By Frank Pingue
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (Reuters) -Five storylines to follow as the best players in the world descend upon Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, this week for the May 15-18 PGA Championship.
MCILROY ENCORE?
Rory McIlroy arrives at Quail Hollow as a hot favourite after finally securing the career Grand Slam of golf’s four majors with his playoff win at the Masters in April.
The Northern Irishman will now turn his attention to capturing the second leg of a calendar-year Grand Slam and will like his chances at Quail Hollow, where he has enjoyed more success than any other player.
McIlroy won a record fourth Wells Fargo Championship last year at Quail Hollow with a dominant performance that saw him earn a five-stroke victory.
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SPIETH’S GRAND SLAM BID
Just over a month after McIlroy became the sixth player to complete the career Grand Slam, and first since Tiger Woods in 2000, Jordan Spieth will make his ninth attempt at joining golf’s most exclusive club.
Seeking his first win on the PGA Tour since earning his 13th in April 2022, Spieth arrives at the year’s second major with three top-10 finishes in 11 events this season, and a share of 14th at last month’s Masters.
If Spieth can triumph at the PGA Championship, where his best result is a runner-up finish in 2015, he would join Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Woods and McIlroy as the only men to win all four majors.
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DEFENDING CHAMPION SCHAUFFELE
Xander Schauffele birdied the final hole at last year’s PGA Championship at Valhalla to secure his first major title and is aiming to become the event’s first repeat winner since Brooks Koepka in 2019.
Schauffele, who went on to win the British Open three months later, lost about two months of competition this year due to a rib injury suffered during the offseason but has shown no ill effects since his return.
The 31-year-old American finished tied for eighth at the Masters and will be eager to get back to Quail Hollow where last year he led after each of the first three rounds but was unable to fend off McIlroy on the final day.
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JUST-IN TIME
Justin Thomas ended a three-year victory drought last month and finished tied for second in Philadelphia on Sunday, and the former world number one will be full of confidence ahead of his return to the site of his major breakthrough in 2017.
The PGA Championship was held at Quail Hollow for the first time that year and Thomas picked up the title with a closing three-under-par 68 that saw him chip in from 40 feet for birdie on the 13th hole to seize control.
Thomas won a second PGA Championship title in 2022 but his form bottomed out in 2023 and he went without a win until winning this year’s RBC Heritage in a playoff.
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THE GREEN MILE
The last three holes at Quail Hollow — the unforgiving ‘Green Mile’ == form one of the most difficult finishing stretches in golf.
The white-knuckle, water-lined stretch demands both precision and poise with a lake surrounding the par-four 16th and par-three 17th holes, while a creek winds all along the left side of the closing par-four 18th.
The last time the PGA Championship was last held at Quail Hollow in 2017 the treacherous Green Mile accounted for 12 triple-bogeys or worse, matching the same amount that was made on holes 1-15.
(Reporting by Frank Pingue; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
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