hosts a PGA Tour event. The similarities to the annual tour event, not helped by an underwhelming leader board for some of the week, meant the tournament failed to really catch fire and create lasting memories in the way that courses like Kiawah Island or Whistling Straits would. Crowds and atmosphere also appeared to be lacking compared to some recent Major stops.
