PGA Championship Week is Here and the List of Contenders Starts With Jon Rahm
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The beauty of the PGA Championship’s move to May five years ago is the relatively short time that passes after the Masters. There’s no doubt the next major sneaks up quickly, far faster than the run-up to the Masters, which has considerable buildup dating to the beginning of the year.
This week’s tournament at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, N.Y., offers plenty of storylines, not the least of which is the course, home to multiple majors over the years and a Donald Ross design that has seen a significant renovation since Jason Dufner won the 2013 PGA Championship.
That makes for some doubt about how the course will play and who it will favor.
Can Jordan Spieth even play with a bad wrist, let alone complete the career Grand Slam with a victory?
Can Rory McIlroy overcome his recent issues and win a major for the first time in nine years, since the 2014 PGA?
What about the top-ranked players who are without a major such as Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele and Tony Finau?
Is Scottie Scheffler primed for his second major title?
Can Justin Thomas, who has not won since his victory at Southern Hills a year ago, defend his title?
Can Jason Day, who just won for the first time in five years at the Byron Nelson, add a second major title a week later?
And how will the LIV golfers, led by two-time PGA Championship winner Brooks Koepka, fare?
But perhaps the biggest and most obvious player to watch this week is Jon Rahm.
The Masters champion has won four times this year. He’s ranked No. 1 in the world (and No. 1 in the SI World Golf Rankings). He’s had few poor tournaments. And is coming off a second-place finish at his last start at the Mexico Open.
He can also win the first two major championships of the year, a feat so rare that it is barely discussed.
Spieth is the last player to do so, winning the Masters and U.S. Open in 2015.
Since then, the closest anyone has come was Patrick Reed, who won the 2018 Masters and was fourth at the U.S. Open, three shots behind Brooks Koepka. His bid for two in a row was somewhat tempered by the fact that he began the final round three strokes back and in a tie for seventh.
He is the only player since Spieth to even finish among the top 20 in the next major, with three of them—Tiger Woods (2019), Collin Morikawa (2020, when the first major was the PGA due to COVID-19) and Scottie Scheffler (2022) missing the cut.
It is difficult to keep that form going from one major to the next, as history has shown.
Prior to Spieth, the last player to win the first two majors of the year was Woods in 2002, when he had the world believing he’d complete a calendar year slam the year after completing the Tiger Slam by winning four straight majors.
Woods got caught in a storm at Muirfield to end his chances, but came back to finish second at the PGA Championship.
Before Tiger? Jack Nicklaus in 1972. Arnold Palmer in 1960. Ben Hogan in 1953 when he also won his only British Open, played at Carnoustie.
In 1949, Sam Snead won the Masters and the PGA Championship, a year when it was played in May, then tied for second at the U.S. Open.
The only other player to win the first two majors was Craig Wood in 1941.
Can Rahm do it?
Why not?
He’s having one of the all-time great years, with victories at the Masters, the Genesis Invitational, the American Express and the Sentry Tournament of Champions.
Going back to last year, Rahm has been in the top 10 of 12 of his past 17 worldwide starts, with six victories and four other top 5s.
And then there’s this: not only is Rahm No. 1 in the world, but he’s No. 1 in numerous PGA Tour statistical categories, including first in birdie percentage, eagle percentage, par-3, par-4 and par-5 scoring and first in strokes-gained total.
It’s an impressive compilation of stats and shows how well Rahm has been playing. And yet, he seems to have the proper perspective. After finishing second to Tony Finau at the Mexico Open, it was clear he was not satisfied.
"It’s a great reminder that what you've done means absolutely nothing, you still have to go out there and do it," Rahm said. "It's also good so you don't think too much of yourself, right? Like obviously I wanted to win, but it's a reminder that everybody out here is a great player and Tony came out with a two-shot lead and played fantastic golf.
"Like I said, a great reminder of what I still need to do to be able to keep winning tournaments and if you ask me, that's almost a blessing in life, to know that the work is not really done. It's never done, the search is ever ongoing. The path, I believe Arnie (Palmer) said the path to success is always under construction and that couldn't be any more true."