The 106th PGA Championship, contested over four days from May 16 to 19, 2024, at the Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky, displayed many of the actors and elements of a Shakespearean Tragedy.
Tragic Heros, Good vs Evil, Adversity, Conflict-Resolution, Catharsis, Triumph, Defeat, Suffering, Sympathy, Poetic Justice, Fate, and Unhappy Endings.
The first act of this performance is the Valhalla Golf Club.
The Jack Nicklaus design, set amongst the unimaginative flat lands, fields, and rolling hills of suburban Louisville, bisected by power lines, crammed onto a bulky property with an ungainly routing of holes, uninspired putting surfaces, no primary ingress or exit off the property, other than US Highway 60, a significant and busy thoroughfare that contributed to much of the fateful drama surrounding the tournament including the unfortunate demise of a tournament worker and the arrest and incarceration of World No. 1, Scottie Scheffler.
When combined with the record-breaking scores that had never before been reached in Major Championship history, it did not bode well for the central character in this recital.
Twenty-one under par is an obscene score, given the level of competition, the field’s talent, and the event’s magnitude.
Simply put, the golf course failed in its leading role and was dreadful as a significant test.
Among the many reasons, the PGA of America divested itself of the site and relocated its Professional Championships to Texas and more challenging and intriguing venues.
Another tragic actor who enlisted suffering and sympathy from the patrons in attendance throughout the portrayal of this drama was the painful acknowledgment that Tiger Woods is finished as a contender in the Major Championships.
Woods finished at 7-over and missed the cut, his 13th missed cut at a major, nine of them since 2015.
He has also withdrawn from two other Major Championships after finishing last in last month’s Masters.
With Scottie Scheffler’s ascension as the best player in the world and a plethora of top-ranked players under thirty years of age waiting in the wings, including the top five players in the Official World Golf Rankings, Tiger should relinquish his role as a leading man, step aside, and go down in history as the second greatest Professional Golfer of all time behind Jack Nicklaus.
His time is past, and he should heed the words of the late great Jim Morrison of Doors fame, who remarked, “The future is always uncertain, but the end is always near, and the curtain always falls.”
The final act in this tragedy of good vs. evil and the poetic justice of good deeds unrewarded and bad deeds unpunished is the overzealousness of the Louisville Metro Police Department Officers.
Their history of heavy handiness and over-policing of its citizens has amassed sanctions from the United States Department of Justice for routinely violating the Civil Rights of City residents by unlawfully arresting them during routine traffic stops.
Whatever goodwill and notoriety the State of Kentucky and the City of Louisville have accumulated over their past hosting of marquee sporting events, including the annual Kentucky Derby, four PGA Championships, two Senior PGA Championships, and the 2008 Ryder Cup, was shattered in the early morning dawn of flashing lights from multiple police cruisers, as the best player in the world, playing on Golf’s biggest stage, being led away in handcuffs.
An image that was magnified, recorded, and broadcast around the globe by journalists on the scene.
This incident will forever be seared in the collected memories of golfers, sports fans, and ordinary people whenever Louisville and Valhalla are mentioned.
Valhalla, the mythical great hall described in Norse mythology where the souls of Vikings feasted and celebrated with the gods, is not the namesake of Championship Golf it once was but now the punchline, trivia question, and laughingstock of the golfing world.
A reversal of fortune from which it will never recover is the unfortunate and unhappy ending of the tragedy that was the 2024 PGA Championship.
Golfers’ vocabulary includes many slights: jargon issued in jest, verbal abuse amongst your foursome, praise for shots well executed, teasing, razzing, and ribbing are all part of the game and, among friends, expected during a typical outing.
Among Professional Golfers at the highest levels, “Best Player Never to Win A Major” disparages great players at the highest order.
A label Zander Schauffele can now discard.
Leading from start to finish, posting rounds of (62, 68, 68, and 65) for a record total of 263, 21 under par, he finished one stroke clear of LIV stalwart Bryson DeChambeau at minus twenty under par.
At age thirty, the reigning Olympic champion finally prevailed at Golf’s highest level, capturing the 106th PGA Championship in his 28th attempt playing in the majors.
He earned $3,300.000 and moved to second place in the world rankings behind Scottie Scheffler.
Victor Hovland finished third at 18 under, while Thomas Detry and Colin Morikawa shared fourth at fifteen under.
Locals Tony Finau was 18th, and Zac Blair finished T53 for strong Major Championship showings.
With his victory, Schauffele ensures his return to the Olympic games this summer in Paris, where he will defend his Gold Medal as a Major Champion winner.
As professional Golf continues its downward spiral, with falling ratings, lost viewership, and the fractures grow more extensive and pronounced among the principal actors, fast-approaching ratings of boxing, track and field, bowling, and even tennis, the emergence of a clear virtuoso and leading man in Scottie Scheffler and worthy understudies in Jon Rahm, Colin Morikawa, Victor Hovland, Cameron Young, Matt Fitzpatrick, and now Zander Schauffele might contribute to more noteworthy presentations on grander stages and lessen the tragedy of Professional Golf sliding into murky obscurity and might hasten its return to the greater heights of yesteryears and previous performances.
We can only hope.
I was present at the Zanders Championship interview Sunday night at Valhalla.
You may listen to that interview in its entirety here.
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