Stellar Scheffler conquers Quail Hollow with a classic PGA triumph
HOLD ME CLOSE: Scottie Scheffler of the United States celebrates with the Wanamaker Trophy after winning the 2025 PGA Championship at Quail Hollow Country Club on May 18, 2025 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Warren Little/Getty Images)
Meredith Scheffler turned to one of the two men in her life on the edge of Quail Hollow’s 18th green and told him “you don’t know what just happened…but that’s pretty cool”.
Some day in the not too distant future Bennett Scheffler will know that what his father achieved here on a sun-kissed Sunday was indeed pretty cool. What a third Major before his 29th birthday means for Scottie Scheffler remains to be seen but what was clear in the moment was this meant a lot.
Another win for the Schefflers. pic.twitter.com/QMwxsBwZcF
— Golf on CBS ⛳ (@GolfonCBS) May 18, 2025
Bennett was just nine days old last year when his father ended up in a police jail cell and an orange jump suit at the PGA Championship. A year on he now has a Wanamaker Trophy to add to his two green jackets. Three major wins may not sound like a big sample size but it’s enough to say this was classic Scheffler.
He won his first, the 2022 Masters, by three strokes over Rory McIlroy. He followed up with a second in 2024 and won by four strokes over Ludvig Aberg. It has become tired but nonetheless true: Scheffler makes dominant victories look so easy.
Having taken command of things in Charlotte on Saturday night, he found himself briefly threatened in the mid-part of Sunday’s final round as Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and even Matt Fitzpatrick, Major winners all, started to bite at his heels. Rahm had red-hot momentum and tied Scheffler atop the leaderboard around the turn.
But Scheffler never panicked. He didn’t panic when he was wrongfully arrested at Valhalla either, to be fair. Instead he readjusted and put the foot down with a brilliant back nine, three birdies between 10 and 15 giving him separation and pushing all of the pressure on his rivals who crumbled so much that he walked up the ninth with a six-shot lead. A bogey ensured the final margin was five, a level-par 71 leaving him on 11-under ahead of a trio of fellow Americans on 6-under. But this will be remembered and retold to Scheffler Jr. as yet another totemic triumph by the World’s No.1.
Quail Hollow came into this week under clouds, literal and figurative. Storms and slaloming rain inundated the course Monday and Tuesday. Many observers disagreed with it getting a Major in the first place, given it’s a regular tour stop which some find pedestrian.
When mudballs and playing it up/down became the hot topic Thursday then non-conforming drivers the Friday talking point, the doomsayers sat back in satisfaction of being proven right. McIlroy’s struggles didn’t help. He had exited the premises before the leaders even started. The 2025 PGA Championship was destined to be remembered as a bit of a turkey. Scheffler’s red-hot Saturday finish, while spectacular in a short-burst-of-brilliance way, opened the door to the kind of Sunday stroll that many say they don’t want to see. But this was engrossing excellence.
For the early chunk of Sunday’s business end, that’s how it felt. A sloppy opening Scheffler bogey was made up for immediately at the second and then he was mostly steady and unspectacular. Harris English seemed to be the only one making a move behind him, the native of next-door Georgia surging up with six birdies in his last 12 to post a 65 and clubhouse target of 6-under.
That was the number where a five-man shootout for second place appeared to be about all Sunday had going for it, Scheffler five clear of them all at 11-under. Slowly then quickly things started happening.
Scheffler hadn’t yet sparked then began sputtering, missing a 10-footer for par on the short 6th and bogeying 9 too. In between Rahm caught fire, his big frame hulking a little absurdly over that little putter and turning it in a wand. His approach play was helping too. Birdies at 8, 10 and 11 brought him level with Scheffler at 9-under. Fitzpatrick plundered an eagle on the drivable par-4 14th and DeChambeau had moved up a little too to give us four Major winners eyeing up the year’s second big prize.
Were we getting what the Americans love to call a barnburner? Maybe. There were, at least, a few bales of hay crackling and beginning to smoke.
But we’ve been here before. Not exactly here two hours down the road at Augusta where last year’s Masters Sunday looked set up to be an all-time classic. Scheffler, Aberg and Collin Morikawa locked in a shootout, Tommy Fleetwood not far behind. Barnburner watch had begun there too.
Scheffler, however, is golf’s fire blanket. His ability to smell the danger and then put it all out in his soft, smothering way is one of so many gifts. Having hit just four of nine greens on his front nine he found them all after the turn. A birdie four on 10 pushed him back into the outright lead. A couple of lousy bounces and one killer lip-out went against Rahm but his putter had cooled too at a crucial spot.
The 14th and 15th are both eminently scoreable. They also precede the hardest finish trio in the sport. Rahm went through both in even-par. Not good enough. Now he had to push it and this is a place that punishes such desperation. Behind him Scheffler birdied both of those holes, again. He’d played them 9-under for the week. Just the most efficient and consistent kind of killer.
Fitzpatrick finished the Green Mile in 3-over, DeChambeau 1-over. Rahm outdid them both finding water twice en route to a bogey-double-double finish. Within a flash a comfortable victory became a procession, Scheffler at 12-under and not a sinner behind him better than 6-under.
"This is a special tournament. Any time you can win a major championship is pretty cool, and I'm proud of how I did this week just staying in it mentally and hitting the shots when I needed to," Scheffler said after being handed the hulking piece of silverware on offer here.
"This back nine will be one that I remember for a long time. It was a grind out there. I think at one point on the front I maybe had a four- or five-shot lead, and making the turn, I think I was tied for the lead. So to step up when I needed to the most, I'll remember that for a while."
A final little wobble arrived up the 18th with a slightly wayward drive. A testy par putt came up just short but hey ho. Emotions poured out slowly. He slammed his cap into the turf and raised his arms aloft before heading for that family embrace.
In the victory ceremony there was a single belated moment of imperfect: when he raised the Wanamaker for a second time, the lid came tumbling off.
The verdict is in.
— Nike (@Nike) May 18, 2025
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler is the PGA Champion. pic.twitter.com/0PVASNw4w3
Keeping a lid on Scheffler? That's a whole other thing. His trajectory gets ever-more stratospheric. Only two men before him had three Major wins to go with 15 PGA Tour wins at the same age. Those two: Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods.
Nike's marketing folks were rapid off the mark. A picture of Scheffler booming a drive down the middle of a Quail Hollow fairway had six perfect words imprint in the blue sky: Best player in the world? Guilty.
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