Scottie Scheffler has won his first PGA Championship this Sunday. It is also his third Major. He now has two different ones, a couple of Masters and this brand new PGA. He needs two more to achieve his personal Career Grand Slam, precisely the two that are yet to be contested in 2025: US Open and Open Championship. Will he be able to complete it in the next two months? It seems like science fiction, but of course, Scottie is an extraterrestrial.
We’ll see if he joins the exclusive Career Grand Slam club, where only Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Tiger Woods, and Rory McIlroy are members. Meanwhile, he has gained access to two other very significant clubs. They may not have the prestige of the former, but they are no small feat.
The first is the club of players who have taken the least time between their first and fifteenth victory on the PGA Tour. Scheffler achieved this in three years and 94 days, from his win at the Waste Management Phoenix Open in 2022 to this Sunday at Quail Hollow. Only two have been faster than him in the last 75 years. One is Jack Nicklaus and the other is Tiger Woods. By the way, among those first 15 victories, Scheffler has three Majors, Nicklaus had already achieved four, and Tiger Woods had ‘only’ two.
The second club relates to his victories in Majors by a landslide. As you may know, Scheffler won his first Masters by three strokes, won the second by four, and now has claimed the PGA Championship by five. In the last 50 years, there has only been one player who has won his first three Majors by three or more strokes. His name is Severiano Ballesteros, the genius from Pedreña.
On the other hand, Scheffler’s victory marks the tenth consecutive win by an American player in the PGA Championship. It equals the longest streak in the history of the Stars and Stripes in this tournament. In this regard, an incredible streak is also extended with this PGA Championship: the last nine winners of this tournament have won more than one major in their careers.
If we focus on what happened this week, here are two curious facts:
– Only two players have finished the Green Mile under par. Both have scored -1 overall. One was Cameron Young and the other Davis Riley.
– Scottie Scheffler was the best in the tournament on holes 14 and 15, which were decisive in his victory. His score over the four days was nine under par. Impressive.
Jon Rahm, for example, played the Green Mile with a score of +5 and holes 14 and 15 with three under par.
