NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — The air at Aronimink Golf Club outside of Philadelphia was hot and heavy on Sunday. As the sun baked the Donald Ross design, fans filed in, hoping to see a chaotic final round of the PGA Championship end with something unforgettable — something to remember the week for long after the buildouts had been removed and the pins put back in friendly spots for members.
The energy built as the afternoon started, the heat rose and the possibilities became clear. Fans were out on the course watching Kurt Kitayama, Matt Fitzpatrick and Justin Thomas go low. The anticipation grew. At the short game area, one man stood in a bunker with a bucket of balls, playing different kinds of shots to corners of the green. Chunk and run here, splash out there, then throw it long and put the brakes on.
Only a few fans watched Scottie Scheffler prepare for his final round at the PGA Championship. Everyone was already waiting for him to begin what they hoped would be a day etched in golf history. A day when Scheffler authored his next defining moment — when their golf course and one of the all-time greats might become synonymous.
Scheffler shared the lead after Round 1. He survived blustery conditions and treacherous pin locations on Friday to enter the weekend two back of the lead but with the tournament in the palm of his hand. An uncooperative putter caused a Saturday stumble, but didn’t take him out of contention.
“The golf course is just challenging,” Scheffler said late Saturday night before a lengthy practice session.
It was an exacting test of patience. One Scheffler had answered better than most. He was in the top five in ball striking, driving and approach play. Tee to green, he had done what Aronimink asked. The greens had been his kryptonite, but he had a chance, and that might be enough.
As the late-arriving fans filed in, they spotted Scheffler finishing his short game prep and crowded the fence. He was hitting 40-yard pitch shots across the area with coach Randy Smith looking on. His third attempt landed two paces from the flag, hopped once and stopped. That was it. Scheffler walked through both practice putting greens toward the first tee, and the crowds followed. Scheffler striped his opening tee shot. The first three holes at Aronimink were gettable on Sunday, and fast starts were expected to be common. As Scheffler stood over his 95-yard approach, tension added weight to the humid Pennsylvania air. To Scheffler’s left, fans gathered on a make-shift platform in the yard of a neighboring house. Scheffler’s strike was clean, but the shot came up well short of the flag and left him a lengthy two-putt for par. As he strolled toward the first green, the platform-dwellers started a loud “Scottie! Scottie!” chant. Patrons on the other side of the fairway joined in, trying to push the world No. 1 to light the fuse.
Scheffler made par at the first and then rolled in a 20-foot birdie putt at the second that sent those on the deck of the building overlooking the second green and eighth tee box into delirium. He was four back with so much golf to play. The crowds grew and moved with him. When he stuffed a wedge to four feet at No. 3, the electricity surged as history seemed ready to beckon.
But then something else happened. Scheffler’s birdie putt hit the lip but didn’t drop. The crowd groaned.
Then came the par-3 fifth, where Scheffler missed the green left and couldn’t up and down to save par. The air started to leave the balloon as it became clear that the story they wanted wasn’t coming. After missing the 9-footer for par on five, Scheffler smirked and shook his head. He muttered a few words to caddie Ted Scott and then walked to the sixth tee by himself.
There comes a time in every tournament when reality starts to sink in, when it overtakes hope. Hours after Scheffler’s missed birdie at three and bogey at five, Jon Rahm, who would finish in a tie for second behind eventual winner Aaron Rai, explained the phenomenon of still trying to win even though the outcome is no longer in doubt.
“Never lost hope,” Rahm said hours after Scheffler left the property following a final-round 69 that included a few more short missed putts on the back nine. “Even at the end, listen, once [Rai got to 9 under], you’re still trying to finish as strong as possible.”
On a setup that demanded relentless precision, it felt like a Scottie Scheffler type of week. Aronimink wanted it. That’s the effect of greatness. It conjures something deep inside those witnessing it, like watching a once-in-a-century celestial event.
But Scheffler couldn’t give the Aronimink crowd what it craved, like what Rai delivered hours later with a major-clinching 68-foot birdie on the 17th hole. Instead, the defending champ faded from the PGA Championship picture.
As his tee shot on the par-4 sixth sailed right, Scheffler backpedaled to try to get a view of where it was headed. He watched it land in the fairway bunker. He sighed, dropped his head and lightly smacked his driver head on the turf of the tee box. The crowd then dispersed in different directions, and Scottie Scheffler started a long walk to nowhere.
