Xander Schauffele wins first major at PGA Championship

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Every step Xander Schauffele took Sunday toward becoming a major champion brought small reminders that it was never going to be easy.

It wasn’t just Bryson DeChambeau pushing in the PGA Championship until he finally caught Schauffele with a birdie on the last hole at Valhalla.

It was the mud on Schauffele’s golf ball after a good drive on the 16th. It was the tee shot on the 17th that kicked back into a bunker instead of forward into the fairway. Needing birdie on the par-5 18th for the win, he hit what he thought was a good drive until Schauffele walked up and saw it had rolled close enough to a bunker that he couldn’t get a clean shot at the green.

Xander Schauffele watches his tee shot on the 11th hole during the final round of the PGA Championship golf tournament at the Valhalla Golf Club, Sunday, May 19, 2024, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Xander Schauffele celebrates after winning the PGA Championship golf tournament at the Valhalla Golf Club, Sunday, May 19, 2024, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

“I just kept telling myself, ‘Man, someone out there is making me earn this right now,’” Schauffele said. “I get up there and just kind of chuckled. I was like, ‘If you want to be a major champion, this is the kind of stuff you have to deal with.’”

There was one other message he preached along the back nine.

“I told myself this is my opportunity — capture it,” Schauffele said.

A gutsy shot from the fairway — standing in the bunker with the ball above his feet, he worried about a shank — came up some 35 yards short with a perfect angle, and his pitch up the slope to 6 feet gave him the moment he always wanted.

And then the 30-year-old Californian, a hard-luck runner-up to Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy the last two months, delivered some magic of his own.

He swirled in a 6-foot birdie putt on the final hole to win a thriller at Valhalla. The putt denied DeChambeau — and LIV Golf — a chance at another major title and put Schauffele in the record book with the lowest 72-hole score in major championship history.

“I just kept telling myself, ‘I need to earn this — earn this and be in the moment.’ And I was able to do