Breakthrough winners at Major’s, does trend continue at 103rd PGA Championship?
It’s officially PGA Championship week now that the AT&T Byron Nelson has come and gone, and the 103rd playing of the PGA Championship is set to take place this week at the grueling Pete Dye designed Kiawah Island Ocean Course.
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The 2021 PGA Championship will be the second Major Championship played this year, but it’s actually the fourth Major being played as part of the quote on quote PGA Tour ‘Super-Season’ that begun with the Safeway Open last September.
The ‘Super-Season’ has already seen three breakthrough winners that became Major Champions for the first time in their career. It started with Bryson DeChambeau at the 2020 U.S. Open, then came last year’s PGA Championship winner Collin Morikawa, and finally Hideki Matsuyama added his name to that list after his Masters win last month.
If the trend continues, we could be welcoming another breakthrough Major Champion come this time next week. There are the obvious names that are still looking to etch their name’s into Major Championship lore, such as the extremely talented and young Spaniard, Jon Rahm, who already has six top 10 finishes to his name in 2021 alone. Both Xander Schauffele and Tony Finau would be extremely popular first-time Major winners also, and it seems to be more of a question of when? not if, for the talented duo.
Those are the obvious names, but there are a handful of others that could very well become a breakthrough, Major Champion, this week, let’s consider a few.
Will Zalatoris
The young and talented Zalatoris has worked his way up to 30th in the Official World Golf Rankings after his blistering performance throughout much of the PGA’s ‘Super-Season’. Will first caught the majority of the public eye after his surprising T6th place finish at the U.S. Open last September, he would then go on to illustrate just how talented he is with his super impressive 2nd place finish at the Masters last month. The 24-year-old Zalatoris has thrown in a handful of top 10 and top 20 finishes on top of all that already, and he has shown in a short period of time that he is not afraid to shine on the biggest of stages.
Viktor Hovland
The excellent Norwegian is a future Ryder Cup star in the making and he has already shown how talented he is, making his way up to 11th in the World Rankings. A two-time PGA Tour winner already, Viktor has produced five top 5 finishes in 2021 so far. The young PGA Tour star has demonstrated his pedigree in Major’s already, finishing as the Low-Amateur at the 2019 Masters, and twice finishing inside of the top 15 at back-to-back U.S. Opens in 2019 and 2020.
Scottie Scheffler
The 24-year-old Scheffler was a standout at the 2020 PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park after he put in a superb showing that resulted in a tied for 4th place finish. Scottie would, unfortunately, go on to miss the U.S. Open last September after testing positive for COVID. The Texan won the PGA Tour rookie of the year award in 2020 after producing an incredible finishing run to the season that included three top 5 finishes, including a 2nd place finish at the TOUR Championship to end the 2019-20 season. The talented Scheffler is still searching for his first win since joining the PGA Tour, but he has already shown a tendency to show up in the biggest events with three top 20 finishes in his last three Major Championship appearances, and two top 5’s at the year’s first two World Golf Championship events.
Next. 2021 Byron Nelson: Winners and Losers from TPC Craig Ranch. dark
Tyrrell Hatton
The fiery Hatton has been around a bit longer than some of the other players on this list, but he has already put together an impressive resume of win’s and top finishes in some of the biggest events around the World and he could be on verge of adding a breakthrough Major win to that list. The 29-year-old Englishman has won once already in 2021 when he won the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship earlier this year on the European Tour, and he produced a top 20 finish at the Masters just last month. Tyrrell, who won his first PGA Tour event last year at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, has also finished in a share for 6th place twice at Major Championships before, both at the 2018 U.S. Open, and the most recent Open Championship back in 2019. Throw in a strong performance at the 145th Open where he finished in a share for fifth, and another seaside Major could bode well for him this week.