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LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The 2024 PGA Championship begins on Thursday morning with PGA club pro Michael Block hitting the opening tee shot at 7 a.m. ET at Valhalla Golf Club.
Before balls are in the air, let’s take a look at 15 stats you (probably) didn’t know from the stats geeks at the Elias Sports Bureau. They dug up some good ones here.
- This year marks the 10th anniversary of Rory McIlroy’s 2014 PGA Championship victory at Valhalla – his most recent major championship crown. Since then, he has finished among the top 10 in a major 20 times, which is the most by any player over that span, ahead of Brooks Koepka (17), Dustin Johnson (16) and Jordan Spieth (13).
- Each of the last three PGA Championship winners finished single digits under par for the championship: Phil Mickelson (6 under at Kiawah), Justin Thomas (5 under at Southern Hills) and Brooks Koepka (9 under at Oak Hill). There have not been four consecutive single-digit winning scores, relative to par, at this championship since the early 1980s.
- Michael Block captivated the golf world last year, finishing T-15 at Oak Hill. It was the best finish by a club pro at the PGA Championship since Tommy Aycock finished T-11 at Tanglewood GC in 1974.
- No club professional has made the cut at the PGA Championship in back-to-back years since Illinois club pro Tom Wargo did so in both 1992 and 1993.
- The only club professional to post more than one career top-20 finish at the PGA Championship was Sam Snead who competed in PGA Championships as a club professional during the early 1970s. Snead, then in his early 60s, finished T-4 and T-9 at the 1972 and 1973 PGA Championships, respectively.
- Block’s magical week reached a thunderous crescendo with a hole-in-one on the 15th hole on Sunday It was the first hole-in-one by a club professional at a PGA Championship since 1996, when George Bowman (a club pro from Michigan) made an ace on No. 3 at Valhalla during his first round.
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- Xander Schauffele is in the midst of one of the greatest streaks of consistency in recent major championship history. Dating back to the 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills, he has finished among the top-20 in each of the last eight majors, including an 8th-place showing at the Masters in April.
- The last player to appear in eight consecutive major championships and finish among the top 20 in each was Tiger Woods, who had an eight-major streak from the 2006 Open Championship to the 2008 U.S. Open. No player has had a longer streak than Schauffele’s since Woods did that in each of 14 consecutive majors, from the 1998 Masters through the 2001 U.S. Open.
- Jack Nicklaus’ record for such a streak is safe for the near future: The Golden Bear appeared in 33 consecutive majors from 1970 to 1978 and finished among the top 20 in all of them!
- Scottie Scheffler has four wins in 10 starts this season (since January 1st). That is a higher winning percentage than the current records of Major League Baseball’s Rockies, White Sox, Marlins, Astros, and Angels.
- Scheffler has won four of his last five starts. Over the last 70 years, only three other players had a five-start span like that: Tiger Woods (several times, most recently when he won five consecutive tournaments spanning the end of the 2007 season and the start of 2008), Vijay Singh (2004) and Arnold Palmer (1962).
- Scheffler has shot par or better in each of his last 40 official PGA Tour events, which is 12 shy of Tiger Woods’ PGA Tour record of 52, set between May 2000 and January 2001. Scheffler’s stroke average during the streak is 67.53. Tiger’s stroke average during his streak was 67.65.
- Starting with Jimmy Walker’s win at Baltusrol in 2016, each of the last eight PGA Championships has been won by an American (Walker, Thomas, Koepka (three times), Morikawa, Mickelson, Thomas). It is the longest such streak at this championship since a 10-year run from 1980-1989.
- Englishman Jim Barnes won the first two PGA Championships, in 1916 and 1919, however no player representing Great Britain has won this championship since.
- Brooks Koepka posted the outright best round on the course in both the second and third rounds (66 in both rounds) last year. It was the first time in PGA Championship history that a player shot back-to-back ‘ringer rounds.’ Over the last six PGA Championships (2018-2023), Koepka is 32-under par, which is by far the best cumulative score relative to par over that time. Next best: Justin Rose, -13.