Scottie Scheffler rivals can take heart from Justin Thomas tale in US PGA finale
Justin Thomas may have missed the cut in the 107th US PGA Championship, but the two-time winner still offered hope to anyone aiming to deny Scottie Scheffler at Quail Hollow.
A superb third round of 65 gave Scheffler a three-shot lead over Sweden's Alex Noren in pursuit of his third major title, the world number one having won the Masters in 2022 and 2024.
Scheffler converted the 54-hole lead at Augusta National on both occasions and has gone on to win on each of the last five times he has been in such a position, most recently when cruising to an eight-shot win in the CJ Cup Byron Nelson on his last start.
Thirteen of the last 14 winners of the US PGA Championship were also either leading or within two strokes of the lead entering the final round, which is where Thomas comes in.
Thomas was seven shots off the lead entering the final round at Southern Hills in 2022, but carded a closing 67 – his third of the week – before beating Will Zalatoris in a three-hole play-off.
Chile's Mito Pereira held a one-shot lead with one hole to play, but found water off the tee on the 18th and ran up a double-bogey six to miss out on the play-off.
Water is also very much in play on the closing stretch at Quail Hollow, where the par-four 16th, par-three 17th and par-four 18th are collectively known as 'The Green Mile' and form one of the toughest finishes on the PGA Tour.
Relive Scottie Scheffler's BEST shots from the Green Mile yesterday! 👏 #PGAChamp pic.twitter.com/6IDUjZg3bj
— PGA Championship (@PGAChampionship) May 18, 2025
Not that Scheffler seemed to notice in round three as he followed a par on the 16th with birdies on the last two holes to separate himself from the chasing pack, although Noren navigated the last three holes in identical fashion.
The 42-year-old former Ryder Cup winner's performance is remarkable given that it is just his second tournament since October due to a hamstring injury, a tie for 51st in last week's Truist Championship offering few indications that he would be challenging for a first major title in his 40th attempt.
Noren would join 2016 Open champion Henrik Stenson as the only male Swedish players to have won a major, an achievement which would end a streak of nine straight American winners of the US PGA.
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'From a greens standpoint, I think you'll see more balls run away from the centre of the greens which will make approach shots more difficult and getting the ball up-and-down more difficult. I think they'll have more hole locations than we've seen in the past. Some pins will even appear they're off the edges of the greens with the renovation. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'I love the quote about wanting to get every club in the bag dirty. When I finish a golf course, no matter where I play, I think that's one of the greatest attributes to a golf course if you hit every club in the bag - and I think Oakmont will be the perfect venue for that.' Dustin Johnson speaks at a press conference after winning the 2016 US Open at Oakmont Country Club |Johnson, who now plays on the LIV Golf League, was one of the game's dominant forces when landing his maiden major win nine years ago after a farcical end, having played the final seven holes knowing he had to review a possible rules infringement at the end of the round. Having let a four-shot lead heading into the final circuit slip from his grasp on that occasion, Shane Lowry will be a man on a mission heading back to the venue in the north-east suburbs of Pittsburgh, but the man they'll all have to beat is current world No 1 Scottie Scheffler. 'He's the best player that I've seen with my own eyes,' said Smylie Kaufman, another PGA Tour player who will be part of the NBC Sports team next week. 'I watched Tiger on TV as a kid growing up, and so I can't really speak to watching the golf ball in the air like I can with Scottie - mand it's the best I've ever seen. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'He's got no weaknesses in his game. You just feel like when you're behind Scottie, you have to press because you know he's not going to make any mistakes. I think it's just a blend of so many great things that he has. Like, when you're a 65-per cent-accuracy driver of the golf ball and you hit as many fairways as he does, then you couple it with maybe one of the best iron players to ever play the game, and now throw in a strokes-gained, top-20 putter along with a second in scrambling, he just doesn't have any weaknesses.' 'What Scottie does an incredible job of doing is his bad days where he doesn't have anything, he shoots 70. And Tiger Woods used to do the exact same thing. How many times have you seen Rory McIlroy or Xander Schauffele or Justin Thomas shoot rounds of 76 or higher on major championship Thursday rounds and, all of a sudden, they're out of it? 'Scottie Scheffler doesn't do that. He turns those days into 71s, 70s, 69s. And it just speaks to really just being an athlete and finding a way to get it done. I would say that's probably the most impressive thing that Scottie does for my eyes.' Scottie Scheffler, pictured with wife Meredith and son Bennett after winning the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow last month, is the man to beat in the season's third major |Kisner is also a huge fan of the man who has now won an incredible 16 times in just over three years. 'He does the exact same thing the last 20 seconds before he hits a golf shot, every shot in practice and in play, and in competition,' he observed. 'He has the same look in his eye. When he steps in, he has the most intense concentration that I've ever seen on every shot, and he makes sure that he's in the zone on every shot. That's something that, in my eyes, I always look back at Tiger Woods in his heyday, and that's what he did as well. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'One of the other fascinating things that's starting to happen that happened when Tiger was on that run was his peers started to talk about him in the same way that Tiger's fellow competitors talked about him. You saw Jordan [Spieth] talk about him last week and a few others. I just found it fascinating that it's getting to the point that his peers are even talking about how good he is and how great he's playing and how hard it is to beat him, and I think that even helps your advantage when you're the guy that others are talking about.'
