Scottie’s hilarious swing fix, Rory’s silence, surprise PGA winners | Monday Finish

Welcome back to the Monday Finish, where we’re three majors behind Scottie Scheffler — and he’s looking tough to catch. To the news …

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GOLF STUFF I LIKE

PGA’s surprise winners.

Scottie Scheffler‘s PGA Championship victory was impressive. It was dominant. And it was historic. But it wasn’t shocking. Neither was Bryson DeChambeau finishing second — he’s making a habit of contending in majors. Two of the top three favorites ended as the two top finishers. No surprise there.

But there were some big-time surprises behind them.

Consider Harris English, who began Sunday T36 and then shot 65, low round of the day by two, to post the clubhouse lead; by day’s end he was T2, which meant his final round was worth more than a million bucks. (My only question: Had Scheffler gotten DQ’d, arrested or played the Green Mile in a hundred over par, would English have been able to return for the playoff? Or was he long gone from property?)

Davis Riley was lost. Earlier this year he was shooting 80, WD’ing, missing cuts — but in his last several starts he says he’s embraced his swing DNA and found his way back. His Sunday required a bounce-back, too: He went bogey-triple on 6 and 7 before playing three under par the rest of the way to post an improbable, impressive T2. Now he’s in this year’s U.S. Open and next year’s Masters and sits just outside the top 50 in the world.

Jon Rahm had a nightmare finish, falling from a share of the lead to seven shots off the pace, but he was Scheffler’s biggest Sunday threat and still finished T8. After all the criticism Rahm took for his 2024 major championship record, he’s quietly finished top-15 in each of his last three majors — and the next two set up quite well for him.

Things got really wild elsewhere in the top 10, though:

This was the first made cut at a major for Ben Griffin and Joe Highsmith, who finished T8.

It was the first top 50 at a major for Ryan Gerard, who finished T8 alongside them.

It was somehow the first top 30 at a major for J.T. Poston, who slid in at T5.

And despite his four PGA Tour wins, this was the first top 20 at a major for Jhonny Vegas, who held the 36-hole lead and hung in for a T5.

It was also the first top 10 for Si Woo Kim (T8), for Taylor Pendrith (T5) and somehow for Joaquin Niemann (T8), too. Something to build on.

Matt Fitzpatrick has been open about his struggles — a top-10 here (he finished T8) was a much-needed confidence boost.

When Matt Wallace finished third at the PGA in 2019, it was easy to project him as the sort of guy who’d contend at every major. But it hasn’t been that easy. This week’s T17 was his best major finish since that year.

And then there were the Ryder Cup captains. Keegan Bradley (T8) is this year’s U.S. captain, but Scheffler was the only guy from the 2023 Ryder Cup team who beat him this week.

And European captain Luke Donald faded after a hot start to finish T60, but this was his first made cut on the PGA Tour in a full year.

So, big win for Scheffler. But he wasn’t the only one leaving Quail Hollow happy. Celebrating the little wins — that’s golf stuff I like.

WINNERS

Who won the week?

Scottie Scheffler won the PGA Championship by five shots, reminding the golf world of its current pecking order. He’s No. 1 and everybody else — even the recent-career-grand-slam-winning Rory McIlroy — is fighting for second. Magnificent win, magnificent finish, magnificent command of the golf ball throughout the finishing stretch on both Saturday and Sunday, when Scheffler dominated the easy holes (Nos. 14 and 15) and the brutish Green Mile (16, 17 and 18) en route to a comfy final margin. One quote from the PGA Tour chaplain Brad Payne, Scheffler’s good friend and frequent pickleball partner, from this Scottie story I wrote:

“I’m a good athlete,” Payne says, “but he’s on a different level. Usually we don’t lose, but if it gets close, he starts pushing me farther to the sideline. He goes from taking up 50 percent of the court to 65 to about 90 percent. Then, when we get up by about six points, he’ll let me back in.”

Angel Cabrera won the Regions Tradition, the first senior major of the year. The former Masters champ returned to the PGA Tour Champions last season after serving more than two years in prison in Brazil and Argentina for charges related to domestic violence. It’s clear his golf game came right back; he’s now won two of six starts this season.

S.H. Kim won the Korn Ferry Tour’s AdventHealth Championship, his first win in an event under the PGA Tour umbrella; the South Korean pro has conditional PGA Tour status this year but is looking for a full-time return to the big show.

NOT-WINNERS

The list of cut-missing pros was particularly juicy this week, including last week’s winner (Sepp Straka, +2), the Grand Slam hunter (Jordan Spieth, +2), one of golf’s most consistent contenders (Shane Lowry, +2), the Masters contender and Next Big Thing (Ludvig Aberg, +3), one of the hottest players in the world (Justin Thomas, +3), one of its most consistent ball-strikers (Hideki Matsuyama, +3), some of LIV’s biggest names (Patrick Reed, +4, Cameron Smith, +7, Brooks Koepka, +9, Dustin Johnson, +12) and several other U.S. Ryder Cup contenders (Patrick Cantlay, +6, Will Zalatoris, +6, Russell Henley, +10). Grisly!

SHORT HITTERS

Five quotes from guys who didn’t win the PGA.

1. Bryson DeChambeau (T2) wants a better golf ball:

“What I really think needs to happen, being pretty transparent here, is just get a golf ball that flies a little straighter,” he said.

Feel free to eye-roll at that one — Oh, you want a straighter golf ball? Same, Bryson! — but DeChambeau’s outside-the-box thinking has unlocked efficiencies through the bag and it’s reasonable to think he could push some engineering team to break new ground with the ball, too, which he explained presents extra challenges at his speed and trajectory.

“Everybody talks about how straight the golf ball flies. Well, upwards of 190 [mph ball speed] like Rory and myself, it’s actually quite difficult to control the golf ball,” he said. “The ball sidespins quite a bit and it gets hit by the wind quite a bit because our golf balls are just in the air longer. So I’m looking at ways of how to rectify that so that my wedges can be even tighter so it can fly straighter.”

2. Jon Rahm enjoyed the chase:

“God, it’s been a while since I had that much fun on a golf course, 15 holes,” he said. He added this, from Sir Charles:

“I always like to go back a little bit on something that Charles Barkley likes to remind basketball players all the time. Like, I play golf for a living. It’s incredible. Am I embarrassed a little bit about how I finished today? Yeah. But I just need to get over it, get over myself. It’s not the end of the world. It’s not like I’m a doctor or a first responder, where somebody if they have a bad day, truly bad things happen.

“I’ll get over it. I’ll move on. Again, there’s a lot more positive than negative to think about this week. I’m really happy I put myself in position and hopefully learn from this and give it another go in the U.S. Open.

“Sorry for the long answers. I’m trying to process things right now.”

(We like long answers, Jon.)

3. J.T. Poston relished his first time in major contention:

“It’s definitely a momentum boost,” he said. “I think the big thing is it was a learning curve for me this week. You know, it’s the first time I’ve really been in this position in majors and I feel like I held my ground pretty well overall. I think I’ve proven to myself that I can win one of these things, which is very exciting. I feel good about where my game is at. Played well on a hard golf course. That definitely can carry over into the weeks to come and the rest of the season.”

4. Xander Schauffele, defending champion, whose 12-major top-20 streak finally ended (he finished T28):

“After getting kind of a decent round going, the goal was to try to backdoor a top 10. I’m still in need of points. So that was my motivation today,” he said, then added this: “If we had four more days stacked up right now, I feel like I’d have a pretty good chance. Just kind of was in better form, and then I had a few things go awry in my swing and made my approach pretty bad. Just kind of lost control of the golf ball there midweek, unfortunately.

“Yeah, just didn’t have enough to score well, but I feel like I’m playing a lot better than what I’m doing. So just got to hang tough.”

5. Rory McIlroy, who didn’t speak:

On the one hand, this is the collision of two stories you have my permission not to care about at all — 1. McIlroy’s driver failing a test that drivers fail all the time and 2. McIlroy declining to answer questions after any round, continuing the ongoing conversation around whether pros should be required to do post-round media.

But forget whether it’s right or wrong for McIlroy to skip the press. It’s kind of strange, no? In his pre-tournament availability he made it sound like everything the rest of the way will be gravy, and it’s not like four middling rounds take away from last month’s career-capping accomplishment. There’s also plenty to talk about; he could have reflected further on returning to major championship competition, broken down his tournament play and added context that would shut down any manufactured firestorm around this driver-testing story. Mostly fans just like to hear from McIlroy, its latest, greatest champion. A week’s-end wrap after his Sunday round would have solved all of the above, and I’m curious why he skipped out on that. But the irony of him not talking is that we don’t get to satisfy that curiosity; nobody got a chance to ask.

ONE SWING THOUGHT

Scottie Scheffler’s complex tip.

Scheffler has said plenty of times that the things he works the most on are pretty basic setup adjustments. It was fitting, then, that this was the story of the mid-round tweak that saved his Sunday, which came from caddie Ted Scott:

“On 7, 8, 9, I felt like I hit the shots really solid and it was coming out left,” he said. “And I told Teddy walking off 9 tee, I was like, ‘That one felt pretty good. I don’t know why that was left again.’

“He was like, ‘Well, maybe you’re aimed over there. Just try and hit a little further right.’

“I was like, okay. So I got on 10, and felt like I squared up my shoulders and hit it right up the middle.”

Hitting it left? Make sure you’re not aimed left! Sometimes simple is best.

RYDER CUP WATCH

Major points…

It’s not yet June and already if I was Keegan Bradley I would be tempted to flip out at every reporter that asked about a potential role as playing captain at this fall’s Ryder Cup. With that said, it’s an increasingly intriguing possibility. Bradley’s T8 — which included a missed shortie on No. 18 that would have left him T5, and points-rich — was the latest in a string of solid finishes, and he’s now up to No. 17 on the U.S. points list, though in reality he’s playing better than that.

The U.S. team’s biggest movers came from off the radar, headlined by Harris English (who jumped five spots to No. 7), Bradley, Ben Griffin (up five spots to No. 18) and then Poston and Riley, who have now cracked the top 25. The top five spots on the team seem secure, but even Russell Henley‘s recent slide has him in limbo and we’re in prove-it territory as we cruise towards summertime.

On Team Europe, Matt Wallace and Viktor Hovland each posted solid finishes and picked up a few points. Matt Fitzpatrick picked up his first meaningful points, too, as did Jon Rahm, whose status went from “definitely on the team” to “definitely, definitely on the team.” Sergio Garcia made the cut but finished near the bottom of the leaderboard; he admitted after the round that he doesn’t currently deserve a spot on the squad.

Here are the current standings:

TEAM USA

1. Scottie Scheffler, 21490 pts

2. Xander Schauffele, 11747

3. Bryson DeChambeau, 10318

4. Justin Thomas, 9343

5. Collin Morikawa, 8917

6. Russell Henley, 7878

–

7. Harris English, 6282

8. Maverick McNealy, 5921

9. Andrew Novak, 5858

10. Brian Harman, 5808

11. J.J. Spaun, 5162

12. Patrick Cantlay, 5156

TEAM EUROPE

1. Rory McIlroy, 2982 pts

2. Shane Lowry, 1124

3. Rasmus Højgaard, 1034

4. Tyrrell Hatton, 1004

5. Sepp Straka, 943

6. Justin Rose, 870

–

7. Tommy Fleetwood, 845

8. Ludvig Åberg, 819

9. Thomas Detry, 650

10. Matt Wallace, 638

11. Niklas Norgaard, 608

12. Viktor Hovland, 541

ONE THING TO WATCH

Tiger Woods talking Scheffler, specifically their similarities, is really cool stuff.

NEWS FROM SEATTLE

Monday Finish HQ.

We have a little garden box outside our front door and apparently last year at some point planted some snap peas that never grew. This year, though? Suddenly there’s one massive vine that has sprung out of the earth and is winding its way towards the sky, Jack-and-the-Beanstalk style. Incredibly excited to harvest about a half-dozen snappers in the next week or so. What a thrill!

Also, thanks to those of you who chimed in with Pacific Northwest hidden-gem (or hidden disaster) golf options — still accepting suggestions at the email below.

We’ll see you next week.

Dylan Dethier welcomes your comments at dylan_dethier@golf.com.