Three Thoughts - 2024 PGA Championship

Xander Schauffele holds off Bryson DeChambeau to cap off wild week at Valhalla.

The longstanding promise of golf majors has been proven yet again this weekend in Louisville, Kentucky, as Xander Schauffele held off many challengers by sinking a putt over 6 feet long with the entire tournament hanging in the balance.

The promise is this: if you give the final nine holes at any major your undivided attention on a Sunday afternoon, you will be treated to riveting drama and will be happy you did. That was delivered for the year’s second major as, in the end, Schauffele was able to remove himself from the “best player in the world who has never won a major” list with a final-round 65 to secure his first at the age of 30.

These are My Three Thoughts:

–Congratulations to Xander for closing the deal and the scenes of so many of his fellow players and friends appearing overjoyed for him gave us a glimpse of just how hard it is to break on through in sports. Winning a major after years of chasing it appears to be the ultimate mountain that he was able to climb and it was what we tune in to see.

Schauffele has always felt like a player who is too good not to win more of these big tournaments, but there is always a little something that falls short for him. However, this week, he led wire-to-wire in a way that suggests his game has finally developed to the point where he should be in the mix quite a bit moving forward. You almost feel like the mental block of expecting something to go wrong at just the wrong time has been removed.

He was absolutely solid for the entire weekend as he took a big lead on Thursday and was never really in peril. He set the pace and then raised it enough times that those charging after him ran out of holes in a birdie-fest of a major at Valhalla.