Scottie vs. Rory, surprise contenders and more PGA Championship storylines
The second major of the 2025 season, the PGA Championship, gets underway Thursday at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina. Can Rory McIlroy make it two majors in a row? Will Scottie Scheffler add another major to his résumé? What can we expect from Bryson DeChambeau and other LIV golfers?
From the favorites to under-the-radar players to watch and more, here are six storylines to follow this week at the PGA Championship.
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Who’s the favorite: world No. 1 golfer Scottie Scheffler or Masters champion Rory McIlroy?
Mark Schlabach: While Scottie Scheffler is the slight betting favorite and is coming off his first victory of the 2025 season, I think you could argue that Rory McIlroy is the best golfer on the planet right now. He has already won three times on tour this year, and each of them was against a loaded field at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, Players Championship and the Masters, where he became the sixth golfer to complete the career Grand Slam.
McIlroy’s recent form and history at Quail Hollow Club, where he has won four times and finished runner-up once, makes him the golfer to beat this week. Scheffler hasn’t played in a single stroke-play event there, and his lone appearance at Quail Hollow in the 2022 Presidents Cup was hardly memorable. He went 0-3-1 and gained just a half-point in the U.S. team’s 17½-12½ victory over the International squad.
Paolo Uggetti: I agree with Mark — Rory should be favored this week and no one is coming into this tournament in better form than him. It is remarkable, however, how quickly the top of the game can shift. Scheffler has been remarkably consistent so far this season, but because he has won only once and not kept up his torrid pace from last year, he has, in essence, opened the door for McIlroy to once again step into the shoes of being thought of as the best player in the world. It would not surprise me if, come Sunday, both are fighting to add to their major total and find themselves in each other’s way.
Other than Scottie and Rory, who would you pick this week?
Schlabach: Justin Thomas is playing some of the best golf of his career and captured the last PGA Championship played at Quail Hollow in 2017. JT ended a nearly three-year drought without a victory on tour when he won the RBC Heritage in a playoff over Andrew Novak on April 20. He was runner-up at the Valspar Championship (and probably should have won that one, but closed with bogeys on two of the last three holes and lost to Viktor Hovland by one stroke) and tied for second at last week’s Truist Championship, two strokes behind winner Sepp Straka.
Thomas has a solid history at Quail Hollow, finishing in the top 26 in five of his six starts. He’s fifth in strokes gained: tee to green (1.227) and approach (.896) and 20th in putting (.432).
Uggetti: You’re telling me this is one of the longest courses the professional game has ever faced, there is healthy rough and plenty of pre-tournament rain to make driving length a requisite, and you’re not picking Bryson DeChambeau? Quail Hollow will be a bombers’ paradise this year, and no one is bombing it better than DeChambeau. According to Data Golf, DeChambeau is gaining over two strokes with his driver, a number that is an entire stroke ahead of the second-place player in that category. It’s not just the driver, though. DeChambeau has sharpened the rest of his game over the last few years — he has five top-10 finishes in the last nine majors — and if he can replicate his performance at Valhalla last year, he will no doubt be in the mix.
What do you expect from Xander Schauffele (defending champ) this week?
Schlabach: After missing more than two months with a painful rib injury, Xander Schauffele‘s game is trending in the right direction again. He has four straight finishes, including a tie for eighth at the Masters and for 11th at the Truist Championship.
While he ranks seventh in strokes gained: approach (.821), he’s 157th off the tee (-.320), 135th around the green (-.155) and 140th in putting (-.244). I’d attribute that to a lack of reps more than anything else. The bottom line: Schauffele has won two of the past four majors and finished in the top 10 in seven of the past nine. Oh, and he was also runner-up the past two times he teed it up at Quail Hollow.
Uggetti: Schauffele is the sport’s mystery man right now. His floor, as always, is so high that even though he’s clearly not in midseason form yet, he is still stumbling into top-20 finishes. Over his last four tournaments, Schauffele’s worst finish is a tie for 18th at the RBC Heritage, and last week at Philly Cricket, he finished in a tie for 11th. To be honest, I have no idea what to expect from Schauffele at Quail Hollow this week, but the fact that the defending champion (and two-time major winner) is slightly flying under the radar right now is telling.
Which LIV golfers are you going to be watching the closest this week?
play1:34Who’s the favorite at this year’s PGA Championship?
Take a look at who is favored to take home the PGA Championship crown at Quail Hollow in Charlotte.
Schlabach: Distance off the tee is going to be paramount at Quail Hollow Club, so how can you not expect Bryson DeChambeau to be in the mix? He was runner-up at last year’s PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky, losing to Schauffele by one shot. He had the lead early in the final round of the Masters before carding a 3-over 75 and fading to a tie for fifth. No one hits it as far as DeChambeau off the tee, and if his iron play is better than it was at Augusta National Golf Club, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him lifting the Wanamaker Trophy on Sunday.
Patrick Reed finished solo third at the Masters, and he has a nice track record at Quail Hollow, too.
Uggetti: Until he finishes inside the top 10 at a major, this answer will remain Joaquín Niemann. It’s starting to become a tell-tale sign that the player who continues to rack up wins on the LIV Tour can’t seem to emerge when he arrives at a major venue against the best players in the world. Niemann has the game to win multiple majors, and Data Golf considers him a top-10 player in the world right now. So why can’t it translate to the four biggest weeks of the year? It’s the question that continues to loom over Niemann’s career, and this week will be another chance for him to buck that trend.
An under-the-radar player or two to watch this week?
Schlabach: With Sepp Straka winning for a second time this season at the Truist Championship, former University of Georgia golfers have already won five times in 22 PGA Tour events this season.
Another former Bulldog, Keith Mitchell, has been trending in the right direction after struggling mightily at the end of 2024. Mitchell has five straight top-25 finishes, including a tie for second in the Corales Puntacana and for seventh at the Truist Championship. Mitchell ranks 11th on tour in driving distance (313.3 yards) and 21st in strokes gained: tee to green (.868). He has two career top-10s at Quail Hollow.
Canada’s Taylor Pendrith hasn’t played great the past few weeks, but he had three top-10s earlier this season. He’s another golfer who hits it far off the tee (307.9 yards) and hits a lot of greens in regulation (70.6%). He hasn’t been great around or on the greens, but if his putter gets hot this week, he could be in the mix.
Uggetti: A two-for-one special: watch out for the Højgaard twins (Nicolai and Rasmus). Both have the length to keep up with this course and could sneakily make some noise this week. As far as other young players to keep an eye on, I’d also throw Michael Thorbjornsen into the mix; he has two top-5 finishes this season and has been playing some really solid golf of late.
Finally, after watching Akshay Bhatia at the Players, it’s clear he has the game to win a major, and maybe, at this stage of his career where his game is good but not quite perfect, a venue like Quail Hollow could be the perfect place for a breakthrough.
How is Quail Hollow going to play this week?
Schlabach: Quail Hollow is one of the longest courses on tour at 7,626 yards, which is fourth longest in PGA Championship history and the longest for a par-71 course. It figures to play even longer after the course was soaked by rain Monday. More precipitation is forecast through Wednesday. If that’s the case, there doesn’t figure to be much roll on the fairways, putting an even bigger premium on distance off the tee and long iron play.
Contenders are going to have to play well around the greens as well because they’re probably going to miss quite a few. According to ESPN Research, eight greens were hit less than 50% of the time during the 2017 PGA Championship; the opening hole was hit only 33% of the time.
Golfers are going to have to survive the par 3s (three of the four are longer than 200 yards), score well on the par 5s and survive the three-hole closing stretch known as the “Green Mile.” There were more double-bogeys or worse (99) than birdies or better (88) in 2017, according to ESPN Research.
Source: espn.com