Scheffler’s 54-hole lead record makes ominous reading for PGA Championship’s chasing pack

Scottie Scheffler celebrates the final-hole birdie that gives him a three-shot lead heading into the final round of the 2025 PGA Championship.

The World No.1 went on a late birdie blitz to lead at Quail Hollow by three shots heading into Sunday’s final round… and recent records show he doesn’t give up 54-hole leads.

As the third round of the 2025 PGA Championship headed towards its conclusion, Bryson DeChambeau was in pole position, and the entire top 20 were within touching distance of the top. But, as the LIV star dropped three shots across his closing holes and many of the challengers faded, Scottie Scheffler picked his time to strike perfectly, stamping on the accelerator to make an eagle and three birdies across his final five holes and take a commanding lead into the final 18.

His nearest adversary is Alex Noren. The Swede who has 10 wins on the DP World Tour and was part of Europe’s 2018 Ryder Cup win, is three shots back, but having never been in this position in a major, he’s unlikely to strike the same fear into Scheffler as a DeChambeau, Jon Rahm or Rory McIlroy perhaps would if they were in the same position.

His Saturday 65 means he now shares the record for the most rounds of that score or lower in this tournament with Adam Scott, with both registering four. It took Scott 85 rounds to reach that tally. Scheffler? 21. Who would bet against him taking the record outright with a dominant performance tomorrow?

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After an incredible 2024, the 28-year-old missed the start of the season with injury and made a slow start when he returned. Perhaps a certain Northern Irishman’s victory at Augusta flicked a switch in Scheffler. Since McIlroy sealed the career Grand Slam at The Masters, the man who slipped the Green Jacket on his shoulders has seemingly wanted to remind his counterpart and the world why he’s the game’s top-ranked player. His eight-shot win at the CJ Byron Nelson Cup was the seventh straight 54-hole lead he’d converted and he did so by shooting a closing eight-under par. He hasn’t missed a cut in 54 events and has 11 wins in that spell, including a second major at the 2024 Masters, an Olympic gold medal, and victories at The Players Championship, The Memorial and the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Scheffler remains a picture of calm on the course, but even he couldn’t resist a display of emotion as he holed his birdie putt on the 18^th hole to put himself within touching distance of a third major title.

“It would mean a lot,” the two-time Masters champion said when asked how he’d feel to win the Wanamaker Trophy. “You know, these tournaments are very important to us, and you work your whole life to have a chance to win major tournaments, any tournament for that matter, and tomorrow I have a good opportunity to go out there and try and win the golf tournament.

“But it’s going to take another really good round. There are a lot of great players chasing me on the leaderboard and someone is going to put up a great round and it’s up to me to go out there and have another really good round and finish off the tournament. Looking forward to the challenge.”

Of the top five and ties, only Jon Rahm has won a major. The Spaniard has his own dreams, knowing a win tomorrow would make him the first of his countrymen to win three different majors, but despite his superb Saturday 67, he’s six shots back. It would take one hell of a charge with the chances of Scheffler, the only man with three rounds in the 60s this week, going backwards seeming unlikely.

Noren has the best chance to strike, but his highest finish in a Major is a T6 at the 2017 Open Championship and the Callaway player, who only made his first start of the season at last week’s Truist Championship after recovering from a hamstring tendon tear, has never played in the final group, or even the penultimate group, at one of the Grand Slam events. With a fast start required to ensure Scheffler doesn’t get too far away, the newfound pressure could prove decisive.

And while the 42-year-old took advantage of his enforced time off to spend valuable time with his family and coach his daughter’s softball team, he admits his performance this week was unexpected.

“It was a lot easier to have this break when I’m 42 than when I was younger. As soon as I kind of could play, I thought I was in sort of the same form I was in before I got injured.

“But I’m still extremely – not surprised – but I’m fortunate to be in this position this early.”

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Noren has three runner-up finishes on the PGA Tour but has never tasted victory on American soil. In his previous 10 major starts, he has seven missed cuts, with a T12 at last year’s PGA Championship his best result. In fact, in his 39 career major starts, he’s only recorded two top tens – the last of which was that 2017 Open finish at Royal Birkdale.

That shouldn’t take anything away from what he achieved on Saturday, where he made four birdies in his final five holes, including the 17^th and 18^th, to shoot a five-under 66 and jump up the leaderboard.

Nonetheless, Noren admits he’d have liked more preparation before finding himself in this position for the first time.

“I got some good perspective, like spending that much time kind of in the middle of a career, like hopefully I’ll play a lot longer,” he smiled. “But to kind of have that time to see the family a lot, it’s been nice.

“At first I had three months of kind of off-season, and then the four months involuntary. So it gave some good perspective, but then I obviously wish I would have played more golf leading up to this than I have.”

If Noren and the chasing pack are looking for encouragement, Scheffler isn’t infallible. While he’s never given up a lead when holding it through three rounds in a Major, he’d lost more than he’d converted on the PGA Tour until the end of 2023 and still holds the record for blowing the biggest lead heading into a final round when he gave up a six-shot advantage to lose to McIlroy in the 2022 Tour Championship.

However, if Scheffler isn’t hoisting the enormous trophy when the sun sets at Quail Hollow on Sunday, I’ll happily drink any concoction the winner can fill it with…