One of the PGA Tour’s next great characters put on quite the show on Sunday.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — For those of you who may be unfamiliar with Alejandro Tosti, let me, as the kids say, drop some knowledge on you.
The 27-year-old from Rosario, Argentina – the same town as soccer legend and current Inter Miami star Leo Messi – is in his first full season on the PGA Tour and is already making a name for himself as one of the next great characters on the tour due to his antics and personality.
During Sunday’s final round of the 2024 PGA Championship, his skill and confidence were on full display on Valhalla Golf Club’s par-4 13th hole. Known as The Limestone Hole, the 13th plays to 351 yards (the shortest par-4 on the course) and features an island green that’s built up at a 20-foot elevation and lined by, you guessed it, limestone boulders.
Most players lay up with an iron off the tee and then flip in a wedge onto the putting surface to set up a birdie chance. Tosti, however, was feeling on the back nine, pulled his driver from the bag and hit a near-perfect shot to 7 feet to set up one of the most impressive eagles of the week.
— PGA Championship (@PGAChampionship) May 19, 2024
Tosti was in position to contend for a potential top 10 finish at the second men’s major championship of the season after opening rounds of 68-69 to reach 5 under for the tournament. On Saturday, however, he struggled to the tune of a 8-over 79 that featured four double bogeys.
The winner on Sunday will take home $3.33 million.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The 2024 PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club will feature a record purse and first-place prize money payout this year.
On Saturday the PGA of America announced the 106th playing of its flagship event will offer an $18.5 million purse, with $3.33 million going to the winner. Second place will earn $1,998,000 while third will bank $1,258,000.
The PGA of America has been steadily increasing the PGA Championship purse over the years, the last several in particular. The 2023 PGA Championship featured a $17.5 million purse, up from $15 million in 2022, $12 million in 2021 and $11 million in 2020. The last time the PGA Championship was at Valhalla in 2014, the purse was $9,913,000.
Players who missed the cut and turned in a 36-hole score will earn $4,000 each. Any player who made the cut but failed to submit a 72-hole score will also be paid $4,000.
Arguably none cherishes winning the PGA more than Trevino.
Of all the golfers who have won the PGA Championship in the last 50 years, arguably none cherished the achievement more than Lee Trevino.
“The PGA of America gave me my life,” Trevino has said on numerous occasions. “That’s exactly what they did.”
Bill Eschenbrenner, the head professional at El Paso (Texas) Country Club for 35 years, helped Trevino when he moved there from Dallas in 1965 to obtain his PGA Class A card. When Trevino wasn’t busy winning money games, he was doing everything at nearby Horizon Hills Golf Club from opening the shop first thing in the morning to shining shoes to giving lessons. At the time, a pro was required to be a card-carrying member to play on the PGA Tour and Trevino’s previous boss in Dallas refused to endorse his work.
Eschenbrenner found another way through his local PGA chapter, and kept Trevino’s framed application from the Sun Country PGA Section – dated March 13, 1966 – on display in his pro shop until he retired in 1999 (and became pro emeritus).
“I had faith in him,” said Eschenbrenner, who said Trevino’s PGA Class A card came through a week before the Merry Mex finished fifth at the 1967 U.S. Open at Baltusrol, after which his playing career was off and running. “I said, ‘If he doesn’t make a good PGA member, you can take my card.’ ”
As one of the last bridges to the days when touring pros started their careers behind the counter of a pro shop, Trevino always had an ulterior motive for winning the Wanamaker Trophy. The PGA Championship meant more to him than it did to his rivals. And he succeeded — twice. Trevino won the title for the first time 50 years ago, then won it again 10 years later for his sixth and final major as well as 29th and final PGA Tour title.
Lee Trevino during the 1973 PGA Tour season. (Photo: Tony Tomsic-USA TODAY)
Entering the 56th PGA Championship, held at Tanglewood Golf Club, a 36-hole public complex in Clemmons, North Carolina, Trevino had experienced little success in the championship. In six previous appearances, he had finished no better than 11th.
But he found the course – and the soggy conditions, which better enabled him to hold the course’s greens with his lower trajectory approaches – to his liking. More than seven inches of rain saturated Tanglewood in the days leading up to the championship and the thirsty turf sprang to life, resulting in unruly rough. “The grass was knee-high to a giraffe, and the greens had footprints this big,” recalled Trevino, holding his hands a foot apart.
The skies opened again as the first round got underway. All three of the first-round leaders benefited from afternoon tee times when the rain lifted. Hubert Green, the Tour’s number-two money winner at the time, birdied two of his last three holes to tie Raymond Floyd and John Schlee at 2-under 68. Despite competing in the better half of the draw, Trevino failed to take advantage and opened with a 3-over 73.
But in the second round, under still damp conditions, he signed for a nifty 66, and strolled into the press center and declared, “Ain’t nothin’ like a low round to make you un-tired.” That was the low round of the week until Gary Player delivered a PGA Championship record-tying 64 later that day. Trevino still trailed Schlee, the 36-hole leader, by four strokes.
On Saturday, the weather finally broke, but Schlee slid down the leaderboard with a 75. Player, who had won the Masters and the Open Championship earlier in the year, also fell to Earth with a 73. Trevino signed for a 2-under 68 and a 54-hole total of 3-under 207. Lurking one stroke back was Jack Nicklaus, who matched par with 70, and liked where he stood as he searched for his 13th major title.
The potential of another Nicklaus and Trevino mano a mano Sunday battle with a major on the line dominated the sports headlines. Lee already had gotten the better of Jack for three of his four major wins, including an 18-hole playoff in the 1971 U.S. Open and the 1972 Open Championship, which had spoiled Nicklaus’s Grand Slam quest. Player, for one, had a strong opinion on what made Trevino such a thorn in Nicklaus’s side.
“Lee Trevino had enough heart for 10 men,” Player said.
Two other players emerged as unlikely contenders after three rounds. Bobby Cole, a 26-year-old South African who was winless on Tour, shot 71, which left him one behind Trevino. And the legendary Sam Snead, at age 62 and nine years removed from the last of his Tour-record 82 career victories (since tied by Tiger Woods), was four back at 1-over after rounds of 69-71.
On Saturday, Trevino one-putted five of the last six greens, a feat that yielded a lovely story about how he acquired the club. It all began when Trevino rented a house for tournament week from Zana Mayberry, a widow who lived with her son near Tanglewood. A week before the championship, she stored some belongings in the attic, including her husband’s golf clubs. Trevino had peeked into the attic and discovered the set, pulling a Wilson Arnold Palmer 8802 blade putter from the bag. He had taken the club for a spin during his practice session, and it was love at first stroke. But Trevino didn’t think it would be proper to use it in the tournament without asking permission.
“She said it was her husband’s, who had died about six months before,” Trevino recounted. “She was going to save it for her son if he decided to play golf.”
But she granted Trevino permission to use it that week and it had been deadly.
Eight players were within three shots of Trevino’s lead when the final round began, but it quickly became clear that another Trevino-Nicklaus showdown was in the making – save for one party crasher. In the threesome immediately ahead of the two heavyweights, Cole briefly took the lead. At the first hole, a 380-yard, downhill dogleg left, his second shot from thick rough hit behind the hole, hopped back and disappeared for an eagle. It proved to be the start of a rollercoaster day for Cole, who made only five pars.
Lee Trevino competes on the PGA Tour during the 1983 season. (Photo: Malcolm Emmons- USA TODAY Sports)
Trevino answered with an eight-foot birdie at the first, and the two co-leaders set the pace until Cole stumbled with a bogey at the ninth. He continued the chase, alternating birdies and bogeys, but a double bogey at 17 sealed his fate. He finished with a 71 and shared third with, among others, Snead. Playing in his 37th PGA, Snead closed with a 68 and became the oldest player to finish in the top five of a major championship.
Trevino was nursing a one-stroke lead over Nicklaus as they reached the 72nd and final hole of the championship. Likely needing a birdie to tie, Nicklaus reached the fringe of the green and couldn’t mark and clean his ball. He gave a valiant try, but his 20-foot birdie attempt slid by on the high side.
“It looked to me like it would break a foot, and it broke maybe an inch or two,” he said. “I think without the mud, it might have.”
After Nicklaus tapped in, Trevino lagged his putt within 2 feet of victory. It’s customary in such situations for the leader to mark his ball and allow his competitors to putt first. Green still had about four feet to clean up, but Trevino had other ideas. He asked if he could finish, wiggled it in for a textbook par, and had his fifth major title in a seven-year span.
Trevino, the former driving-range pro who had been deprived of his PGA membership, had won the association’s signature event.
“It felt like payback,” he said on the day of his 2015 induction into the PGA of America’s Hall of Fame. “[Eschenbrenner and the PGA] took a chance on me, and I fulfilled my commitment.”
As for “the Ms. Mayberry putter,” as he came to refer to it, the usually unsentimental Trevino made it one of the few keepsakes from his career. When he assumed the 54-hole lead, Ms. Mayberry told Trevino that he could have the putter if he won the championship. He tucked the gift away at home in a special drawer at home.
Twice is nice
The only thing better than having his name inscribed on the Wanamaker Trophy once was doing it a second time. Shoal Creek, host of the 1984 PGA Championship in suburban Birmingham, Alabama, was the type of unforgiving layout on which Trevino tended to excel. Much like at Tanglewood, Shoal Creek’s rough was the No. 1 topic of conversation.
“That was the toughest rough I’ve ever played in, including all the U.S. Opens,” Trevino said. “It was almost like having water hazards on both sides of the fairways.”
A late-afternoon thunderstorm emerged as the real winner of Round One, causing a suspension of play until Friday with 30 players yet to finish. Lanny Wadkins, who had one hole left to complete, eventually joined Mike Reid and Raymond Floyd as 18-hole co-leaders. The rain was to have a profound effect on the next three rounds, ensuring the greens never got hard and making conditions ideal for low scoring.
Once again, Trevino took advantage of a new putter in the bag. Three weeks before the PGA, during the first round of the Dutch Open, he hit every green in regulation yet shot 74 – thanks to taking 36 putts. Trevino hummed “Taps” to his wife, Claudia, his way of saying it was time to put his current putter out of its misery. She didn’t let her husband sulk for long, suggesting he try a Ping putter after noting that champion Seve Ballesteros and nearly all of the top 10 finishers in the 1984 Open Championship had used that brand. Her passionate urging prompted Trevino to visit the Rosensaelsche Golf Club pro shop and buy the only Ping model in stock, an A-Blade, for about $50. First, Trevino had to knock some sense into it. “I beat it against the concrete and stomped it with my heel until I got the loft and the angle I like,” he said.
It did the trick. In the early going, Trevino made only one bogey over the first 36 holes and holed five putts of 15 feet or longer, including a 45-foot bomb at the eighth on Friday. In the third round, he took six putts over the first seven holes and made the turn at 6-under 30. His 67 ran his recent form to 61 under par for the last 13 competitive rounds. But could his game hold up for one more day? He was a 44-year-old, part-time player stepping out of the broadcast booth with a surgically repaired back who hadn’t lifted a major championship trophy since Tanglewood a decade earlier.
Trevino got off to an auspicious start, sinking a 60-foot birdie putt at the first. But the feisty Wadkins loved nothing more than a fight and responded with birdies at the sixth and ninth to gain the outright lead for the first time. Player trailed by one stroke after jarring an uphill 60-foot birdie putt at the ninth, but he took three putts on the next hole and never drew closer than two shots the rest of the way.
The turning point proved to be the par-3 16th hole, where Wadkins, coming off birdie to trim Trevino’s lead to one, had the honor at the 197-yard hole. His tee shot came to rest within 15 feet of the hole. Next, Trevino tried to cut a 4-iron from the elevated tee, but yanked it left into the front bunker and did well to splash 15 feet past the hole. The pendulum looked about to swing in Wadkins’ favor, with possibly a two-shot swing.
But Trevino’s putter bailed him out once more, the ball slowing at just the right moment to curl in. To make matters worse, Wadkins missed his putt to tie and didn’t have an answer for the hot-putting Trevino, who birdied the final two holes for a four-shot victory.
As only Trevino could do, he paid tribute to his putting prowess at Shoal Creek by kissing his three-week-old Dutch treat and taking a bow. Then he did it three more times, turning each time to ensure everyone encircling the green got to see him face-to-face-to-face.
Trevino’s closing 69 made him the first player in PGA Championship history to shoot four rounds under 70, while his winning total of 15-under shattered the PGA’s previous under-par record by five strokes. He now had won a major championship in three different decades. Holding the silver Wanamaker Trophy aloft for the second time and ending a 40-month winless drought, Trevino said, “God, it’s shiny. It’s been a long time since I got something this shiny.”
Or that meaningful. Once he became one, Trevino never took being a PGA Class A member for granted. Whenever he’d go to a new course, he made a point of greeting the assistants and introducing himself to the head pro.
“That is courtesy,” Trevino said. “That is respect for the PGA professional.”
The first 54 holes of the 2024 PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky, are in the books and two names sit at the top of the leaderboard.
Collin Morikawa (4-under 67) and Xander Schauffele (68) are both 15 under after three rounds of play and hold a one-shot lead over fan-favorite Sahith Theegala (67).
It’s a bunched leaderboard, and plenty of star power is in the mix.
Whatever spicy side dishes the PGA Tour needs (and they do), they’ll have to source elsewhere.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — It was during the 82nd PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club a couple dozen years ago that Stuart Appleby was asked what he’d need to shoot to have a chance to win.
“Tiger Woods,” he replied.
Most of those competing at the 106th edition this week can relate to the sentiment, even if the name has changed. Scottie Scheffler’s intimidation factor isn’t grounded just in wins—four in his last five starts, missing a putt to force a playoff in the one he didn’t claim. Nor is it based on a performance ledger that boasts so many “1’s” you’d assume it’s written in binary code: 1st in Strokes Gained Total, 1st Off the Tee and in Approach, 1st Tee-to-Green and Greens in Regulation, in Birdie Average, in Scoring Average, in FedEx Cup points, in official money ($18,693,235 and counting). He’s probably 1st in the Father of the Year race too, despite having only entered 10 days ago with the birth of his first child, a son named Bennett.
Many athletes have been temporarily thrown for a loop by parenthood, willing to pay a fortune to stay home or have a decent night’s sleep. Scheffler played twice amid feverish speculation about whether he’d withdraw if his wife, Meredith, went into labor. He won both, including the Masters. The PGA Championship is his first start since Bennett arrived. He opened Thursday morning by holing his second shot for eagle on the first hole and went on to card a 67.
Strike fatherhood from the list of things rivals hoped could disrupt Scheffler’s perfectly calibrated life balance.
What Bennett didn’t do, surely the Louisville Metro Police Department could. On Friday morning, a cop handcuffed Scheffler after an apparent misunderstanding at the entrance of Valhalla when he attempted to navigate around a traffic stop caused by an unrelated fatal accident. It was a surreal incident for a man who has probably been no closer to prison than watching Shawshank Redemption. For a time, it seemed certain to derail his bid for a single-season slam, either by a missed tee time or a rattled performance. Instead, he teed off shortly after arriving at the course, birdied his opening hole and shot 66.
Guys in the locker room can strike prison time from the list too, and when that doesn’t work you know there ain’t much left.
Saturday finally saw a chink in the armor. For the third round, Scheffler was without Ted Scott, the caddie who has been on the bag for all 10 of his PGA Tour wins, who was attending his daughter’s high school graduation. Without his regular sherpa, Scheffler turned to Brad Payne, the PGA Tour chaplain.
Changing caddies is a delicate matter for Tour players, even for a day. The cadence of a relationship is impossible to replicate and difficult to replace, even with friends. Payne previously caddied on Tour, so he wasn’t present for just support without illumination, even if his days now are spent trying to save souls rather than strokes.
Scottie Scheffler smiles while waiting to tee off on the fourth hole during the third round of the PGA Championship golf tournament at Valhalla Golf Club. (Photo: Matt Stone-USA TODAY Sports)
Scheffler was off all day. He double-bogeyed the 2nd hole, added bogeys at the 3rd and 4th. Three birdies over the next 10 holes were each followed by a dropped shot. He shot 73 and is far off the lead. His hopes for the grand slam are extinguished.
This was a week that didn’t so much change perceptions of Scheffler as reinforce them, even with the mug shot in an orange jumpsuit. Because this was a very Scottie Scheffler scandal. No punches were thrown, no stimulants were involved, and as best we know there weren’t even terse words exchanged. In the aftermath, he hit the right notes. He faced the media, didn’t dodge questions, shared his version of events with humility and humor, and repeatedly expressed sympathy to the family of John Mills, the tournament worker killed in the accident that set events in motion.
While golf likes to contort itself to noble postures, sport is as much about rooting against competitors one dislikes as for those one likes. But the PGA Tour is suffering from a personality deficit since all of the prickly guys were poached by LIV. That’s a gap Scheffler can’t and won’t fill. He’ll never be a guy that folks hate. Heck, he might not even be a guy they love. Mostly just someone they like and admire, even those who don’t cotton to talk about faith. He’s a solid citizen, sober, courteous, thoughtful—basically the type of chap any parent would like their daughter (or son) to bring home.
Whatever spicy side dishes the PGA Tour needs (and they do), they’ll have to source elsewhere. Scheffler is destined to be written up more often in his church bulletin than in the National Enquirer. This week is the exception that proves the rule.
“Probably the most disappointed anyone can ever be shooting 62. I knew what was at stake.”
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Shane Lowry couldn’t get the honor.
He’d made birdie on four of the first five holes and yet his fellow playing competitor, Justin Rose, had matched him stroke for stroke. Walking off the fifth green, Lowry turned to Rose and said, “What am I going to have to do to get the honor off you today?”
It took a birdie at No. 9, his sixth of the day, to do so and spurred him to a record-tying Saturday at Valhalla Golf Club. Lowry birdied half his holes, making a career-best 161 feet, two inches of putts, and tied a record with the fifth 62 in major championship history. The 37-year-old Irishman narrowly missed an 11-foot birdie putt at 18, the easiest hole on course, to be the first to shoot 61.
“Probably the most disappointed anyone can ever be shooting 62,” he said. “I knew what was at stake.”
Lowry was part of the winning team at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans three weeks ago with Rory McIlroy, but conceded that McIlroy did the heavy-lifting. All year, Lowry has been striking the ball as well as ever but his putter has betrayed him. Finally, he became so fed up he switched to a TaylorMade Spider Tour Z putter in New Orleans, went back to some old putting drills and tried to putt more instinctively.
“I’ve sort of felt all season that if I could warm my putter up that I could be dangerous,” he said.
During the first two rounds of the PGA Championship, Lowry’s putter carried him into the weekend at 4-under 138, while he termed his tee-to-green game “probably the worst I’ve played in a long time.” So, on Friday afternoon, he headed to the range with his coach and sorted out his swing. It was simply an alignment issue.
“I was set up too far left and all sorts of bad things happen for me when I do that,” he explained.
Eight strokes behind 36-hole leader Xander Schauffele, Lowry figured getting into double digits and shooting 65 would be a good target score. He did even better than that. Four birdies in a row starting at the second, including a 20-footer at the fourth, lifted his confidence as he and Rose fed off each other.
“There was definitely that urgency to feel like you wanted to stay on track and keep up the momentum today to try to give yourself a shot going into tomorrow,” he said. “It was the classic moving day, and job well done.”
Soft greens and a warm, sun-soaked day made for ideal scoring conditions. “Gettable,” is how Lowry described the course and he and Rose were getting after it. Rose, who played with Rickie Fowler when he shot the second 62 in major championship history during the first round of the 2023 U.S. Open, noted that after the hot start through seven holes, he had “a weird feeling” he was going to shoot 61. “Kind of felt like it was on, and then I’m still super frustrated by going 5-5 at 9 and 10. Kind of felt like I lost my momentum there a little bit.”
Rose settled for 64.
Shane Lowry is congratulated by Justin Rose after hitting a 62 during the third round of the PGA Championship golf tournament at Valhalla Golf Club. Mandatory Credit: Adam Cairns-USA TODAY Sports
Out in 29 after the birdie at nine and Lowry already began thinking that he had a special round of his own in the making. But he poured in a 37-foot downhill birdie at No. 13, punching his right arm to the sky. When shown the replay during a post-round interview, he said, “I kept rolling them in…It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it.” Next, they flashed his 32-foot birdie at No. 14, where he clenched his right fist in celebration. “I did make a lot of putts, didn’t I,” he said.
And that’s when he started thinking about making history.
“Here we go,” he said he thought to himself. “It was in my mind from about 14 onwards.”
In Lowry’s gallery was his father, Brendan, clad in a green Augusta National member logo shirt, his manager, and several friends, including Brendan and Deirdre Donovan, who follow Lowry at all the majors and always can be found wearing the County Clare football jersey of Lowry’s hometown. Deirdre grew up there as well before marrying Brendan, who went to high school with PGA president John Lindert.
“It’s a small town. We all know everybody because we all go to church together,” Deirdre said.
They were there at Royal Portrush when Lowry shot 63, his previous low score in a major, in the third round of the 2019 British Open to take the 54-hole lead. This time, Lowry cooled off momentarily with pars at the difficult 15th and 16th, leaving a 30-foot birdie putt uncharacteristically short. But one hole later, he planted a short iron six feet from the hole and sank it for his ninth birdie.
At the par-5 18th, he pushed his drive into the right rough. He said he had 170 yards to clear the water if he went for the green from 240 yards. Decision time.
“The ball was kind of sitting up in the rough,” he explained. “I probably could have done it, but it felt like it was maybe a silly decision to go for it under the circumstances. I knew if I made five that I’m still in the tournament. If I made six, I’d be livid with myself. I felt like it was probably a bit too risky to take on.”
Lowry wedged to 11 feet. Of the putt, he said he wanted to make it “probably too much.” But he did take a moment to stand back and soak it all in.
“It was a pretty cool moment to have,” he said. “It would have been a pretty cool moment to kind of seal the deal and do it.”
He started the putt a little too much left and it never really had a chance. He settled for the second 62 of the week — Xander Schauffele shot the course record on Thursday — and a piece of major championship history. But just as importantly, he lifted himself into the thick of the trophy hunt at the 106th PGA Championship and a chance to claim a second major title.
“I knew even if I didn’t do it that I done what I needed to do today, and I’m pretty happy with that,” he said. “I’m going to enjoy this round.”
Shane Lowry might be the only golfer ever to feel disappointed after shooting a 62
On Thursday, Xander Schauffele took control of the leaderboard at the PGA Championship by tying a major championship record for the lowest 18-hole score with a round of 62.
Exactly 36 holes later, Shane Lowry had a chance to claim the record for himself. The Irishman entered Saturday’s third round at four-under par and well behind the contenders. Then he reeled off nine birdies in 17 holes, including six on the front nine alone.
By the time he got to the 18th green, Lowry had a 12-foot putt for a final birdie that would give him the all-time record for the lowest round at a major with a 61.
Lowry took his time, found his line and — pushed it just left. It was the most heartbreaking round of 62 you’ll ever see as it really looked like the 37-year-old was about to make history. Lowry could only look on in disbelief as the ball settled four inches from the cup.
Lowry admitted afterwards on the CBS broadcast that he was a little bit disappointed, but it’s hard to be too upset at moving to 13-under par on the tournament and in a tie for second place heading into Sunday.
If Scheffler is in need of themes for his next Masters dinner menu, golf fans already know what he should do
Before Scottie Scheffler went out and shot the best second-round score in any major of his career, he got arrested.
A traffic incident at the gates of Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville seemingly escalated quickly in the early morning hours on Friday and Scheffler found himself doing warm-up stretches inside a Louisville jail cell in the event he was able to make his tee time.
Well, not only did the No. 1 golfer in the world make it back to the course with an hour to spare, he carded a 66 to move into the top five on the leaderboard thanks to six birdies on the day.
And he did it all after fueling up with a sandwich the officers gave him while in jail. Considering how well he played after the ordeal, golf fans are convinced there’s only one option for Scheffler next April when he returns to Augusta National to plan the annual Champions Dinner: A prison-themed meal.
Seriously, it seemed like every golf fan came to the same conclusion:
WEDGES:Titleist Vokey Design SM9 (52 degrees), with KBS Tour C-Taper shaft, (56 degrees), with KBS Hi-Rev 2.0 shaft, Vokey Design SM10 (60 degrees), with Nippon N.S. Pro Modus3 125 shaft
