10 golfers to watch at the PGA Championship (for various reasons)

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — It's PGA Championship Wednesday and everyone has gone home.

Almost everyone, of course.

There is one golf course left on the driving range. He is often the last golfer on the driving range at these events, hitting balls late into the night, running the roulette wheel of human emotions as he goes. Can be Bryson DeChambeauhis range routines seem troubling and contradictory when you consider how much energy he will need in the actual tournament over the next four days — until you remember that “worrying” and “contradictory” and thousands of nightly distance balls are how he got to two major championship victories and more.

There is also one golfer left in the field. He's been in the headlines of late, thanks to his age-defying win at Torrey Pines and his heartbreaking Masters miss and his dramatic and dramatic golf club change. Can be Justin Rosehis papaya-orange golf bag is visible on Aronimink's fairways from two holes. He has won on this golf course before. He has won awards in this metropolitan area before. He has finished in the top three in three of the last six majors. He is 45 again, reminding us that age is a number but this time, an impressive number.

Of the 156 golfers in this week's PGA field, these are the two to watch. You might argue that there's 154 a lot to look at, too, and you'd be right – what a sweet thing, in the grand scheme of golf, to achieve so much as to qualify for a major tournament! – but life is about choices, so we made the hard ones. Here are our other 10 players to watch at Aronimink.

3. Jordan Spieth it's worth watching every week he plays, but this week even more so; he's one PGA Championship away from a Grand Slam, which means, as he said Monday, “If I'm going to win another tournament in my life, obviously it's going to be this one.”

Which Spieth will show up? We don't know! That's why it's so high on this list.

4. Rory McIlroy it's a quarter of the way to the calendar Grand Slam. That's true of all Masters winners every year, of course, but McIlroy has enough shot power and his game is so well organized on this golf course that you have to let your mind wander and wonder. The good news? McIlroy and Spieth are in the same group on Thursday and Friday, which means you can monitor their conditions side by side.

5. Cameron Young leads the list of outstanding zero-time winners we expect to be in this week; Young won the Players, raced (drove?) away with the Cadillac and climbed to No. 3 in the world.

“I did a great job using the opportunities I got to finish high in the competitions and I was lucky enough to win a few times,” he said on Wednesday, casually as usual. “Fortunate” plus, it's great for golf.

We'll cast Ludwig Aberg and Tommy Fleetwood as other esteemed members of this club; time to realize that this is their time. (Or Viktor Hovland, or Patrick Cantlay, or Sam Burns, or Chris Gotterup, or…)

6. Rickie Fowler he's part of that group, too, but it's worth highlighting just because he seems to be slipping under the radar, despite the orange. I brought this up in the pre-Masters where, in my estimation, he is the most talented player not in the field. Since then he has played in three tournaments and finished T8 at the RBC Heritage, T9 at the Cadillac Championship and T2 at Truist. That's solid form.

7. Adam Scott it has played well this year and has an interesting combination of driving distance and iron playing accuracy; he has one hot week from another trip to the main competition.

8. Jon RahmThe death of a major tournament feels a bit extreme. Still, in a world where Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy have won four of the last five majors, Rahm's lackluster streak over the past three years continues. His continued success at LIV – where he has finished first or second in seven of his last 10 events – only increases the pressure on these big weeks. Let's see how it goes.

(He leads a group of LIV players whose performances will be more closely watched as the league seeks fundraising; their roster includes young talents like David Puig and Tom McKibbin, veterans like Joaquin Niemann and Thomas Detry and their top Masters finisher, Tyrrell Hatton.)

9. Patrick Reedinterestingly, he hasn't played a competitive round since finishing T12 at the Masters. That said, there's something mysterious about a man who made headlines by leaving LIV and made more by winning the DP World Tour soon after. But he was at home, he said Today's Golferwatching his children play sports and prepare for the big tournament season. Good news for Mhlanga supporters: he visited Aronimink last week and played for three days in various conditions. If this sounds familiar, McIlroy used a similar light approach to the Masters last month. We'll see if Reed can deliver similar form.

10. Scottie Scheffler always worth watching. He is the best golfer in the world looking to add to his streak of success over the last few years. If he needed any more motivation (he didn't), McIlroy's two majors are ahead of him again, six to four.

We'll see how those numbers stack up on Sunday night.

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