The second major championship of the year is done and dusted.
For three and a half days there was no separation. It was as if the field was stuck in the same queue at the supermarket.
But when a new till opened up, Aaron Rai pounced first, and he was through. A new major champion, a worthy major champion and one of the nicest too.
But what of the action further down the leaderboard? What else did we takeaway from Aronimink?
Jon Rahm is look happier
When Jon Rahm was at his best in the majors championships he resembled a Basque bear with a very sore head. There was a glorious fury in his performance and his ball took the brunt of it.
It says much for his quality that, although he has not won a third major since he landed his second – the 2023 Masters – he has nonetheless recorded five top 10s in that period.
And yet, for the most part, he has been less an angry bear since that April three years ago than a caged bear – the sort of sad creatures you see in the zoo.
On LIV he has been sensational. Utterly remarkable, in fact. A contender and winner for fun. It looks like he’s getting that vibe back in the majors and they are the better for it.
Justin Rose remains remarkable
How often is the 45-year-old Englishman going to be written off only to confound the critics?
He played uncle to Robert MacIntyre at the 2023 Ryder Cup – it was said he was all set to become a vice captain. He was sensational when T2 at the 2024 Open – it was deemed a last hurrah. He lost in extra holes at the 2025 Masters – another last hurrah. He came out fighting at that year’s Ryder Cup – perhaps time to be captain. He was T3 in this year’s Masters – that’s got to be the last hurrah, right?
Soon afterwards he swapped clubs, something he had done before to bad effect, and his decision making was mocked. And yet last week? A fifth PGA Championship top 10 in his last seven starts.
Bryson DeChambeau is in a funk
If we know one thing about the current model Bryson DeChambeau it is that he’ll either go boom or bust in a major championship.
Since the start of 2024 he has played in 10 of them. Six reaped top 10 finishes. The other four were all missed cuts.
The worry is that this year’s have both been the latter and it’s never, really, looked like being anything else.
He opened last week with a 76 and his second round 71 was deceptive because it included a trio of birdies to close, when all hope of playing at the weekend was spent. He also opened the Masters with a 76 which he followed with a 72.
Volatility is built into the DeChambeau process so in one sense it should be no surprise, but he’ll want to right the ship sooner rather than later.
Is Cameron Smith back?
When the Aussie carded 74-77 to go home early at last month’s Masters it was his sixth missed cut in a row at the majors.
It was a grim set of results for the 2022 Open champion and something had to give.
In the first instance he had to call his long time coach Grant Field to say their time was up. “I had been seeing Grant since I was 9 years old,” he said. “It was probably one of the most difficult phone calls I’ve ever had to make.
“It’s still kind of lingering, but I feel like I’ve made the right call. I can see it in my golf and my strike of the ball. It’s been nice.”
Now working with Claude Harmon, he finished last week in a share of seventh, enjoying the wobbly leg feeling of being in contention again. “It feels great to play nice,” he said. “You don’t work hard to play crap.”
Justin Thomas is good at the PGA Championship but …
It remains slightly baffling that the Kentucky man can be so good at the PGA Championship and yet the other three majors remain a puzzle to him.
In finishing tied fourth Thomas logged his fifth top 10 finish in 11 PGA Championship starts – and, of course, two of those results were wins. But in the other majors? Another four top 10s but in a total of 31 appearances. That’s a 36% top 10 ratio against 13%.
Why this championship and not the others? Might it be because it’s ranked fourth by everyone.
He hasn’t said as much directly but he did say after getting into contention this week: “What I’m probably more proud of, is not the score itself, but that I didn’t put any extra pressure on myself these first couple days. I didn’t make this moment bigger than it was.”
Perhaps Augusta National, his national championship and the oldest major of them all have been too big a moment.
Read next: How Aaron Rai became a Major champion at the PGA Championship
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Article Link: PGA Championship takeaways: Rahm, Dechambeau and Thomas analysed