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PGA

Scheffler Wins Third Major

May 18, 2025 by PGA Tour Brunch

CHARLOTTE – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – Scottie Scheffler was not at the top of his game but survived a mid-round scare from Jon Rahm to win the PGA Championship by five strokes at Quail Hollow Club on Sunday.

Embed from Getty Images

It wasn’t as easy as many expected, but the 28-year-old Scheffler collected his third major title with an even-par 71 that was enough for the Olympic champion to pick up something much bigger than a gold medal — the huge Wanamaker Trophy.

“I’m just really proud of the way we fought this week,” Scheffler said. “I was battling my swing the first couple days. … I’m looking forward to celebrating this one.”

He finished at 11-under 273, while fellow Americans Bryson DeChambeau (70), Harris English (65) and Davis Riley (72) tied for second at 6 under. Venezuela’s Jhonattan Vegas (72), the tournament’s 36-hole leader, finished at 5 under alongside Canadian Taylor Pendrith (68) and J.T. Poston (73).

The large margin of victory disguised the fact that the final result was very much up in the air until Rahm self-destructed over the final three holes and plunged all the way down to tie for eighth at 4-under.

The World No. 1 started the day with a three-shot lead but several poor tee shots that he pulled on the front nine eventually caught up with him as he ran up three bogeys on the outward half, along with one birdie.

After Rahm, playing two pairings ahead, piled up three birdies in four holes around the turn, Scheffler arrived at the 10th tee tied for the lead.

But Scheffler got his driving back on track with a good tee shot at the par-5 10th, eventually making an up-and-down birdie from a greenside bunker to regain the sole lead. He did not let it slip again.

A 7-foot birdie at the drivable par-4 14th, where he got up and down from a greenside bunker, extended his lead to two shots and there would be no further drama, at least in the battle for victory.

“I just kept hitting it left (on the front nine),” Scheffler said. “I knew it was going to be a challenging day. Finishing off a major championship is always difficult, and I did a good job of staying patient on the front nine. I didn’t have my best stuff but I kept myself in it, and I stepped up on the back nine and had a really good nine holes.”

Scheffler bogeyed the first hole, but after a pulled drive at the par-4 second somehow avoided a clump of pines and ended in prime position in pine straw only 85 yards from the hole, he took advantage of the lucky break to make a birdie. At that stage it seemed the final round might be devoid of drama, but Rahm had other ideas.

In the end, the two-time major winner from Spain could not close the deal.

His birdie putt at the 13th hole somehow lipped out. Had it dropped in, the last few holes might have unfolded differently, but when Rahm bogeyed the 16th his race had been run. A 6-iron into the water at the brutal par-3 17th only confirmed his fate, and consecutive double bogeys on the final two holes marked an ignominious finish for the LIV player.

He shot 73 to finish seven strokes behind Scheffler.

“Yeah, the last three holes, it’s a tough pill to swallow right now,” Rahm said. “… Pretty fresh wound right now. But there’s been a lot of good happening this week and a lot of positive feelings to take for the rest of the year.”

Rahm’s fellow LIV member, DeChambeau, briefly held sole possession of the lead in the third round before unraveling on the Green Mile. DeChambeau carded four birdies and three bogeys Sunday, never quite threatening Scheffler the way Rahm did.

It marked DeChambeau’s fourth top-five placement in the past five majors, including a runner-up finish to Xander Schauffele at last year’s PGA and his victory at the U.S. Open.

“Always proud to top-five in a major,” DeChambeau said. “I feel like I’m playing good when I’m doing that but I mean, it’s disappointing not to get the job done because that’s what I came here to do.”

Scheffler has been so dominant since he burst onto the scene that only three years and 94 days have passed between his first PGA Tour victory and his 15th. Since 1950, only Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus took less time to accomplish the same feat, and only by a few days at that.

In his most recent start prior to the PGA Championship, Scheffler won the CJ Cup Byron Nelson tournament by eight strokes.

Since 1970, only one other player has won consecutive PGA Tour appearances by at least 5 strokes: Woods, who did so twice.

Scheffler is also the first player since Seve Ballesteros more than four decades ago to win his first three majors by at least three shots.

Scheffler’s performance here was a reminder, if any was needed, that though Rory McIlroy is golf’s biggest current star, he has competition for the title of the game’s best player.

Five weeks removed from completing the career Grand Slam, the Northern Irishman was out of sorts all week, finishing in a tie for 47th at 3-over 287.

– Field Level Media

Filed Under: LIV GOLF, PGA TOUR Tagged With: PGA, Scottie Scheffler

Senate Subcommittee on LIV Golf

April 12, 2025 by PGA Tour Brunch

WASH DC – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – A report by the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations accused the Saudi Public Investment Fund of entering negotiations with the PGA Tour only due to the threat of discovery in their antitrust lawsuit.

The report, released Friday, outlined the subcommittee’s findings from an inquiry into the June 2023 “framework agreement” for a merger between the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour and the PIF’s golf assets, namely LIV Golf.

US Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), chair of the PSI, was among those concerned about “the Saudi government’s role in influencing this effort and the risks posed by a foreign government entity assuming control over a cherished American institution.”

But the subcommittee’s investigation goes further back to before that shocking announcement, when LIV Golf was pursuing antitrust litigation against the PGA Tour for denying golfers the opportunity to play on both tours.

“The Subcommittee’s inquiry revealed that the first significant back and forth about a potential agreement between the PIF and the PGA Tour began with a renewed push from a representative of the PIF to broker a deal on April 14, 2023,” the report said, “and that a key term of the initial Framework Agreement entered into by the PIF and the PGA Tour involved the dismissal, with prejudice, of pending litigation between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour.

“On April 7, 2023, a judge in the Northern District of California had ruled in that litigation that the PIF and its Governor, Yasir al-Rumayyan, were subject to discovery and depositions by lawyers for the PGA Tour. This deposition would likely have revealed details of the PIF’s operations and Governor al-Rumayyan’s control over its commercial investments.”

Blumenthal went on to write that “U.S. defenses are inadequate to protect against increasingly sophisticated foreign influence efforts by Saudi Arabia and other malign actors and exposed loopholes within the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) that allow foreign governments to escape accountability.”

The PGA Tour and the PIF have supposedly been in negotiations for some time now, though the PGA Tour has since acquired additional funding for its new for-profit endeavor, PGA Tour Enterprises, from a coalition of sports owners and investors called Strategic Sports Group.

The PGA Tour and LIV have held meetings with President Donald Trump, an avid golfer, in recent weeks, which have not produced any material progress in the talks.

–Field Level Media

Filed Under: LIV GOLF, PGA TOUR, Sports Business Tagged With: LIV Golf, PGA, PGA Tour

Presidents Cup: USA Five-Zip

September 26, 2024 by Digital Sports Desk

MONTREAL – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – The U.S. team clicked at almost every turn in sweeping five four-ball matches to open Presidents Cup competition by blitzing the International team Thursday at Royal Montreal Golf Club.

The 5-0 count marked the first sweep of a four-ball session for the U.S. since the 1994 Presidents Cup.

The most dominant round came from Russell Henley and World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler as they secured a 3-and-2 victory over South Korea’s Tom Kim and Sungjae Im. That also marked the tensest encounter.

After Kim celebrated a long birdie putt that gave the International tandem the brief upper hand on the par-3 seventh, Scheffler sank a 27-foot birdie to halve the hole. Scheffler turned and shouted “What was that?” in Kim’s direction, clearly one of the most emotional moments of the first day.

The U.S. pairings showed stellar finishing touches because they led all five matches at times and didn’t need many clutch moments down the stretch.

Tony Finau and Xander Schauffele gave the U.S. its first point with a 1-up victory on South Korea’s Byeong Hun An and Australia’s Jason Day.

Finau’s chip-in front the greenside rough for a birdie on No. 14 allowed the U.S. team to halve the hole. Finau and Schauffele both missed putts from inside 4 feet on No. 16, keeping the match tied.

Schauffele was good from 3 feet on the last hole to clinch the point.

Collin Morikawa and Sahith Theegala, who’s in his first international team competition representing the U.S., topped Australians Adam Scott and Min Woo Lee 1 up.

Keegan Bradley and Wyndham Clark never trailed and took the lead for good on the 13th hole to edge South Africa’s Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Canada’s Taylor Pendrith 1 up.

Patrick Cantlay and Sam Burns finished the sweep by winning 2 and 1 against Canada’s Corey Conners and Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama. A birdie from Burns at No. 13 gave the U.S. a 2-up lead, and that was the final shift.

The four-ball matches came on the opening day of four days of competition, concluding Sunday. The first team to 15 1/2 points wins the cup.

–Field Level Media

Filed Under: PGA TOUR Tagged With: PGA, Presidents Cup

Presidents Cup: Weir vs Furyk

September 25, 2024 by PGA Tour Brunch

MONTREAL – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – There are different kinds of pressure on the two captains at this year’s Presidents Cup, whether they let on about it or not.

Jim Furyk’s job is to extend the U.S. team’s dominance in the event to 10 straight victories. Mike Weir is captaining the International squad at Royal Montreal in his native Canada, with three Canadians playing on the team.

Embed from Getty Images

On Tuesday, two days before the competition begins, Furyk and Weir sat side by side at their joint press conference.

“Jim knows how close it’s been the last few years. It’s a tight, intense competition,” Weir said. “Yeah, the score the last bunch of years has gone the U.S.’ way, but they’ve been very competitive matches. … I think it’s heading the right direction no matter what happens. Sure, it’s competitive. We want to win. We’re not putting any of that extra, ‘We need to do this to elevate the event.’

“It’s just a great competition, and we’re not adding any layers on top of that.”

Weir is the first Canadian to captain the International team, and it comes at a fitting venue, Royal Montreal, which hosted the Presidents Cup in 2007. Weir played in that event and led his team with 3 1/2 points, but the Americans won 19 1/2-14 1/2.

Weir said he’s yet to talk with the three Canadian players on his team — Corey Conners, Mackenzie Hughes and Taylor Pendrith — about what to expect, but that’s not to say that he won’t.

“This is at home in front of your own fans,” Weir said. “I guess for me I used the energy in a positive way when I was here in 2007. I didn’t take it as pressure. I took it as, ‘Just embrace it.’ I don’t know if I’ll ever have this kind of chance again to play in front of my home country fans. So I just tried to embrace it. That will probably be most of the message is enjoy yourself.”

An International win would be just the second since the event began in 1994, and it could re-energize a one-sided event that’s not nearly as popular as the Ryder Cup.

But Furyk was posed with that idea by an American reporter last week and responded with multiple profanities, explaining how important winning is to any competitor.

“I would say it’s just an extremely emotional week as far as there’s ups, there’s downs,” Furyk added Tuesday. “The U.S. Team gets on a run, then the International Team gets on a run. It’s kind of a roller coaster ride all week. These guys expend a ton of energy. … A lot of it’s probably just letting (players) know how much — it’s a marathon. It’s a week long, and make sure that you save some energy for the end and pace yourself on the way.”

Furyk may have something to prove for himself, too. He was the U.S. captain at the 2018 Ryder Cup, where Team Europe steamrolled the Americans in Paris for a seven-point win.

He said he believes the U.S. team plays “a little bit more loose, we play a little more free” at Presidents Cups.

“So I’ll make some different changes,” Furyk said. “I’ll run this team a little different. I’ll draw from some good experiences that we’ve had in the past.

“The biggest question I always get asked from ‘18 is would you — if you had the chance to go back and do something differently, would you? First time I heard the question, I started laughing. My answer was very simple. How arrogant would you have to be to say, ‘Nope, we didn’t win, but I wouldn’t do anything different at all’? Of course I would. I’d go back and change it.”

–Field Level Media

Filed Under: LIV GOLF, PGA TOUR Tagged With: PGA, Presidents Cup

Schauffele Leads Going Into Hot Weekend at The Travelers

June 25, 2022 by PGA Tour Brunch

PGA Tour Stop at TPC River Highlands Stacked with Talent

CROMWELL – Coming off a T-14 at last week’s U.S. Open, Xander Schauffele made big strides towards his sixth career PGA Tour title and first individual stroke-play victory since the 2019 Sentry Tournament of Champions by shooting his second straight (63) at TPC River Highlands. He leads Patrick Cantlay by five strokes heading into the weekend.

Reigning FedEx Cup Champion Patrick Cantlay (T-2/-9) opened his eighth Travelers Championship in (64-67). In his first start at TPC River Highlands in 2011, Cantlay posted a second-round 10-under (60), which still stands as his career-low score. Cantlay, who partnered with Schauffele to win this season’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans, closes in on a seventh Top-5 finish of the season.

Harris English will attempt to become the second player to successfully defend a Travelers Championship title (Phil Mickelson/2002) and fifth player to successfully defend a title in the 2021-22 season.

Travelers Championship | Leaderboard After 36 Holes

Xander Schauffele 63-63—126 (-14)

Patrick Cantlay 64-67—131 (-9)

Harris English 66-65—131 (-9)

Nick Hardy 67-64—131 (-9)

Cam Davis 65-66—131 (-9)

Kevin Kisner 67-64—131 (-9)

Full Leaderboard: (link)

Filed Under: PGA TOUR Tagged With: PGA, PGA Tour, PGA Tour Brunch

2021 Ryder Cup Preview: Brooks Koepka Fuels an Old-Fashioned Controversy

September 20, 2021 by PGA Tour Brunch

KOHLER – What’s the run-up to the Ryder Cup without a little Team USA controversy? While Team Europe seems to groove into its own special chemistry for each Ryder Cup event, the U S of A always approaches the match play tournament with a combination of complaining, griping, and theatrics.

This year the controversy started with comments by Brooks Koepka and were magnified with Paul Azinger did a media-only call to promote NBC Sports coverage of the event.

Let the commentary speak for itself:

“It’s tough,” said Koepka to Golf Digest. “There are times where I’m like, I won my match. I did my job. What do you want from me? I know how to take responsibility for the shots I hit every week. Now, somebody else hit a bad shot and left me in a bad spot, and I know this hole is a loss. That’s new, and you have to change the way you think about things. You go from an individual sport all the time to a team sport one week a year,” he said to a question about the differences between the PGA Tour and Ryder Cup (team) format.

“Brooks, I just read that article, I’m not sure he loves the Ryder Cup that much,” Azinger said during an NBC Golf call with the media. “If he doesn’t love it, he should relinquish his spot and get people there who do love the Ryder Cup.

“Not everybody embraces it. But if you don’t love it, and you’re not sold out, then I think Brooks should, you know, especially being hurt, consider whether or not he really wants to be there,” added Azinger.

“And then if you add the Bryson dynamic to that, that might be an easier decision for him. But Brooks is one of the most candid, most honest guys there ever ism and if he’s blatantly honest with himself and he doesn’t want to be there, he should come out and say it. But, I don’t know, I’m a fan of both players, and I just feel like it’s gonna be one or the other. They’re gonna put the weight of the team on their shoulders or they’re gonna be a pain in the neck,” noted Azinger.

YouTube player

Team Rosters

Europe 🇪🇺

Team Europe Page (link)

Padraig Harrington Captain

Robert Karlsson Vice captain

Luke Donald Vice captain

Martin Kaymer Vice captain

Graeme McDonald Vice captain

Henrik Stenson Vice captain

Paul Casey Automatic qualifier

Matt Fitzpatrick Automatic qualifier

Tyrrell Hatton Automatic qualifier

Tommy Fleetwood Automatic qualifier

Rory McIlroy Automatic qualifier

Viktor Hovland Automatic qualifier

Jon Rahm Automatic qualifier

Lee Westwood Automatic qualifier

Bernd Wiesberger Automatic qualifier

Sergio Garcia Captain’s pick

Shane Lowry Captain’s pick

Ian Poulter Captain’s pick


USA 🇺🇸

USA Team Page (link)

Steve Stricker Captain

Phil Mickelson Vice captain

Fred Couples Vice captain

Collin Morikawa Automatic qualifier

Dustin Johnson Automatic qualifier

Bryson DeChambeau Automatic qualifier

Brooks Koepka Automatic qualifier

Justin Thomas Automatic qualifier

Patrick Cantlay Automatic qualifier

Daniel Berger Captain pick

Harris English Captain pick

Tony Finau Captain pick

Xander Schauffele Captain pick

Scottie Scheffler Captain pick

Jordan Spieth Captain pick


Ryder Cup Odds (by Fan Duel)

USA (-195)

Europe (+175)

Draw (+1200)

(As of 9/15)

Ryder Cup News & Notes

  • The September 24th golf tournament marks the beginning of the much-awaited 2020ne Ryder Cup competition, delayed a year because of the restrictions in travel for the COVID-19 global pandemic. There will be a combination of celebrity matches, practice rounds, a pre-opening ceremony, then the official Opening Ceremony at Whistling Straits’ Dye Plaza.
  • It is customary for the two team captains to reveal their planned line-ups for Friday morning’s foursome matches.
  • Aside from the constant controversy with Bryson DeChambeau and now former great and current TV commentator Paul Azinger, Brooks Koepka says he’s “ready to go” after a hand injury while hacking through the root of a tree at the TOUR Championship two weeks ago. “I’ll be there. I’m good to go,” he said via text message to Golf Week on Wednesday. “I’m feeling good. Been doing my rehab, doing everything I need to do to be ready for the Cup. I’ll be there ready to play.”

Filed Under: PGA TOUR Tagged With: PGA, PGA of America, PGA Tour, Ryder Cup

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