The number one in the world, the American Scottie Scheffler topped the list of favorites to win the PGA Championshipsecond of four golf ‘Majors’ of 2022 and played from Thursday to Sunday at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma (United States).
Scheffler’s favorite is upheld not only by his number one status, but by the underlined fact of winning four of the nine tournaments in which he played in 2022, including his success at the Masters, the first of the greats on his record. He is the strongest golfer at present.
The Texan, who has accumulated six titles in his career, tops the list of players where they are also Jon Rahm (2), Collin Morikawa (3), Cameron Smith of Australia (4), Patrick Cantlay (5), Viktor Hovland of Norway (6)the Norwegian Rory McIlroy (7), Jordan Spieth (8), Justin Thomas (9) and Xander Schauffele, who completed the top-10 of the world golf ranking.
Jordan Spieth, the eighth player in the world, arrives in Tulsa in top form and as leader of the PGA Tour FedEx Cup rankings and is looking the only great missing in his showcases, after winning the Masters and US Open in 2015 and the Open in 2017. This year, after missing the cut at the Masters, he has a win (RBC Heritage) and second place (Byron Nelson) in his last two appearances.
As world number two, Jon Rahm, seventh in the FedEx Cup, left the Southern Hills in search of his second ‘major’, after last year’s US Open and his recent win at the Mexico Open as the despicable necessity. he and puts them on the list of great contenders to win the PGA.
Rahm is the only player who can take world number one status from Scheffler. For this he needs to win the tournament and for the American to tie in fifth with two other players or finish in a worse position.
Collin Morikawa’s goal is also high in the stakes, especially with his excellent performance in the last ‘majors’ he played. He won the 2020 PGA and 2021 British Open, the year in which he was fourth at the US Open and eighth at the PGA. This year he signed a great fifth place in the Masters.
The other players, out of the world’s Top-10 and reaching full performance, are players like the double winner of the tournament Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Sam Burns, Max Homa, Tom Hoge, Talor Goochthe Japanese Hideki Matsuyama or Will Zalatoris.
Even Chilean Joaquín Niemann, 16 in the world and this year’s winner of The Genesis Invitational; the Mexican Abraham Ancer, 21 in the ranking; or Colombian Sebastián Muñoz wants to leave their mark.
The 2021 champion, Phil Mickelson, is not in Tulsa. The PGA of America has announced that the winner of the six majors will not play in the Southern Hills.
To date, since 1960 only four players have not defended their major championship titles: Art Wall, in 1960 Masters; Payne Stewart, at the 2000 US Open; Tiger Woods, at the 2008 PGA Championship; and Rory McIlroy, at the 2015 Open.
Mickelson’s last tournament on the PGA Tour was at the Farmers Insurance Open in January, where he missed the cut. His self-imposed break began after he called the circuit’s “greed” “more than despicable.”
The reactions it generated against the golfer caused some sponsors to end their relationships with the 45-time Tour winnerincluding the Callaway company, which put its partnership “on hold.”
Mickelson was signed up to play in the first tournament of the LIV Golf seriesin London from June 9 to 11. The PGA Tour recently denied players permission to play on the Saudi -funded tour.
The presence of 15 majors winner Tiger Woods in Tulsa is another PGA attraction in the Southern Hills, where he trains on Sunday afternoon.
Tiger Woods, 46, has not played a tournament since he participated in the Masters just 14 months after sustaining a serious injury to his right leg in a car accident.. The Californian made the cut at Augusta National, but his physical problems emerged as the tournament progressed and he finished 47th.
His presence in the second ‘major’ is in doubt, but he has been on the official entry list since the beginning.. He has won the PGA four times, 1999, 2000, 2006 and 2007, the last time he played this tournament in the Southern Hills.
The PGA Championship is played Thursday through Sunday at Tulsa’s Southern Hills Country Club, a par 71 of 6,841 meters designed by Perry Maxwell in 1936 and renovated in 2019 by Gil Hanse. It was the venue for this tournament in 1970, 1982, 1994 and 2007.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
