There are a litany of storylines entering the PGA Championship this week at Oak Hill Country Club outside of Rochester, where the major hasn’t been played since 2013.
Here’s a look at our top seven storylines in the second major championship of the season:
The favorites
Jon Rahm and Scottie Scheffler have traded the No. 1 world ranking for a bit, but Rahm brings it to Oak Hill.
His recent runner-up finish at the Mexico Open brought Rahm’s PGA Tour season earnings to $14,462,840, setting a new record for money earned in a single season.
Scheffler has two wins this year already, including the Players Championship.
In his past 12 events, he has finished no worse than 12th, and in eight of those, he was in the top 10.
Rory enigma
It has been a curious few months for Rory McIlroy, one of the top players in the world.
He finished second at the Arnold Palmer, then missed the cut at the Players Championship, was all-in for the Masters and missed the cut at Augusta.
Then, McIlroy skipped the RBC Heritage, a PGA Tour “elevated’’ event, which cost him $3 million.
Last week at Quail Hollow, the course on which he won his first PGA Tour tournament and has had great success, McIlroy missed the cut and refused to speak to reporters afterward.
Which Rory will show up this week is anyone’s guess.
Struggling champ
Justin Thomas hasn’t played poorly since he won the 2022 PGA Championship, the second of his career, he just hasn’t played as well as he expected after winning his second major.
Thomas tied for 37th at the U.S. Open last year, tied for 53rd at the British Open and missed the cut at the Masters last month. He has only one top-five finish this year.
Frustration seems to be building in the fiery Thomas.
There will be 18 players from LIV Golf in the 156-player field: Abraham Ancer, Dean Burmester, Paul Casey, Bryson DeChambeau, Talor Gooch, Dustin Johnson, Martin Kaymer, Sihwan Kim, Brooks Koepka, Anirban Lahiri, Phil Mickelson, Joaquin Niemann, Mito Pereira, Thomas Pieters, Patrick Reed, Cameron Smith, Brendan Steele and Harold Varner III.
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Mickelson and Koepka finished tied for second at the Masters, and Reed finished fourth.
Absentees
There will be a few players not in the field who usually are, beginning with four-time PGA winner Tiger Woods — who is out for the season after undergoing a subtalar fusion surgery in his right ankle following his withdrawal from the Masters. Woods was forced to withdraw from last year’s PGA after having made the cut at Southern Hills.
Sergio Garcia is another big name who’ll be conspicuous by his absence.
Garcia has fallen out of the top 100 in the world rankings since joining LIV.
This will be the first time since the 1999 U.S. Open that Garcia has failed to qualify for a major championship.
Will Zalatoris, who lost to Thomas in a playoff at the 2022 PGA, is out with a back injury and not expected to play for the rest of this season.
First-timer?
There are several candidates among the top players who’ve been playing well for a long time, but are still in search of a first major championship.
Xander Schauffele is seventh in strokes gained/total on the PGA Tour this season, has seven career wins and seven top-five finishes in majors to go with his Olympic Gold Medal.
Patrick Cantlay, who two weeks ago began working with Joe LaCava as his caddie, finished third in the 2019 PGA, his best finish in a major.
Cameron Young is still seeking his first PGA Tour victory, but he’s come so close to winning a major.
He finished a stroke out of the playoff at last year’s PGA and was runner-up at the British Open.
The Jordan ride
Jordan Spieth needs only a PGA Championship title to complete the career Grand Slam, and his form this season has been terrific.
But Spieth withdrew from the Byron Nelson this past week with a wrist injury. So, his status is up in the air.
Since he won the 2017 British Open for the third leg of the Slam, Spieth has had six cracks at winning the PGA and has finished tied for 28th, tied for 12th, tied for third in 2019, tied for 71st, 30th and 34th.
