Golfbet recap: Top five takeaways following Scottie Scheffler's dominant win at PGA Championship

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – It got a little dicey toward the middle of the final round, but in the end Scottie Scheffler did enough – more than enough, actually – to leave Quail Hollow Club with the Wanamaker Trophy.

Scheffler’s three-shot overnight lead on Saturday evaporated as he strode to the 10th tee on Sunday, but by the time he signed his card, he had finished with a five-shot romp. It was clear over the course of 72 holes who the best player was this week in the Queen City.

With a quick turnaround to the year’s next major, let’s take a look at the betting lessons gleaned from a wet and wild week along the "Green Mile."

Scottie Scheffler's wins trend toward dominant

Scheffler now has three major victories, and each one featured a winning margin of at least three shots – a stat that would be even more impressive were it not for a four-putt on the 72nd green of the 2022 Masters.

Yes, he’s able to win from behind – as seen at THE PLAYERS and Olympics last year, which featured furious final-round comebacks. But by nature he’s a front-runner, the type of player who remains steady while waiting for his opponents to flinch. It means the single-round implosions are few and far between, and the more frequent option is what we saw this week as he made fewer mistakes than the rest of his peers, then rebounded from them more quickly. It also means that the next time Scheffler is near the top of a major leaderboard, it might be a good time to get aggressive with a winning margin prop prediction.

Don’t trust the chalk

While Scheffler eventually bulldozed the field, it wasn’t without a few minutes of worry in the middle of the final round as his once five-shot cushion frittered away to a hard-charging Jon Rahm.

This was the second straight major where the eventual champion blew a five-shot cushion in the middle of the final round, only to rebound and eventually win. Rory McIlroy’s Masters triumph was a much bigger sweat, as he went to a playoff with Justin Rose, while Scheffler was able to steady the ship in a matter of minutes.

But both tournaments are a cautionary tale about buying into seemingly inevitable results with steep odds, particularly on a major stage. Scheffler teed off the final round at -450, and after just two holes he was out to a -900 price in live trading – equating to a 90-percent win probability. That may hold true on a spreadsheet, but the challenges and emotions of major championships create another variable that’s hard to factor. If nothing else, it’s a trend to keep in mind the next time you see a tournament leader in a major dip well into a minus-money price – especially if you don’t have the stomach for a back-nine sweat on a large bet with small potential profit.

Scheffler, not McIlroy, will be the man to beat at Oakmont

Major championship odds have been fluctuating at the top this year, and we’ve had another reset in the wake of Quail Hollow.

While McIlroy became a betting favorite for the PGA after his Masters triumph, Scheffler eventually edged out in front of him as a pre-tournament favorite. Now the gap between the two major winners from 2025 is about as large as it’s been in recent memory, with Scheffler plummeting to a +320 favorite overnight to win the U.S. Open while McIlroy, who struggled to a T47 finish at Quail Hollow, drifted back out to +550.

It's the shortest U.S. Open price we’ve seen for Scheffler, who was +500 in advance future markets before the PGA began. While there are three weeks of PGA TOUR events left before the scene shifts to Oakmont, it’s hard to envision Scheffler teeing off as anything but a significant pre-tournament favorite on the course where he made his first major start as an amateur back in 2016.

Bryson DeChambeau remains a threat in majors, regardless of venue

DeChambeau couldn’t close the gap in the final round, and he’ll likely look back on an ill-fated 9-iron that found the water on No. 17 in the third round as the turning point for his week at Quail Hollow. But he still finished T2 for the week, five shots behind Scheffler, for his fifth top-six finish in the last six majors.

DeChambeau will defend his U.S. Open title at Oakmont, and outside of a missed cut last summer at Royal Troon, he has been a factor in every major over the last 13 months. DeChambeau’s advantage off the tee this week proved to be as significant as expected, and if he’s able to drive it even somewhat straight he’ll have a leg up next month in Pittsburgh. But it’s not just the driver, as he has now shown across multiple major venues with myriad challenges that he has the requisite shots.

DeChambeau has largely struggled in The Open, but he’ll be right on the heels of Scheffler and McIlroy at Oakmont in terms of pre-tournament price as he looks for a third U.S. Open title in the last six years.

Xander Schauffele won’t be quiet for long

After closing out the final round, Schauffele half-joked that he would like his chances if the tournament was 144 holes. He’s still playing catch up, having missed a critical two-month stretch of the season with a rib injury, but it won’t be long until we see his name again on major championship leaderboards.

Schauffele saw his top-20 streak in majors come to an end with his T28 finish at Quail Hollow, but that wasn’t for a lack of firepower off the tee. He finished the week third in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee but endured some disastrous iron play, ranking 69th out of the 74 players who made the cut. Quite simply, that’s not a trend that will last for Schauffele on a stage like this.

As we head to the U.S. Open, where he has seven top-10 finishes in eight starts and has never finished worse than T14, he’s still trailing behind Scheffler and McIlroy as the two major winners from this year. But don’t be surprised if he reminds them of the form he flashed last summer en route to a pair of majors, as he eyes trophy No. 3 perhaps with some loftier odds attached to his name.