We live in a golf world right now where the two top-ranked players have taken a back seat to two players even hotter than they are entering this week\u2019s PGA Championship at Aronimink.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This makes the season\u2019s second major championship a must-watch.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Scottie Scheffler, the reigning world No. 1 for the past three years and the defending PGA champion, and Rory McIlroy<\/a>, ranked No. 2 and fresh off winning his second consecutive Masters, surely are two of the favorites to hoist the Wanamaker Trophy.\u00a0<\/p>\n But it\u2019s Matthew Fitzpatrick and Cameron Young who enter the season\u2019s second major championship as the game\u2019s hottest players.\u00a0<\/p>\n Matthew Fitzpatrick enters the PGA Championship with some momentum. AP<\/p>\n Fitzpatrick has won three times this year and Young has won twice \u2014 first at the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass, where he defeated Fitzpatrick on the 72nd hole, then two weeks ago at Doral, where he dusted the field by six shots, with Scheffler the runner-up.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf you had to put one word over both of those players, it\u2019s \u2018belief,\u2019\u201d Dottie Pepper, the former LPGA star and current CBS lead on-course reporter, said of Young and Fitzpatrick this week.<\/p>\n \u201cThey both now believe they can get it done in the most difficult of circumstances. To have those two not [in contention] at Aronimink would be shocking.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Trevor Immelman, lead CBS analyst, said he felt this run Young is on \u201cfeels like it\u2019s been coming for a long time.\u2019\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cScottie and Rory have been dominating the sport for the last handful of years and have won a ton of times,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cBut I put Cam Young \u2014 even though he\u2019s got just three wins now on the PGA Tour \u2014 on that same level. That\u2019s how much respect I have for his ability and talent. Now that he has that extra intangible of confidence and self-belief, he\u2019s going to be a real problem for these other guys over the next few years.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMatt Fitzpatrick is a major champion. \u2026 He knows exactly what it takes. Both of these guys are going to be coming into this PGA Championship on the same level with Scottie and Rory as guys you\u2019ve really got to watch.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Young\u2019s world ranking has elevated to No. 3, while Fitzpatrick is No. 4.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThose world rankings are based in the past,\u2019\u2019 Young said. \u201cIt\u2019s a good indicator of how you\u2019ve played recently or whatever it is, but that No. 3 next to my name in the World Ranking doesn\u2019t give me one thing this week [and] doesn\u2019t give me one thing next week.\u2019\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n Cameron Young shoots during the Truist Championship. Getty Images<\/p>\n Another compelling element to this PGA is the group of LIV Golf players in the field \u2014 11 in all, including Dustin Johnson, who was given a special exemption into the field and will play in his 69th consecutive major.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI still feel like I\u2019m one of the best players in the world,\u2019\u2019 Johnson told reporters last week, ignoring the fact that his world ranking has plummeted to 468th.\u00a0<\/p>\n Two LIV players who didn\u2019t need a special exemption and are among the favorites to win are Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm<\/a>. In the past five PGA Championships DeChambeau has played<\/a>, he has two ties for fourth and runner-up finishes in 2024 and 2025. Rahm finished tied for eighth at last year\u2019s PGA.\u00a0<\/p>\n One former LIV player and now again a PGA Tour member, Brooks Koepka, is someone to watch. He\u2019s won the PGA three times \u2014 in 2018, 2019 and 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n Then, of course, there\u2019s the charm of the 20 PGA club pros in the field \u2014 highlighted by Michael Block, who was the co-star of the \u201923 PGA along with Koepka, finishing in a tie for 15th.\u00a0<\/p>\n As for the world No. 1, Scheffler has had a weird year. He won his first event, at the American Express, and has since been victimized by slow starts.\u00a0<\/p>\n He opened with a 73 at the Waste Management and finished tied for third. He opened with 72 at Pebble Beach and finished tied for fourth. He opened with a 74 at the Genesis and finished tied for 12th.\u00a0<\/p>\n At the Masters, he shot 70 in the first round and finished runner-up. Two weeks ago at Doral, he shot 71 in the first round and finished second to Young.\u00a0<\/p>\n Scottie Scheffler has been hurt by slow starts recently. AP<\/p>\n Scheffler seems like he\u2019s on the cusp of finding the form that brought him seven wins in 2024 and six last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes in golf, it\u2019s a hard sport,\u2019\u2019 Scheffler said. \u201cSometimes the bounces go your way and other times they don\u2019t go your way. Sometimes you\u2019re able to build some positive momentum, and I think at times in my career I\u2019ve been able to really feed off of that.\u2019\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n When he won last year\u2019s PGA, the usually stoic Scheffler showed uncharacteristic high emotions on the 72nd green celebrating with his caddie, Ted Scott.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think sometimes people don\u2019t have a great understanding of what it takes in order to be in those positions,\u2019\u2019 Scheffler said. \u201cFor me to have a chance to win the PGA Championship, it is quite literally a lifetime of work and sacrifice and dedication to a sport to have a chance to win just one tournament.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI always have those feelings when you\u2019re able to win tournaments just because no matter what tournament it is, it\u2019s a lifetime of work in order to achieve something like that. Sometimes I show it and other times I don\u2019t. But the feeling is always there.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We live in a golf world right now where the two top-ranked players have taken a back seat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[40534,427,18941,14192,6082,5758,99],"class_list":["post-633702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-cameron-young","tag-golf","tag-matthew-fitzpatrick","tag-pga-championship","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-scottie-scheffler","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}