Rory McIlroy, Scheffler or DeChambeau: Best Chance at PGA Championship Glory
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
Although most of the world's top players are in Philadelphia for the Truist Championship, the golf world is already looking ahead to the PGA Championship. The second major of the season will be played May 15-18 at the iconic Quail Hollow course.
Several players stand out for their chances to do well at the PGA Championship, but there are three names that are not missing in any of the predictions.
Rory McIlroy, Bryson DeChambeau, and Scottie Scheffler have been by far the best in men's professional golf this season. Let's see how they look a week before Quail Hollow:
Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau of LIV Golf and Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy of the PGA Tour pose for a photograph after The Showdown: McIlroy and Scheffler v DeChambeau and Koepka at Shadow Creek...
Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau of LIV Golf and Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy of the PGA Tour pose for a photograph after The Showdown: McIlroy and Scheffler v DeChambeau and Koepka at Shadow Creek Golf Course on December 17, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. More
Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
Scottie Scheffler
The World No. 1 had a late start to the season due to a hand injury he suffered on Christmas Day 2024 that required a trip to the operating room. This led to a different start to his exceptional 2024 season.
Despite this, Scheffler has not finished outside the top 25 in any of the nine tournaments he has played. His results have become increasingly solid, and he just won the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, breaking or tying several records in the process.
This indicates that Scheffler is on an upward trajectory and should be a concern for all of his competitors. The only unknown for him is that he has only played once at Quail Hollow.
That was during the 2022 Presidents Cup where he earned just 0.5 points for his team with three losses and a draw in four matches.
Bryson DeChambeau
The LIV Golf star had an extraordinary performance in the majors last season, and he has started the current one with the same tone with a top 5 finish in the Masters Tournament.
His start to the LIV Golf season was marked by inconsistency in the final rounds, but he seems to have put that problem behind him.
Bryson DeChambeau entered three straight Sundays in no worse than second place, arriving with title hopes. He broke through his difficulties on his fourth try, winning wire-to-wire at LIV Golf Korea, his final start before the PGA Championship.
DeChambeau's record at Quail Hollow includes four starts, three of them at the Wells Fargo Championship (now the Truist Championship) with two top 10s.
He also played there in the 2017 PGA Championship, where he tied for 33rd.
Scottie Scheffler has passed Rory McIlroy as the favorite to win the PGA Championship 👀 pic.twitter.com/8HA4BCkrQM — ESPN BET (@ESPNBET) May 5, 2025
Rory McIlroy
The Northern Irishman has been the best player in all of professional golf this season with three victories, including the Masters Tournament and the Players Championship. As if that were not enough, his triumph at Augusta National made him the sixth player to win the career Grand Slam.
It is hard to overlook such a season resume when he is mentioned as one of the favorites to win the PGA Championship. Neither can the morale boost of finally winning the Masters after so many close calls.
On top of that, Rory McIlroy is arguably the most accomplished active player at Quail Hollow. The 5-time major winner has played there in 12 editions of the Wells Fargo Championship (now the Truist Championship) with four wins and five top 10s. In fact, he is the current defending champion.
McIlroy also played Quail Hollow in the 2017 PGA Championship, where he tied for 22nd.
Considering his pedigree on this course, along with the state of his game, it is hard to favor anyone over the veteran.
More Golf: Phil Mickelson Trolled for Egregious Scottie Scheffler Prediction
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
9 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Tiger Woods to lead group that could reshape the PGA Tour's competitive model
ATLANTA (AP) — Tiger Woods is a major player in golf again, this time without clubs. He was appointed Wednesday to chair a new committee charged with taking a fresh look at the competitive model for how the PGA Tour runs its tournaments. Brian Rolapp, three weeks into his role as the tour's first CEO, announced the nine-member 'Future Competition Committee' and said it would have a clean sheet to consider changes that uphold traditions without being tied to them. 'This is about shaping the next era of the PGA Tour,' Woods said in a social media post. Rolapp didn't have details on several issues he faces as he takes over for Commissioner Jay Monahan, including the future of a sport that has been splintered by Saudi money that created the rival LIV Golf League and lured away a number of top players. The PGA Tour's negotiations with the Public Investment Fund have stalled, and Rolapp did not make that sound as if it were a top priority when asked about the fans' desire to see all the best players together more often. 'I'm going to focus on what I can control,' Rolapp said. "I would offer to you that the best collection of golfers in the world are on the PGA Tour. I think there's a bunch of metrics that demonstrate that, from rankings to viewership to whatever you want to pick. I'm going to lean into that and strengthen that. 'I will also say that to the extent we can do anything that's going to further strengthen the PGA Tour, we'll do that,' he said. 'And I'm interested in exploring whatever strengthens the PGA Tour.' Woods, who has played only 10 times on the PGA Tour since his February 2021 car crash and has been out all of this year with a ruptured Achilles tendon, already serves on the PGA Tour board without a term limit. Now he will lead five players from the board — Patrick Cantlay, Adam Scott, Camilo Villegas, Maverick McNealy and Keith Mitchell — along with three from the business side. That includes baseball executive Theo Epstein. Rolapp is not trying to reinvent a sport that held its first championship in 1860. He said among his early observations, after two decades at the NFL, was the strength and momentum of the PGA Tour. 'My key takeaway when you boil all this down is that the strength of the PGA Tour is strong, but there's much more we need to do, much more we need to change for the benefit of fans, players and our partners,' he said. He said the committee would be guided by parity (he conceded golf already has that), scarcity and simplicity. The tour released a 2026 schedule on Tuesday that adds another $20 million signature event, this one to Trump National Doral, as part of a 35-event schedule from January through August. Rolapp said the simplicity was mostly about connecting the regular season to the postseason. He referred to the committee's work as a 'holistic relook of how we compete on the tour' during the regular season, postseason and offseason. 'The goal is not incremental change,' he said. 'The goal is significant change.' He did not set a timetable for any of it. The Tour Championship ends this week at East Lake for the top 30 players. The tour has eliminated the built-in advantage for top seeds so that everyone starts from scratch. The committee is a smaller version of the PGA Tour Enterprises board and policy board. Joining Epstein from the business side are board chairman Joe Gorder and John Henry of Fenway Sports Group, who leads the Strategic Sports Group that invested $1.5 billion — with the potential to double that — into the tour in a minority investment announced 18 months ago. Rolapp said he had a lot of ideas how to the use the money but none he was ready to share. But he said the involvement of SSG was a big reason he took the job. "Not only does it provide necessary capital as we work through this competitive model and improved commercial model, I also think it also brings learnings from other sports, which I think is beneficial ... to grow the PGA Tour. 'I think outside perspective is always a very good thing, as long as it's applied in the right way. I think SSG has brought that and has been helpful." ___ AP golf:
USA Today
10 minutes ago
- USA Today
PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp's first big move: Naming Tiger Woods to competition committee
ATLANTA – Brian Rolapp announced his first act as PGA Tour CEO. He's creating a Future Competition Committee to be chaired by Tiger Woods with the purpose of defining 'the optimal competitive model that enhances the PGA Tour's value to fans, players and partners.' 'The purpose of this committee is pretty simple. We're going to design the best professional golf competitive model in the world for the benefit of PGA Tour fans, players and their partners. It is aimed at a holistic re-look of how we compete on the Tour. That is inclusive of regular season, postseason and offseason,' he said during a press conference on Wednesday at East Lake Golf Club ahead of the 2025 Tour Championship. 'We're going to focus on the evolution of our competitive model and the corresponding media products and sponsorship elements and model of the entire sport. The goal is not incremental change. The goal is significant change.' Rolapp, who spent 22 years with the NFL and served as chief media and business officer for the past eight years, was named the Tour's first CEO on June 17. He's officially been on the job for 18 days. 'The strength of the PGA Tour is strong, but there's much more we need to do, much more we need to change for the benefit of fans, players and our partners,' he said. 'I said when I took the job that I would take it with a clean sheet of paper, and that is still true. My fan letter on day one, I said, we're going to honor tradition, but we will not be overly bound by it. Now we're going to start turning that blank sheet of paper into action with an idea to aggressively build on the foundation that we have.' Joining Woods on the newly created nine-person committee will be policy board player directors Patrick Cantlay, Adam Scott, Camilo Villegas, and Maverick McNealy and Keith Mitchell, who will be joining the board next year when Peter Malnati and Webb Simpson complete their tenure. There also will be three other business advisors: Joe Gorder, chairman of both of the Tour's boards, John Henry, principal of Fenway Sports Group and PGA Tour Enterprises board member, and Theo Epstein, who serves as a senior advisor to Fenway Sports Group and was general manager of the Boston Red Sox and president of baseball operations with the Chicago Cubs. Rolapp noted that there are twice as many players as business executives on the committee. 'The player input to this is extremely important. Some, including Maverick and Keith, serve on the PAC or the player advisory committee. All are deeply experienced, and all are in different places in their career,' he explained. 'So that diversity of viewpoint will be very important. The others have deep experience in the sports world and deep experience in commercial matters.' Rolapp cited three governing principles that will guide the committee to make the Tour even stronger – parity scarcity and simplicity. 'Everybody wants to go into an event not knowing who's going to win. My old job, I think we obsessed about these things. Other than the NFL, I think golf is the closest thing that's I've seen that's sort of competitive parity. In my old world, we could pick five teams we think are going to win the Super Bowl, and I think we'd probably both be wrong. I think golf has similar characteristics, so I think that's a strength we're going to lean into,' Rolapp said. 'I think every sport who's successful has that, and I think we're going to chase that.' He also is committed to a meritocratic structure, a point of emphasis made to Rolapp during his discussions with roughly 20 different players he's already met with since assuming the job. A common refrain, he said, was players telling him, 'Wherever we end up on a competitive model, let's just make sure that I can earn my way into it, and if I earn my way into it, I deserve to be there.' 'I'm not sure that should have surprised me, but it did,' Rolapp said. 'I thought that's an amazing attribute and a strength of the Tour.' In terms of simplicity, the committee will seek to create a better connection between the regular and postseason to magnify the Tour Championship. 'The events need to matter, and you need to understand as a fan what the stakes are. If this person wins, if this person loses, if this person finishes here on the leaderboard, what does it that mean and how does that tie to the postseason?' Rolapp said. Why did Rolapp choose the creation of this committee as his first act of business? 'It's important to set a vision and a tone for what we want to accomplish, which is significant change,' he said. Rolapp said there wasn't a specific date scheduled for the first meeting but it would be soon, nor is there a firm timeline to implement 'significant change.' 'We will take as much time is to get it right, at least the initial time out, but we're going to aggressively move. So I would like to put in the right competitive model as soon as we can,' he said.
New York Times
42 minutes ago
- New York Times
Coco Gauff splits with key coach on eve of U.S. Open, practices with serve expert
Coco Gauff has hit the panic button, five days before the start of the U.S. Open. Gauff, the world No. 3, has parted ways with grip expert Matt Daly, who she hired at the end of last year's U.S. Open to strengthen her serve and forehand, two of the most important shots in tennis. She has brought on Gavin MacMillan, a biomechanics specialist who helped rescue world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka's serve. MacMillan was on court with Gauff during practice at the Billie Jean King Tennis Center Wednesday, alongside her longtime coach Jean-Christophe Faurel. Advertisement A representative for Gauff confirmed the change, first reported by ESPN. MacMillan was not immediately available for comment. After a period of upturn in late 2024 and early 2025, Gauff's serving troubles have returned. She hit 42 double faults in three matches during the WTA 1000 Canadian Open in Montreal, one rung below a Grand Slam, before hitting 16 in a quarterfinal defeat to Jasmine Paolini at the Cincinnati Open. It was last year's U.S. Open exit to compatriot Emma Navarro, which also featured a string of double faults, that led Gauff to say that she didn't want to lose that way any longer. She fired coach Brad Gilbert, with whom she had won the title in New York in 2023, and brought in Daly. The partnership seemed to work, but the results have not held of late. Jason Stacy, one of Sabalenka's lead coaches, brought in MacMillan in summer 2022 to fix a serve that was producing more than 20 double faults in matches. He got immediate results, as Sabalenka's double faults plummeted and she reached the semifinals of that year's U.S. Open. She has since gone on to win three majors on her route to the top ranking in women's tennis. The U.S. Open singles main draws begin Sunday Aug. 24. This story will be updated. (Photo of Coco Gauff: Daniel Kopatsch / Getty Images) Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle
