Stars Shine in PGA Championship Tune-Ups

Just over a week away from the season’s second major championship, the stars are in form!  Bryson DeChambeau fired 65-66-66 to win LIV Golf Korea at 19 under by two shots over his Crushers GC teammate, Charles Howell III. The win marks DeChambeau’s first victory since last year’s U.S. Open at Pinehurst, though DeChambeau has contended late in other recent tournaments as well, including his two previous starts – LIV Golf Mexico City and the Masters. 

On the PGA Tour, Scottie Scheffler slayed the beast that is TPC Craig Ranch, tying the low 72-hole score in Tour history (253). Conquering a weak field at TPC Craig Ranch won’t be prominently featured on Scheffler’s résumé, but you can only beat the golfers and course in front of you, and Scottie did so by a wide margin. Despite a sloppy final two-hole stretch, Scheffler won the tournament by eight strokes for his first win of the year. For reference, at this point in 2024, he already had four wins under his belt. With a dominant showing, Scottie should carry confidence into his next start, which will be at the PGA Championship. He has elected to skip this week’s Truist Championship at Philly Cricket Club. 

Before the world No. 1 had recorded his first bogey of the week on Saturday, he’d made 16 birdies and two eagles. Those figures are a testament to the brilliance of Scheffler and, in part, an indictment of TPC Craig Ranch. 

It’s a golf course where it’s difficult to get yourself into trouble off the tee, on approach shots, around the greens, or on the greens. Other than that, it’s a stern test. Will anything change by the time we see the CJ Cup Byron Nelson next year? If Lanny Wadkins has anything to say about it, yes! The Hall of Famer is tasked with overseeing a $15M renovation of the golf course, slated to be complete in late 2025. However much of the original design remains after Wadkins is finished will be too much. If Wadkins transforms TPC Craig Ranch into a good golf course, it may be the biggest accomplishment of the 21-time PGA Tour winner and major champion’s career. 

Protecting the Field

Appreciators of the rules of golf, rejoice! This weekend represented a step in the right direction on the rules enforcement front. At the LPGA’s Black Desert Championship, Chisato Iwai was assessed a two-stroke penalty for slow play. On the PGA Tour Americas, Hunter Wolcott received a penalty shot after exceeding the time allotment. Wolcott was leading the tournament at the time and went on to win on Sunday despite the penalty. It’s refreshing to see these tours revise their pace-of-play policies and enforce them.  

As an experiment to improve pace of play, the PGA Tour has been allowing the use of rangefinders for a limited run of tournaments that started at the RBC Heritage. However, features such as slope, wind, and elevation must be disabled during play. During his second round, Davis Riley received a two-stroke penalty after discovering the slope setting had been activated on his rangefinder and self-reporting the incident. The infraction happened at a crucial point in Riley’s tournament as he hovered right around the cutline with 11 holes to play. Riley rallied and played his final ten holes 2-under par, closing with an eagle on his final hole to make the cut on the number. After the round, Riley spoke on the importance of upholding the rules: 

“I love this game, and one of the beautiful things about this game is the integrity all of us PGA Tour players and golfers uphold…it's really important to protect the field and play the game with high integrity.”

This wasn’t Riley’s first time self-reporting a penalty. At the 2013 U.S. Junior, a 16-year-old Riley reported his ball moving on the green in the final match against Scottie Scheffler. He’d go on to concede the match on that hole. 

Riley is exempt on Tour through 2026 after winning the 2024 Charles Schwab Challenge, but he isn’t qualified for signature events nor the U.S. Open or Open Championship. Every FedEx Cup and Official World Golf Ranking point matters. Credit to Riley for taking the rules of golf seriously and holding himself to a high standard with his career on the line. 

‍This piece originally appeared in the Fried Egg Golf newsletter. Subscribe for free and receive golf news and insight every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.