Charlotte (AFP) – Lightning-fast greens are predicted at rain-soaked Quail Hollow when the 107th PGA Championship tees off Thursday with the world’s top-ranked trio in a mouth-watering feature group sure to dominate attention. Top-ranked Scottie Scheffler, a two-time Masters winner, will join defending champion Xander Schauffele and new Masters champion Rory McIlroy in an 8:22 a.m. (1222 GMT) 10th-tee group Thursday that’s guaranteed to thrill.
World number two McIlroy of Northern Ireland completed a career Grand Slam by capturing the long-sought green jacket last month at Augusta National, snapping a major win drought dating to 2014 with his fifth major triumph. Schauffele, who also won last year’s British Open, has recovered from a rib injury while Scheffler, whose nine wins last year included Paris Olympic gold, overcame a right hand injury and won his first 2025 title two weeks ago in Texas, matching a PGA Tour low 72-hole stroke record in the process.
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“I’m playing with two guys that are playing some of the best golf in the world,” Scheffler said. “It should be a lot of fun.” The other reigning major champion, 2024 US Open winner Bryson DeChambeau, starts off the first tee Thursday at 1:47 p.m. alongside fellow American Gary Woodland and Norway’s Viktor Hovland. DeChambeau wants another crack at McIlroy after briefly leading on Sunday at the Masters before fading to share fifth.
“I do believe you have to have a lot of distance out here. Rory is a great driver of the golf ball, and his iron play is great, too. I think it’s a golf course that sets up for his shot shapes pretty well, and I think it sets up well for mine, too,” DeChambeau said. “We’ll see. Maybe I do well, maybe I don’t. But I’m certainly going to give it my all, and I know Rory is. Hopefully, we can have another go at it again like the Masters.”
Storms have drenched the course in more than two inches of water over the past four days, including an afternoon thunderstorm that halted practice Tuesday for an hour and 42 minutes. But several players expect the drying system beneath the greens will keep putting surfaces brutally quick even as the rest of the soggy course plays long and treacherous.
“This golf course is amazing. Even though we’ve had some rain, the greens somehow stayed firm,” two-time major winner Jon Rahm said. “I’m sure they’ll get them lightning fast for the week. Excited for it. It’s a great test of golf and a really fun one as well.”
– ‘There’s no faking it’ –
American Jordan Spieth, who will make his ninth attempt to complete a career Slam by winning the PGA, looks for tricky green speeds also. “Although the course is soft now, the greens, I played in the rain and even as it was raining, the greens were still firm, and they had the SubAir (drying system) going, so you’re just going to have to be a shotmaker around here. There’s no faking it.”
Scheffler is set for fearfully fast greens as well. “It’s pretty wet out there, but the greens are still staying pretty firm,” he said. “You have to be able to land the ball up on the green. You can’t really run it up. That’s one aspect that you’ve got to think about.”
Finding fairways will be critical, Schauffele warned. “There’s probably an emphasis that driving carries if you’re able to hit it in the fairway and hit it a certain distance,” he said. “There’s no sort of trick to play this golf course. A lot of people will hit it to the same spot…it’s about who can get up-and-down better when they’re out of position and who can capitalize when they’re in a good position.”
© 2024 AFP
