As Xander Schauffele made his way toward the finish of the 106th PGA Championship, he had some support. “C’mon, Z-Man,” someone could be heard shouting on the CBS broadcast from Valhalla Golf Club. The phonetics were right even if the nickname was wrong.
The ”X-Man” got it right too, making a birdie on the 72nd hole to win his first major title by one stroke over Bryson DeChambeau after being in contention a bunch of times in the big ones. Before coming through in Louisville, Schauffele, 30, had twice been runner-up among a dozen top-10 finishes in 27 previous major appearances. He was due, even though he hadn’t won anything since the 2022 Genesis Scottish Open.
This PGA, the fourth to be held at Valhalla, was marred by what happened in Friday’s rainy, pre-dawn darkness—the death of a tournament worker, John Mills, who was struck by a bus near Valhalla. The tragedy was soon followed by the arrest of World No 1 Scottie Scheffler as he attempted to drive into the property after police said he disregarded their instructions to stop, what the golfer said was a misunderstanding. Scheffler was handcuffed and briefly jailed before being released in time to tee off in the second round.
The championship ended under much different conditions, a mostly sunny and warm spring day with Schauffele rising to the occasion to turn back the threat of a charging DeChambeau, who closed with a seven-under 64 to finish at 20 under. Schauffele’s closing birdie, a six-footer that danced around the rim of the cup before dropping, gave him a 65 and a 72-hole score of 21-under 263, the lowest score in relation to par in a men’s major.
Valhalla’s vulnerability after rain softened the Jack Nicklaus design meant balls were stopping pretty much where they landed, whether on fairways or greens, making its length irrelevant. Four previous majors—all occurring in the last decade—had seen the winner finish at 20 under, but this was the first time two golfers had gone that low in a major. Schauffele kicked off the birdie barrage with a PGA Championship-record 62 in the first round, setting the tone for what was to come later.
Schauffele had lacked closing power in previous majors, but at Valhalla, with not only the powerful DeChambeau but Viktor Hovland also applying pressure throughout the round, he seldom wavered.
“I just kept grinding,” said Schauffele, whose lone bogey came on the par-5 10th hole. I've become very patient not knocking off any wins in the last couple years. The people closest to me know how stubborn I can be. Winning is a result. This is awesome. It's super sweet. But when I break it down, I'm really proud of how I handled certain moments on the course today, different from the past.”
He went about his business trying to follow one of the mantras his father and mentor, Stefan, drilled into him early: commit, execute, accept. Schauffele has augmented his father’s longtime instruction by seeking the help of coach Chris Como in recent months, a partnership that has been productive. “Now that I'm working with Chris, he feels like he can kind of take his hands off the wheel,” son said of father. “He trusts him a lot, I trust him a lot. My dad is at that stage in his life, I really want him to be happy, and I know this is going to bring him a ton of joy …”
Schauffele earned a gold medal at Tokyo Olympics, in 2021, then excelled in 2022. Then came almost two years without a win, a drought accompanied by plenty of chatter about when it was going to end. “It's just noise. That's what I think,” Schauffele said. “Not that people saying it made me think that. I just felt like I've done enough work, I'm good enough to do it. I just needed to shut my mind up and actually do it.”
Schauffele continues what has been some recent American-led parity in the majors. As Justin Ray pointed out on social media Sunday evening, five different golfers from the United States have won the last five men’s majors: Brooks Koepka, Wyndham Clark, Brian Harman, Scheffler, Schauffele. That is the first time this has happened in four decades, when Larry Nelson’s 1983 U.S. Open win was followed by victories from Tom Watson (1983 Open), Hal Sutton (1983 PGA), Ben Crenshaw (1984 Masters) and Fuzzy Zoeller (1984 U.S. Open).
Moreover, Schauffele has removed himself from the “Best Player Not to Have Won a Major” conversation. The Californian, whose major is his eighth PGA Tour win, was a long way from the top of that all-time list headed by Colin Montgomerie, who won 31 times on the DP World Tour but nary a major, only a handful of second-place finishes in the big ones. Montgomerie’s counterpart in an earlier time is Macdonald Smith, whose 25 victories on the American-based circuit do not include one of the four modern major titles. But it’s hard not to put Smith among major champions given that he won the Western Open three times, which was a very big one in his era.
The accounting is more straightforward now. Schauffele is poised to go for more gold, in Paris, after having shown the polish to earn some very important silver. And the first probably won’t be the last.
“I believe in positive self-talk,” Schauffele said. “I will tell myself, I'll speak to myself. I just kept doing it. When you believe something enough, it'll happen.”
Nice piece, Bill, on a wonderful tournament. I was particularly glad you mentioned the name of the man who was killed, John Mills. I'm sure that, to his family, that death meant much, much more than the tournament results, and I didn't see his name mentioned in any of the broadcasts.