;)
Scottie Scheffler will be the anchor of the U.S. Ryder Cup team, and he looked it in his third major win at the PGA Championship.
Kevin Cox/Getty Images
May is much too early for Ryder Cup hysteria, but it was hard to keep from an inkling of intrigue when Luke Donald stepped to the podium on Thursday at the PGA Championship with the clubhouse lead.
Donald had been invited into the PGA field as a formality, and answered questions in his Wednesday press availability 95 percent in his capacity as European captain and five percent in his capacity as player. By the time he reached the scorer’s room with the first-round lead, even he was surprised.
But more than the score was what it represented: With Donald contending, it seemed not even the Euro captain was capable of struggling in a big moment in the early stages of 2025. For a second, a question lingered at Quail Hollow. Between Rory McIlroy’s Masters victory and early-season tear, Jon Rahm’s relentless run of top-10s, and Sepp Straka’s Sunday duel with Shane Lowry, the Euros were winning everywhere. Was the blue-and-yellow wave of early season momentum ever going to slow?
Those concerns vanished roughly around the time Scottie Scheffler launched his white Nike hat to the turf on the 18th green on Sunday evening, winning his third major championship with a fury at Quail Hollow. The World No. 1 had returned to his rightful piece atop the mantel, and the storylines ahead of September had changed again.
Four months is a long time in professional golf — time enough for much to change in the picture ahead of this September’s Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black. But the majors are an important touchpoint in the march toward golf’s favorite team event, and with that in mind, let’s take stock of where we are at the halfway point of the major season.
Scottie Scheffler: Stock UP
Scottie’s performance at Quail Hollow reminded the golf world that it has an apex predator, even if his interviews don’t always show it. Scheffler’s game is suffocating, and barring something truly miraculous, he will be the anchor of the U.S. team. He wants greatness badly, but his team golf record to date has been up and down. There’ll be a fire underneath him to prove he’s more than an individual champ in September.
Rory McIlroy: Stock EVEN
There’s not a ton of precedent for the first major start after the career grand slam, but it’s probably fair to say Rory McIlroy just delivered the weirdest of them. The newly minted Masters champ spoke Wednesday morning, then reportedly failed a USGA conformance test on Wednesday afternoon, then never spoke to the press again en route to an underwhelming 3 over finish.
Still, I’m not putting too much stock in this performance. McIlroy was probably due for some mean regression after his early-season tear, and the first major after the scene at Augusta National was always a target for an emotional letdown. He’ll be ready to play in September.
Bryson DeChambeau: Stock UP
It’s funny to think about Bryson’s Ryder Cup candidacy, particularly considering he was left off the American side without much hoopla in 2023, when he was plumbing the depths of his swing struggles. Now it’s impossible to picture the U.S. without him in Bethpage.
As for this week, DeChambeau was business as usual. He finished a somewhat quiet T2 at Quail Hollow, underscoring his ascent to become one of the golf world’s major championship regulars. He spent much of his press conference on Sunday afternoon talking about building a new golf ball to solve his iron-and-wedge woes, which is mildly disconcerting concerning his recent quality of play. Still, it’s Bryson — I’d be more surprised if he wasn’t tinkering.
Jon Rahm: Stock UP
Rahm’s week started with a bizarre ask-the-other-guy routine from both he and captain Luke Donald over his eligibility to be on the Ryder Cup roster. Assuming the DP World Tour gets that figured out (for its own good), Rahm is a lock for the roster. And, if you’re Donald, you have to be feeling good about what you saw from Rahm this weekend in Charlotte. His game looked sharp, and for a moment on Sunday he looked like he might become the first golfer to chase down Scottie Scheffler.
It didn’t happen, but Rahm was clearly inspired by his return to major championship relevance this week, and the Euros should be too.
Sergio Garcia: Stock DOWN
It’s never a particularly good sign when a player volunteers that he would not choose himself for the Ryder Cup team based on the current state of his play. That was the case with Sergio Garcia, who finished 7 over, T67, in a week he really needed to show Donald he was a worthy choice for the roster.
Donald provided Garcia a glimmer of hope early in the week when he mentioned he would favor experience in choosing his roster, given the expectation of an insane environment at the People’s Country Club. After Sunday was complete, though, Donald provided a caveat.
“Well, I said if two golfers are very equally matched statistically,” Donald told GOLF. “You need to have current form and be playing at a decent level to be considered.”
;)
Sergio Garcia makes startling claim after ‘terrible shots’ at PGA Championship
Jordan Spieth: Stock DOWN
It seems impossible that Jordan Spieth finds himself beneath Patrick Reed in the U.S. Ryder Cup rankings, considering the points system does not really provide a path for LIV players outside of the majors. But that’s where Spieth finds himself after his latest attempt at closing out the career grand slam ended in a MC at Quail Hollow.
Spieth has found a handful of top-25 finishes since returning from wrist surgery in January, but his ‘wet concrete’ swing transformation hasn’t manifested any tangible signs of the past. He’s gonna have to find it between now and September to earn a spot on this year’s roster.
Justin Thomas: Stock NEUTRAL
Thomas has played really good golf this year. Unfortunately, he did not play really good golf at the PGA Championship, where he missed the cut in somewhat disappointing fashion.
Thomas has faded from his days as one of the game’s unquestioned top 3 players, but his game has come a long way from the depths that left him off last year’s Presidents Cup team. A weekend in contention at a major this summer would go a long way in assuaging captain Keegan Bradley’s concerns.
Keegan Bradley: Stock UNKNOWN
Speaking of the captain, Keegan just keeps climbing the U.S. Ryder Cup rankings, sliding up to 17th place after a T8 finish at the PGA Championship. He’s said he’ll only select himself for the team if he qualifies, and is undecided about whether he’d keep captaining in that instance. But if he keeps piecing together good finishes, we could find ourselves in a full-blown Ryder Cup constitutional crisis. (Can I admit I’m kinda rooting for this?)
Viktor Hovland: BUY NOW
Two years ago, the PGA Championship at Oak Hill was the springboard for Viktor Hovland’s coming out party — a stretch that lasted all the way through a dominant performance at the Ryder Cup, where Hovland looked like the third head of a three-headed European monster.
The last 18 or so months haven’t been as kind to Hovland, who has flipped swing coaches like channels in the first weekend after football season. A T28 finish doesn’t quite scream “back,” but there have been signs of life from Hovland’s game in recent weeks that leave lots of optimism for the rest of the summer.
;)
If the pros seemed on edge at the PGA Championship, they were
Collin Morikawa: Stock DIPPING
It seems trite to call Collin Morikawa’s performance this year poor, but if you were choosing a golfer to win a major championship in the first two events of the year, you would have been hard-pressed to choose more than five players above Morikawa, who has done everything other than win over the last year. Instead, he finished a dejected 4 over, T50.
My gut tells me he’ll win a bunch between now and the end of the year — his golf has been just too good not to. But it’s a bummer it’s been so hard for him to this point.
Xander Schauffele: BUY NOW
Like Spieth and Scheffler, Schauffele’s season started in February after an offseason injury forced him out of competition. He has since recovered from the injury, an intercostal strain, and after grinding to make the cut on Friday, he fired a final-round 68 to finish at 1 under and record his zillionth straight top-30 finish at a major.
;)
