Scottie Scheffler digs deep, then dominates to win the PGA Championship

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Standing on the 18th green, the final putt holed, Scottie Scheffler lifted his arms above his head and smiled. Flashbulbs lit his face against the dusk. His wife, Meredith, snuggled their 1-year-old son, Bennett, in front of the nearby grandstand. Scheffler lifted the white hat off his head, and suddenly a contented man revealed the unholy drive just beneath the unruffled surface. Scheffler stepped forward, drew back his right arm and spiked the cap off the manicured grass.

“Just a lot of happiness,” Scheffler said. “It was a long week. I felt like this was as hard as I battled for a tournament in my career.”

Scheffler’s coronation at the 107th PGA Championship took an unexpected detour Sunday, mostly through the dense rough left of Quail Hollow’s front-nine fairways. His majestic ball-striking deserted him, a world-class player charged at him, and his pre-round lead evaporated by the turn. The kind of scar that lasts forever had started to form. Scheffler unleashed not only the full extent of his talent but also a fierce competitive will.

Scheffler further cemented himself as an all-time player at the peak of his considerable powers. He seized his third major – and the second leg of the career Grand Slam – with an incomparable back nine that closed out a round of par 71 and finalized his score at 11 under par. He finished five shots clear of Harris English, Davis Riley and Bryson DeChambeau after Jon Rahm, the star who pressured Scheffler most by tying him with seven holes remaining, melted down on the final three holes.

One major after Rory McIlroy completed the career Grand Slam at the Masters, Scheffler reasserted himself as the best golfer in the world. First, he dug deep. And then he dominated so thoroughly with a back-nine 34 that he could bogey the last hole and still win by five.

“I’ve played him in a few sports, and I’ll tell you what – I don’t want to compete against him,” caddie Ted Scott said. “He’s a killer.”

Scheffler is suddenly in position to make a run at a historic summer. He missed the first month of the season after he suffered a puncture wound to his hand while – this is true – cutting pasta dough with an upturned wine glass to make ravioli. He struggled to find his best form. And yet his PGA Tour finishes this season: ninth, 25th, third, 11th, 20th, second, fourth, eighth, first, first.

Scheffler has won his past two tournaments by eight and five strokes; the only other player since 1970 to win consecutive starts by at least five strokes is Tiger Woods. He has played his past eight rounds in 42 under. His torrid steak needs to last only another month before he is the favorite for the U.S. Open at Oakmont, a brawny course that will narrow the credible list of potential winners. It’s conceivable that Scheffler will be playing for the career Grand Slam when he tees off at the British Open at Royal Portrush in mid-July.

At the outset Sunday, Scheffler appeared poised to run away. He had built a three-shot lead with a magnificent run Saturday, playing the final five holes in 5 under. Scheffler tried to sleep in before his 2:40 p.m. tee time, but “you can only do so much when you have a 1-year-old at home,” he said. He entered with a 69.79 final-round scoring average in majors, which ranks second all-time. Even peers who play this capricious game for a living considered Scheffler’s coronation a formality.

“He’s in a spot where it would be shocking if he didn’t win today,” Xander Schauffele, last year’s PGA Championship winner, said early Sunday afternoon.

“The way he hits the golf ball and how few mistakes he makes, it’s going to be really difficult for anyone to catch him,” Sam Burns, Scheffler’s best friend and housemate for the week, said after his round. “Someone is going to have to go out and do something miraculous.”

It wasn’t a miracle that injected drama into Quail Hollow. It was Scheffler’s sudden case of the lefts. After he spent Saturday pounding 13 of 14 fairways, he hit just 2 of 7 on the front nine, living in the left rough. He could feel himself not making a full turn, shortening his swing. Scheffler thrives on the repeatability of his swing, honed through relentless work on the range. “If I can be myself and I can just practice, it’s one of the most fun things for me,” he said. “It’s so peaceful. I love the pursuit of trying to figure something out.”

After he bogeyed the ninth to finish a 2-over front nine, Scheffler set about figuring out his swing on the fly. He felt he had taken better swings on Nos. 8 and 9, only to look up and see another pair of drives flying left. Walking off the ninth tee, he told Scott: “That one felt pretty good. I don’t know why it went left again.” Scott suggested he may simply be lined up off-kilter.

“If you’re shooting a gun and it’s going to the left, you might aim right,” Scott said.

On the back of the ninth green, chomping on an energy bar as playing partner Alex Noren putted out, Scheffler told himself, “If I keep making good swings, I’m not going to continue hit the ball left every time.”

He kept nastier thoughts at bay, even as collapse threatened. Given an opening no one expected, Rahm, who started the day five shots back, emerged to challenge Scheffler. He birdied Nos. 8 and 10, moving to 8 under and separating from the cluster behind Scheffler. When he made one of just two birdies all day at No. 11, Scheffler’s lead was gone.

The look on Scheffler’s face never changed. He marched to the 10th tee with his head up, steely eyes forward. Then, with his shoulders more square, he mashed a drive down the middle. “He started making very committed, rhythmic golf swings,” said Randy Smith, Scheffler’s swing coach since age 7. “He was a little out of sorts when he started out, and he corrected his own problem.” From No. 10 through No. 15, Scheffler hit every green in regulation and, in his mind, executed better than he had the entire tournament.

“He’s got a lot of this,” Smith said, pointing to his heart. “But he’s got a brain to drive it.”

As Scheffler stabilized, Rahm’s charge halted. He squandered prime chances to get up-and-down for birdie on the drivable par-4 14th and the par-5 15th, missing putts inside 13 feet after middling shots around the green. Then he melted down with a bogey-double-double finish, falling all the way to a tie for eighth after his first serious major contention since he left for LIV Golf early in 2024.

Scheffler’s lead at one point swelled to six shots, allowing him to play conservative, stress-free golf down the stretch. He saved his emotion until the slam of his hat.

“Love that,” Scott said. “That’s a testament to all the hard work and emotion that you put into something. To do it for years with the dream to be on that stage, and then the pressure and expectations and the desires and all that, it finally just comes out. The balloon popped in a good way.”

Scheffler walked off the green and embraced his wife and son, cradling Bennett in the crook of his left elbow as he bounded toward the clubhouse. The top fell off the Wanamaker Trophy when he hoisted it, denting the grapes-shaped ornament on top.

Scheffler had added to his all-time résumé. Over the past two years, he has dominated in the same fashion Woods once did without succumbing to stardom. He limits his professional responsibilities away from golf. He rarely tinkers with his swing. He is dedicated to a young family that supports him unconditionally.

“When we go home, sometimes Meredith and I still feel like we’re in high school,” Scheffler said.

He left Quail Hollow contented but not complacent. A hat-sized dent in the 18th green could attest.

“Winning is a lot of fun,” Scheffler said. “And I think winning as often as I can is a lot of fun.”