Blake Davis
LOUISVILLE — With all the history at play this week — from Brooks Koepka’s sixth major to Rory McIlroy’s drought ending, Scottie Scheffler’s calendar-year grand slam and Jordan Spieth’s career grand slam — we may have forgotten an important storyline at the 2024 PGA Championship.
Collin Morikawa, 27, has a chance to win his third major in his first 18 starts, which — don’t look now — would be faster than Spieth (19), Koepka (20) and Tiger Woods (20) have achieved. three. It would be the fastest anyone won three majors since Tom Watson accomplished the feat in his 17th start in 1977.
Morikawa almost did it at the Masters a month ago before being surprised by Scheffler. Still, that was his eighth top 10 at a major since the start of 2020, which is tied with Jon Rahm for second in that span. Both are tied for third behind Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler, who have 10 such finishes.
Perhaps we underestimated the start of Morikawa’s run in the majors. He won that strange COVID-19 PGA Championship at Harding Park in 2020 before defeating Jordan Spieth in the 2021 Open at Royal St. George’s — where the wind never blew and the conditions set led to a kind of summit golf.
But the consistency was present throughout, even if he is not mentioned among the great champions of his time. And most importantly, Morikawa believes there’s more where these two came from.
“I believed from day one that I would be able to [win a major]”, Morikawa said after his best 65 on Friday, which put him in the top two on the leaderboard, one shot behind Xander Schauffele. “Obviously you want to see the results, but just believing that it’s possible and just knowing which is going to happen.
“Before I won Zozo last year, I talked about – I know I’m going to win again, it’s just a matter of when. Will it be tomorrow? Will it – but it will happen. I know I still have it inside me, and what is more exciting is that, after Augusta [National], it sucked to end like this and it sucked to lose to Scottie. But at the end of the day, I knew I had three more majors coming up and to prepare for that and get things as sharp as possible and come out strong. It’s obviously good to start like this.”
There should be plenty of opportunities to see something historic this weekend. From Koepka rolling to No. 6 to Scheffler keeping the slam alive to Spieth or McIlroy making an epic charge.
We must remember, though, what has become (for whatever reason) so easy to forget: Two could become three for 27-year-old Morikawa, who is trying to do something none of those four great golfers have historically done.
Tee for Green Domain
Scottie Scheffler shooting 66 after being arrested on Friday morning It was shocking, of course, but so is his run of tee-to-green games so far this year. In all of his measured 72-hole starts, this is where Scheffler ranks on the course, from tee to green.
- The Sentinel: 1st
- Phoenix Open: 1st
- Genesis Invitational: 2nd
- Arnold Palmer by invitation: 1st
- Players Championship: 1st
- Houston Open: 3rd
- Masters: 1st
- RBC Heritage: 1st
- PGA Championship: 1st (currently)
There are hundreds of reasons why Scheffler is winning everything he sees right now. However, this is the most important and the easiest to take advantage of in championships.
Disappointment, again
It was all out in front of McIlroy on Friday. He had a soft, easy golf course where he played a stroke and a half more easily in the afternoon than in the morning… and instead of taking advantage, he went out and laid a disappointing egg of probably equal value, barring something truly outrageous , ended his chances of winning a fifth major championship this week. By the time he finished, that was better than just 16 of the club’s 21 professionals on the pitch.
Almost everything was going his way this week, and yet he more or less recovered before the weekend. This is a huge bummer and extends an unwanted streak into yet another major league zero.
Does this sound like a specialization?
We knew Valhalla would be a bird festival, but even for a mild venue that has historically yielded crazy scores, this week was even crazier. On the other hand, it also looks like this will lead to a league table exclusively for full-time hitters on the weekend, which is obviously what everyone wants.
Sahith Theegala is electric
Theegala shot well on Friday to get near the top of the leaderboard, and his round included some hilarious offline moments, including a shot off a cart path and a ball into a hospitality tent on the same hole.
I have some concerns about him because he can get Spieth levels of wild right off the tee, and Valhalla can really punish extraordinarily wild drives like hitting sometimes. But man, is he fun to watch, and friend, does he make a very of birds. If he does get into the mix on Sunday, you can bet he will leave his heart on the golf course, which is always appealing to those who perhaps only watch the majors. (Some of them are about to fall in love with Sahith Theegala.)
It’s there for the taking…
He’s in front of Xander Schauffele now. We’ve been told for years that he’s a great champion, that he’s one of the best in the world, that he has what it takes. However, we haven’t seen this that often and here’s why.
Over the course of his career, Schauffele entered the third or fourth round of a tournament leading 16 times. In only five of them did he perform better than expected, according to Data Golf models. In 11 (!) of them, it performed exactly as expected or worse. That’s something to remember as Schauffele tries to win the first major of his career against Morikawa, Scheffler, DeChambeau and others over the next 36 holes.
