PGA Championship 2024: Scottie Scheffler, Brooks Koepka, Rory McIlroy take part in simultaneous heater rides

The second major championship on the golf calendar has arrived, and the storylines entering the 2024 PGA Championship are rich. What’s most interesting about this year’s tournament is how different the sport’s landscape looks just a month after the 2024 Masters kicked off its major championship campaign.

Brooks Koepka is once again at center. Scottie Scheffler is aiming for something historic. Rory McIlroy joins both of them as a trio of golfers entering the PGA, each having won their last two starts. And then there’s this young man — perhaps you’ve heard of him, Ludvig Åberg. Turns out he’s also pretty good at major golf championships.

Joining McIlroy’s quest for a career major, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson ride the Jordan Spieth roller coaster but perhaps not in competition. Unexpectedly, we are about to have a special week at the 106th edition of this tournament.

The plot of the 2024 PGA Championship

1. Scottie’s shot: It still seems a bit puzzling that, given the way modern golf is structured and how competitive the sport is, a major tournament could happen. But that’s how well Scheffler has played so far in 2024. He’s won four of his last five starts and is the favorite to win five of those six. Why not? The only mark against Scheffler was that he didn’t play at the Wells Fargo Championship last week, but every time he did he was dominant. Have played that it would seem irresponsible not to at least mention the possibility of a major showdown within the actual calendar year.

Perhaps more impressive than this year’s winning streak is his incredible performance in the majors. In his last 15 such attempts – since the beginning of 2020 – he has failed once. Everything else is in the top 25, and 10 of them are top 10s (including two wins). Below are the top 5 strokes you have gained in professional tournaments since the beginning of 2020 (minimum 20 rounds).

2. Brooks 6-pack? Stratosphere Koepka, 34, is trying to come in with a dizzying second consecutive PGA Championship win. There are a few different ways to look at what Koepka is trying to achieve, but here’s the one that best illuminates what’s at stake for the five-time champion: Since 1980, only one golfer has won six majors by age 34. He is also one of three golfers to have won the PGA Championship four or more times, another club Koepka is trying to join. You probably know that golfer’s name: Tiger Woods.

3. Rory’s mission: McIlroy is chasing both his own performance from the 2014 PGA Championship at Valhalla, which remains the last major he won, and Koepka, who won last year’s PGA Championship to take the lead before a major in his career. Rory is far from playing his best golf this year, but he appears to have turned a corner in the last month. First, he made up his mind at the Zurich Classic, teaming with friend Shane Lowry for his 25th career win at New Orleans. And then this past week, McIlroy had a stellar run at the Wells Fargo Championship, leading the leaderboard over the weekend and posting a Sunday 65 – backed by two eagles on the back nine – for Quail Hollow’s 26th limited-overs win in Charlotte.

Further bolstering McIlroy’s confidence will be a return to the venue after one of his four major wins. Combine that with the realization that he is no longer the best professional golfer of his generation, which could give him a mental edge. Whether that leads to his first major victory in a decade depends on a (especially short) straight iron match.

4. Swedes: Ludvig quickly became a famous player in the men’s professional tournament. Åberg’s debut at Augusta National was so good that it makes one wonder how well he can play now with real major championship rounds under his belt. He has all the gifts, but you never know how a superhero will react when the lights come on until the lights actually come on. He has exceeded all expectations so far and has now become one of the top five favourites.

5. What happened to Jon Rahm? At Augusta National, it was clear that something was wrong. Maybe he got by by signing with LIV Golf thinking he could turn things around and marry into the pinnacle of the men’s professional game. When that doesn’t happen – and still appears quite far away – he’s probably feeling emotions that are unfamiliar and difficult to reconcile (even with all that money). Does it affect his game? It’s hard to say. He was solid on the LIV Golf Tour, although he didn’t play well in the Masters. The next few majors will be a better test. Of course there are ups and downs. Rahm’s two big wins capped a 2022 in which he failed to crack the top 10 in a major. I’m very confident that he’ll figure things out in the long run, but I didn’t go into this week thinking that he would definitely compete for his third major championship in the last four years.

6. LIV boys: This year’s tournament has 16 LIV Golf players. And although only a few have a legitimate chance of winning, they will receive general attention — mainly due to Talor Gooch’s ridiculous (and now infamous) comments earlier this year “If Rory McIlroy goes and completes his grand slam without some of the best players in the world there will only be an asterisk,” Gooch told Australian Golf Digest. “That’s just reality. I think everyone wins whenever the professional leagues find a way to get the best players in the world there.”

Gooch eventually received the invitation, and as a top-40 player on Data Golf, he deserved it. The invitation is a big deal — Gooch and other LIV golfers were also welcomed a year ago — and perhaps no deal has been made about how poorly he has played. any majors (no top 10 in 11 years). begin). On the other hand, not enough attention has been paid to how well Patrick Reed has played in the majors since the start of 2018. He ranks 10th during that period in strokes gained at four events. biggest event.

Obviously, LIV Golf also has serious opponents in Rahm and Koepka. So there’s some good and some bad in there. Overall, the spotlight will be on this group, perhaps brighter than before, given Gooch’s comments earlier this year and his first start at a major championship since established them.

7. Type of PGA? In recent years, the PGA Championship has surpassed the US Open to become golf’s biggest, toughest competition. Look at the locations: Bethpage, Oak Hill and now Valhalla. Difficult and monstrous courses where driving is forever a skill with a lot of value (some would argue also multiple values). What the PGA of America does with the rough will be interesting, but I suspect it will be similar to last year and several iterations before that. They will grow up, and that will create a kind of bomb and gouge mentality that, while it may produce a big-name winner, probably won’t produce the most beautiful game of golf.

8. The passing torch? Valhalla was the site of one of the great torch relays in modern sports history. Jack Nicklaus, in his final PGA Championship, played the first two rounds with Tiger Woods, who was on track to win his third straight major. “I knew I was going to get to a place where I couldn’t compete, [and] it came to me very suddenly, in 2000 at Valhalla, when I played against Tiger,” Nicklaus said recently. “I realized it before, but it was… boom! Right in front of me. Thirty-six holes of playing with him and seeing how well he played, how he dominated what was going on.” . I did it before, but I don’t do it now.”

Woods, 48, is not currently at the stage of his career that Nicklaus was when he hit the tee at age 60, but Tiger isn’t that far off either. No torch will be passed as literally as in 2000 (or almost literally, see photo below), but we can look back on this week as a metaphor if Scheffler can win the majors second of the year and continues to roll toward at least a couple of Tiger records.

9. Is Wyndham Clark real? It’s one thing to go out and win a few big events and win your first major. Holding two of four majors at the same time is another thing entirely. That’s what Clark will try to do. For whatever reason, he didn’t get the same respect or attention as some of his peers, but the season that followed his US Open title a year ago was excellent. Without Scheffler, he would have had 2-3 more wins. Clark will thrive on this golf course thanks to his ball speed and his second major win in his last four starts – before heading to Pinehurst to defend that US Open title – would be a historic victory.

10. Jordan Spieth’s shot: This is a different type of shot than the one Scheffler is attempting, but Spieth has his own shot as he will attempt to join Woods, Nicklaus, Gary Player, Ben Hogan and Gene Sarazen as the only golfers best wins all four. major throughout their career. Here are the spoilers regarding Spieth: That won’t happen. He’s been average on the PGA (arguably his worst major) and downright terrible on the PGA Tour recently. It’s such a huge and important potential feat that it warrants coverage, but the odds of it actually happening are too high to make it a big deal for the week.