CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Just when the leaderboard at the 107th PGA Championship was beginning to resemble a NASCAR pile up, world No. 1 stepped on the pedal and finished with three birdies and an eagle on the final five holes to open up a three-stroke lead.
Scheffler posted 6-under 65 at Quail Hollow Club on Saturday, improving his score for the third straight day as he bids for his third career major title. Scheffler grabbed the lead in dramatic fashion, smashing 3-wood off the tee at the 304-yard par-4 14th to 2 feet to set up an easy eagle.
“Did I execute it thinking I hit it two feet or whatever it was?” Scheffler said. “I mean, there’s a little bit of luck involved in that when you’re at 300 yards, but overall, I executed the shot exactly how I wanted to.”
Did he ever. Scheffler followed with birdie at 15 and then made mincemeat of the treacherous Green Mile, the infamous finishing three-hole stretch at Quail Hollow. Scheffler birdied 17 and 18 to cap off his round.
“I felt like I executed really well on back nine and hit the shots that I was trying to hit and was able to get some results from those,” he said.
Bryson DeChambeau held the lead at 8 under when he arrived at the Green Mile and undid much of his good play, rinsing his tee shot at the par-3 17th and making double bogey and added insult to injury with a bogey at the closing hole.
“Wind flipped,” DeChambeau said of his tee shot at 17. “We misjudged that… hit a great shot on 17 and just made a dumb double. It cost me three shots and that’s what happens here at Quail Hollow.”
DeChambeau, the reigning U.S. Open champion, settled for 69 and will enter the final round six strokes back.
Two-time major winner Jon Rahm is in the hunt, too, a shot better at 6-under 207, after posting 67. Asked how hungry he is to win his first major since joining LIV Golf, he said, “About as hungry as anybody can be in this situation.”
Several less-heralded players still are in contention for a career-defining moment, including veteran Alex Noren, who recently returned from being sidelined with a torn hamstring. He shot 66 and is alone in second three back. Davis Riley, who stared down Scheffler last year to win the Charles Schwab Challenge, and J.T. Poston, a North Carolina native, are tied for third.
“This is what you work for. Embrace it and have fun with it,” Riley said of being in contention for the first time at a major.
Si Woo Kim, who shot even alongside Scheffler, and 36-hole leader Jhonattan Vegas (73), are T-5 along with Rahm.
But Scheffler made a statement on Saturday with his impressive finish.
“These tournaments are very important to us, and you work your whole life to have a chance to win major tournaments, any tournament for that matter, and tomorrow I have a good opportunity to go out there and try and win the golf tournament,” he said. “But it’s going to take another really good round. There’s a lot of great players chasing me on the leaderboard and someone is going to put up a great round and it’s up to me to go out there and have another really good round and finish off the tournament. Looking forward to the challenge.”
Scottie Scheffler has overcome a slow start to 2025 season
After a slow start to the season, which was delayed due to hand surgery, Scheffler won two weeks ago in dominant fashion at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson. He scraped it around the first two days and his putter was cold but he was drafting along just behind the leaders. Then, he stepped into overdrive.
“It’s intriguing to see a player become intimidating,” said Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee. “Scottie’s getting to a point now where he’s so relentless and hits so many great shots – again, he’s so congenial and so nice but he is very competitive and he does, you get the sense, want to step on your throat where you’re competing.”
“He’s more like Jack Nicklaus than any player I can think of,” Chamblee added.
And like Nicklaus, Scheffler knows how to be a closer, said Toy Finau, who is six back and T-8.
“He’s an incredible frontrunner because of how good his ball-striking is. He can ball strike his way into winning golf tournaments, even with an average putter. And so when he’s on top of the leaderboard, he’s extremely hard to catch but that’s the task that I’m presented with this week,” Finau said.
“Sundays in major championships are their own marathon. It’s like an individual race. Once you get yourself now into contention, it’s a whole different race now on Sunday than it was the first 54 holes. The nerves are there, no question. All of us will be feeling them.”
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