[PHOTO: Warren Little]
It’s premature to declare this championship over. There’s one round remaining, half a dozen players in the hunt, three closing holes that can wreck a golfer’s scorecard and psyche – all the ingredients necessary to bake something special on Sunday in Charlotte. Yet that framing feels disingenuous after what we just witnessed. Because in a span of 40 minutes, a man went from two down to three ahead of the field. A man who’s been the best golfer in the world for four seasons running, whose hallmark is an imperviousness to chaos. This PGA Championship is not over, but it is now Scottie Scheffler’s to decide.
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How can anyone interpret round three at Quail Hollow differently? Scheffler’s performance – five-under for the final five holes, including a two-under romp on statistically the most challenging three-hole stretch in golf – defies alternative narratives. His six-under 65 secured a commanding three-shot advantage.
“I was trying to post the best score that I could shoot today, and that’s what I was concerned with out there,” Scheffler said after his round, regarding his breakaway from a crowded pack. “There is a lot of leaderboards. So I think you see where guys are at at times, but it doesn’t have an effect on how I’m going to play or approach shots.”
Round one’s soggy conditions produced an unconventional leaderboard at Quail Hollow, one that remained largely peculiar as the weekend approached. “Largely” because Scheffler’s presence alone anchored the list, elevating this championship above the scattered names of journeymen and lesser-known players. It’s not his simple designation of world No.1 or his recent PGA Tour scoring record in his most recent start. While this course seems engineered for his driving excellence – explaining his co-favourite status despite never competing at Quail Hollow in strokeplay, now validated by his field-leading strokes gained/off-the-tee – such details hardly matter anymore. Neither venue nor conditions dictate Scheffler’s performance; his game is methodical, consistent and complete. With contention in six of his past eight majors, including last May’s surreal incident at Valhalla where authorities inexplicably detained him entering the carpark, Scheffler has assumed Brooks Koepka’s former mantle – a competitor whose major contention is practically guaranteed as soon as his tee punctures the ground.
Scheffler for birdie… and separation.
Three-shot lead. One round to go. 🧊 #PGAChamp pic.twitter.com/NdI9k9sOlA
— PGA Championship (@PGAChampionship) May 17, 2025
Yet dominance carries its own burden. Scheffler’s 2024 was supernatural. Nine victories, including the Masters, Players, FedEx Cup and Olympic gold. A tally placing him alongside only Woods and Singh in modern golf’s pantheon. Remarkable, certainly… but what follows when you’ve already touched history? This harsh reality greeted Scheffler after his brief injury sabbatical from coming out on the bad end of ravioli. Despite results most pros would celebrate – four top-10s, never finishing worse than 25th – critics fixated on his winless stretch to begin this season. Every scowl and club slam became viral evidence of a champion crumbling under the weight of expectation, raising the question if he was battling a fundamental flaw or natural regression. The question evaporated when he won his hometown Byron Nelson event earlier this month, although the very notion that Scheffler needed to “come back” was laughable – talents like his don’t simply disappear.
“I’m a pretty competitive guy and sometimes when I’m not succeeding at something, it makes me even more excited to kind of fix it,” Scheffler says. “But golf is not really a game where you can force things. If you are playing a sport like football or basketball, you can force things based on adrenaline or pushing people out of the way or whatever it is. Golf, I feel like it’s more letting the scores come to you, and you have to be a lot more patient I think in this sport than you do other ones, especially over the course of a 72-hole tournament.”
And yet… this is the tyranny of stardom. Scheffler’s major record since 2021 – two wins and 12 top-10s in 15 starts – deserves Hall of Fame consideration on its own merit. His only statistical peers this century are Tiger, Rory and Brooks, but matching such heights demands more than numbers. Both Scheffler’s victories came at Augusta National. To exit this dominant era with just one major championship venue conquered… it wouldn’t be squandered potential, but it would feel like it could have been more. True, his game translates everywhere, and at 28, his prime should stretch another decade. But as McIlroy just demonstrated and Spieth still endures, elite players can spend careers haunted by the pasts of what they once were. You might inhabit this rarefied air just once – when there, you must capitalise.
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That’s exactly what Scheffler did today. After playing solidly on the front nine, recovering from an opening bogey with birdies at holes four, five and seven, a bogey at 11 and one-over golf through the next two holes left him trailing Bryson DeChambeau by two. Scheffler’s response? Ruthless precision – driving the par-4 14th to three feet for a tap-in eagle. Another birdie followed at the par-5 15th, then a brilliant approach at 16 that narrowly missed. Any frustration evaporated when his tee shot at the notorious 17th settled 15 feet from the cup, a putt he confidently converted. Even finding the edge of a divot with his drive at 18 – potentially disastrous – proved merely an inconvenience. Scheffler struck another magnificent approach and buried the birdie putt from nine feet. He knew what it meant, too, as the usually reserved Scheffler unleashed a fierce fist pump.
“I just felt like I hit two really good shots in there to get the ball into the hole, which is not an easy spot to put it there on the green,” Scheffler explained. “And was able to just take advantage of the opportunity, and I think that’s – wherever the emotion came from, you know, felt like an important part of the round to finish off the round the right way.”
It’s not just the three-shot lead over Alex Noren. Scheffler sits five clear of Jon Rahm – the only other player in the top eight with major-championship pedigree. DeChambeau collapsed down the stretch, watching a two-shot advantage evaporate into a six-shot deficit. Noren boasts Ryder Cup credentials while Davis Riley (seven-under), J.T. Poston (seven-under), and Si Woo Kim (six-under) are formidable talents enjoying exceptional weeks. Dismissing their chances betrays golf’s unpredictable nature. Yet believing they could triumph without Scheffler faltering defies reality.
Many golfers have claimed two majors. Three, however, approaches hallowed territory. It would place Scheffler halfway to the career Grand Slam and silence whispers that McIlroy’s 2025 threatens his supremacy. Scheffler himself dismisses such speculation – about tomorrow’s possibilities, about how victory would enshrine him in greatness where his name might reverberate eternally. He inhabits only the present moment, laser-focused on each shot as it comes.
“I think I try to focus as much as I can on executing the shot, and there’s things out there that you can’t control,” Scheffler says. “I can’t control what other guys are doing. I can’t control getting bad winds gusts. I can’t control how the ball is going to react when it hits the green. All I can do is try to hit the shot I’m trying to hit. That’s what I’m focused on out there.
“Some days it works better than others. Today was a day down the stretch where it worked well and other days it doesn’t. At the end of the day, just proud of my fight the last three days and looking forward to the challenge tomorrow.”
This singular concentration ranks among his greatest assets, explaining why – despite delivering a career-best ball-striking performance today – he returned to the range immediately after signing his scorecard. Yet sometimes greatness remains oblivious to its own brilliance. Saturday’s performance drained Sunday’s suspense; after two days of uncertainty surrounding this PGA Championship’s story, 40 minutes gave us Sunday’s plot, and its protagonist.
