“I had to earn it, I admit it was a pretty hectic birdie, but it was incredible”

Xander Schauffele He made golf fun again on Sunday at Vallaha on a course with a flair for drama. His winning birdie-four on the 18th hole (tournament 72), where Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy have also scored thrilling final-day victories in recent decades, one in a playoff and the other by a stroke, set the record for hits in a ‘major’, in this case the PGA Championship.

surpassed Bryson DeChambeau by one stroke after he also ended the day with a birdie on the 18th hole to briefly tie for the lead. The victory ended a two-year winless streak for Schauffele, a 2021 Olympic gold medalist, who rose to second place in the world rankings. In the last nine weeks alone, he holds the Saturday lead in two contests to see how Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy The final victory was taken from him.

This time, DeChambeau tried to do the same, but to no avail. The fact that the runner-up was part of LIV Golf, which revolutionized golf and why not the sport and left its future in limbo, seemed like an afterthought, given the entertaining show he and Schauffele put on.

“I knew I had to make birdies, so I knew I needed some aggression today,” Schauffele said, a nod to the fact that a (record) total of 15 players entered the final round in double digits under par. . He finished -21 to break the scoring record at a major, previously shared by Brooks Koepka (PGA 2018) and Henrik Stenson (British 2016)..

On the 18th hole, his drive stopped just outside a fairway bunker and Schauffele had to use an awkward stance to hit the ball above his feet, about waist height. “I got there and started laughing,” he said. “I said to myself, ‘If you want to be a major champion, this is the kind of situation you have to deal with.'” After hitting his third shot, landing the ball two feet from the flag, Schauffele watched the putt fall. , the ball was hit and in doubt it went inside the hole after making a half ‘tie’.

Schauffele raised his hands to the sky as DeChambeau stood on the practice field watching the big TV screen warm up for a possible playoff run. A few seconds later he congratulated the winner. “I gave it my all,” DeChambeau said. “I tried my hardest and knew my ‘B’ game would be enough. Obviously there were (others) who played better than me,” added Bryson.

Schauffele will face the US Open a month after stripping himself of the unofficial title of ‘Best player who has never won a Grand Slam’. “I know it’s a ‘great’ thing, but just the fact of winning it is the sweetest thing that could happen to me.”

Comfort, fatigue and pride. No one knows better than him how difficult it is to win a Grand Slam. Few know better than he what it costs to make the decisive putt. Therefore, on the 18th, he was attacked by happiness. “I stayed very patient. I looked at the leaderboard constantly. I wanted to be aware of everything. I wanted to know exactly where I was. I wanted to face my feelings, whatever was going through my head,” said the champion.

For the 18th hole, Schauffele couldn’t have picked a better way to win. The pleasure was multiplied by a thousand when he clinched his first ‘major’ by making the decisive putt on the last hole to win. “I knew I had to make birdie on the last hole looking at the standings. I had to make the birdie no matter what. I told myself that no one is going to give it to me, that I have to earn it, I have something to prove to myself that it’s my moment and I can make it a bit hectic birdie, but it’s unbelievable,” the world number 2 added.