Scottie Scheffler wins an ugly PGA Championship of attrition

Scottie Scheffler won the 2025 PGA Championship by 5 strokes, despite not playing his best golf.
Scheffler’s win solidifies his position as the top golfer, even surpassing Rory McIlroy’s strong start to the year.

We tend to know the PGA Championship for what it is not.

Golf’s fourth major lacks the exclusivity of The Masters, the inclusivity of the U.S. Open or the old-world charm of the Open Championship. The PGA would be more comparable, really, to The Players Championship or another high-profile tour event if it wasn’t for that invisible line that puts majors over here and everything else over there.

The PGA is a major.

Even if it feels compelled to goose fans every so often to remind them.

For the first two rounds of the 2025 PGA Championship at Charlotte’s Quail Hollow Club in North Carolina, the world’s top three golfers were assigned the same tee times. This supergroup combined the allure of Rory McIlroy, this year’s celebrated Masters champ, with reigning PGA champ Xander Schauffele and Scottie Scheffler, the world’s No. 1 golfer the past two years and counting.

And surprisingly, none of them played especially well.

Despite entering as the favorite on a course he had dominated in the past, McIlroy finished tied for 47th. He had such a disappointing tournament that he sheepishly dodged media responsibilities after all four rounds, according to golf reporter Kyle Porter of Normal Sport. Schauffele (tied for 28th) barely made the cut, with his game still recovering from an extended absence earlier this year due to injury.

Then there was Scheffler.

For the better part of four days, Scheffler didn’t seem himself, either. Something was off with his swing. He couldn’t keep shots straightened out. Well into the final round, he was sailing shots way left and having to scramble and rely on his putting, which is the only part of his game that had seemed a weakness in recent years. It wasn’t ideal. It wasn’t pretty for all but an hour or two in the third round.

Dude still won his third major championship by five strokes.

If Scheffler’s golfing preeminence was ever in question during McIlroy’s strong start to 2025 and thrilling Masters victory, it isn’t anymore. Even without his best stuff, Scheffler beat everyone handily in the year’s second major, including McIlroy, who was on a friendly track and played beside him in the first two rounds.

McIlroy went 74 and 69. Scheffler shot 69 and 68, putting himself in position to seize control of the leaderboard when he inevitably got going, shooting a third-round 65 that all but won him the tournament.

Sure, it got tight during the final round, with Scheffler stumbling on the front nine and LIV Golf’s Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau leading a pack of contenders.

But neither had enough. Both fell apart down the stretch. Everyone, it seemed, fell apart in the final few holes at Quail Hollow.

The way it was going, this tournament seemed destined to be decided by mistakes in those final holes rather than shot-making. But it was decided before that. With no one able to play consistently good golf for four days, it made sense that the best of the bunch — by far — was the game’s best player, period.

All the sweeter for Scheffler in that this came in the PGA Championship, the same tournament that had been ruined by controversy for him in 2024.

This wasn’t an easy week for the PGA Championship, but it wasn’t as bad as a year ago, when the world’s best made joyous work of soft, easy conditions at Valhalla and — unforgettably — Scheffler was handcuffed and arrested by police as he tried to enter the golf course to play his second round.

One had to wonder if scars from Louisville were behind Scheffler’s spiking his hat like a football in celebration on the 18th green and appearing to shout an exclamation that can’t be repeated here.

Such a rare outburst of emotion from the unflappable Scheffler, it could’ve had to do with the stress of these four rounds in Charlotte, too.

Perhaps as an overreaction to criticism about the ease of Valhalla, Quail Hollow was overly difficult this week. And not in an endearing, fun, stern-test-of-golf kind of way. This felt unfair at times.

During Thursday’s opening round, Scheffler, Schauffele and McIlroy all made double-bogey 6’s on hole No. 16. That does not happen to a trio of that caliber without good reason, and players were hitting mud balls from that fairway. The tournament wasn’t allowing players to lift, clean and place on a course soaked by rain in the previous days.

“I understand how a golf purist would be, ‘Oh, play it as it lies,’ ” Scheffler said after his opening round, according to Golfweek. “But I don’t think they understand what it’s like literally working your entire life to learn how to hit a golf ball and control it and hit shots and control distance, and all of a sudden, due to a rules decision, that is completely taken away from us by chance.”

Scheffler outlasted all of this and everyone else in the field. He had the unique mentality to withstand the ordeals and the pitfalls. He had the unique talent to still score when his game wasn’t sharp.

“That’s what the great ones do,” CBS’ Jim Nantz marveled after Scheffler drained one of several clutch putts in his final round, this one an 18-footer for par on the fifth hole.

We are indeed watching greatness with Scheffler. This tournament was only the latest reminder. In a frustrating and disjointed PGA Championship, he was clearly the best part.

And clearly the best player.

Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at gestes@tennessean.com and hang out with him on Bluesky @gentryestes.bsky.social

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