Notes: Jon Rahm has done his homework on Oak Hill

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – It’s been a decade since the PGA Championship was last played at Oak Hill Country Club, and the Donald Ross design has undergone a dramatic renovation since. Thousands of the namesake trees have been removed, while some of the course’s unique slopes and contours, which were dulled by the passage of time, have been recaptured.

The reimagined Oak Hill offers sweeping vistas and a severe test. The rough is thick, the bunkers are penal and the greens are firm. This new-look Oak Hill will offer a classic major championship test, one where pars are extremely valuable. And the weather won’t make things any easier, as spring in western New York is not exempt from temperatures that near freezing.

It all should combine for a compelling championship, one that’s chock full of storylines. As the stars step behind the mic ahead of Thursday’s opening round, we are here to keep you updated on all the notes and quotes that you need to know.

RAHM’S PGA RESEARCH

There are 33 players at Oak Hill this week who also competed in the 2013 PGA at Oak Hill. World No. 1 Jon Rahm is not one of them.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t know what happened.

On the contrary, Rahm, a four-time winner on the PGA TOUR this season and the FedExCup leader by 976 points over Scottie Scheffler, made clear Tuesday that he’s done his homework in preparation for the second major of the year. He knows Jason Dufner won in Rochester a decade ago, and having watched the highlights of that week, he even knows a little about how he did it.

“The one thing I did see from Dufner is – when he needed to, he relied on his wedges quite a bit,” Rahm said. “I think in the final round, I think it was 9 or 8, hit it in the trees, chipped out, gave himself a 10-footer, made the putt, and kept the round going, right?

“As well as maybe not always going for it,” he added. “I think he laid up on 14 and trusted his wedges. He gave himself numbers, and even on that final round he had about three or four tap-ins for birdie.”

Rahm agreed with Rory McIlroy that ‘discipline’ would be one of the key traits for this week’s champion. Rahm further displayed his appreciation of history by citing Jack Nicklaus’ win in the 1967 U.S. Open at Baltusrol as an example of how prudent play from the rough can pay off.

“He said every time he went in the rough he was going to lay up, and on 18 he laid up, hit the 1-iron, and then made birdie,” Rahm said. “There's many ways to make a 4 or 3 or 5. You don't always have to go at it all the time. I think there's always a lesson to learn on every one.”

Rahm has victories at the Sentry Tournament of Champions, The American Express, The Genesis Invitational and The Masters Tournament already this year and is coming off a solo second in his title defense at the Mexico Open at Vidanta last month.

Oh, and he’s also made the cut in his last 16 major starts, the longest active streak. As a student of the game, he said, Oak Hill reminds him so far of New York’s Bethpage and Winged Foot.

Translation: The course is challenging, with thick rough and tough bunkers, but remains imminently playable for those who don’t do anything crazy.

And when crazy things inevitably happen, the short game will be at a premium.

“You have those runoffs everywhere on a lot of the greens where you can hit a really good shot that basically goes 10 feet off the pin,” Rahm said, “and next thing you know you have 30 yards with big slopes.”

Jordan Spieth (2015 Masters, U.S. Open) was the last to win two straight majors. Rahm will be going for his second in a row, and third overall, after capturing the Masters in challenging weather last month. Winning the PGA would give him three legs of the career Grand Slam at 28, as well.

-- Cameron Morfit

RORY TRIES TO TURN IT AROUND

Rory McIlroy finished in the top 10 at all four majors last year, including three top-five finishes. He ended 2022 by becoming the first player to hold the FedExCup, Race to Dubai and top spot in the Official World Golf Ranking at the end of a calendar year. He began this year with a win in Dubai.

But he arrives at the year’s second major seeking to turn his game around. He missed the cut at both THE PLAYERS and the Masters and finished T47 at the Wells Fargo Championship, a disappointing result at an event he’s won three times and where he’s a perennial contender.

McIlroy’s lifelong swing coach, Michael Bannon, was with him last week in Florida and is here this week at Oak Hill, as well. McIlroy said he’s been struggling with a two-way miss recently because of a clubface that gets too open on the backswing. That requires him to try to close the face with his hands at impact, a difficult proposition reliant on perfect timing.

McIlroy said Tuesday he’s trying to “feel a bit more squareness throughout the swing.”

“It’s better than it was,” he said. “With the face coming down so open on the way down and having to try to close it so quickly to get it squared up, you're talking it's timing and fractions of seconds between the ball going 20 yards right or it going 20 yards left. … I would expect this week to not have to deal with that so much.”

With thick rough lining Oak Hill’s fairways, driving accuracy will be important this week. But open areas in front of the greens do allow players to run recovery shots onto the putting surface. It’s similar to Winged Foot, which Bryson DeChambeau overpowered en route to winning the U.S. Open while hitting less than half his fairways.

“The fairways are pretty firm and those aprons are certainly running,” he said. “There's two different trains of thought of how to play that. It's playing from the fairway and being able to get a little closer to those tight corners (of greens), or you can just get it up there as far as possible and try and run it up the front of the green, which basically most greens allow you to do.”

The most recent of McIlroy’s four major wins came at the 2014 PGA Championship. He also won the 2012 PGA, and a win this week would make him one of just six men with three or more PGA wins. Jack Nicklaus and Walter Hagen each won five PGAs, Tiger Woods won four and Gene Sarazen and Sam Snead won three apiece.

-- Sean Martin

ROCHESTER SITE OF SCHEFFLER'S ONLY CAREER WD

In his 101 PGA TOUR starts, Scottie Scheffler has six wins, 35 top-10s, and 82 cuts made.

He’s withdrawn exactly zero times, and never withdrew in 21 Korn Ferry Tour starts, either.

There is, however, a lone WD in his past, Scheffler said at the PGA Championship on Tuesday.

“I've only been here once,” he said from Oak Hill Country Club in Pittsford, New York, a suburb of Rochester, where the FedExCup No. 2 will try for his third win this season. “I played the (2016) Monroe Invitational. My roommate in college, Gavin Hall, was from here, and so we came up, stayed at his house.”

It’s normally worth making the trip, as the Monroe is one of the top amateur tournaments in the country. It’s played at Monroe Golf Club, about a nine-minute drive from Oak Hill, with a distinguished roster of champions.

And yet some combination of cold weather and a bad night’s sleep did Scheffler in.

“I woke up with a big crick in my neck,” he said, “and it was really cold here and I played the first round and I'm never one to withdraw. I'll limp in. I want to finish, and I want to compete. But my dad ended up – he was here, and he ended up calling my coach.

“And Randy (Smith) called me on the phone,” Scheffler continued, “and was like, ‘Yeah, you really just need to be mature here and come home.’ It was like 50 degrees, the wind was blowing 20, and I had the U.S. Open next week. I listened to Randy.”

Sean Crocker shot a final-round 63 to win the Monroe that year. Gavin Hall tied for 10th. And Scheffler came away with the one and only WD of his career.

“It was the only tournament that I recall withdrawing from,” he said. “I only played one round. It was a quick trip up here. Hopefully this tournament lasts a little bit longer than one round for me.”

-- Cameron Morfit

JT ON POINT

Justin Thomas is emerging from a self-professed slump as he prepares to defend his PGA title. Though there are nearly three months remaining in the season, the former FedExCup champ arrived at Oak Hill sitting squarely on the bubble just to qualify for this year’s Playoffs. At 69th in the standings, he’s just one spot inside the cutoff to qualify for the FedEx St. Jude Championship in the second week of August.

With plenty of time to make a move in the FedExCup, Thomas is starting to see positive signs.

“I'm starting to see a little bit of a light at the end of the tunnel,” said Thomas. He has missed just one cut in 11 starts this season, though that came at the Masters, but also has just two top-10s.

Thomas said he “showed a lot of really good signs” in a T14 finish at the Wells Fargo Championship two weeks ago. It was the first event since adopting the AimPoint system for reading greens. He finished 29th in Strokes Gained: Putting at Quail Hollow after entering the event ranked 152nd in that statistic.

“How I described it for a couple months is I've never felt so far and so close at the same time,” said Thomas, who admitted there were recent tournaments where he showed up not believing he could win.

Last year’s PGA Championship is the most recent of his 15 PGA TOUR wins. He won at least three times in the 2017 (5 wins), 2018 (3) and 2020 (3) seasons but has just one win apiece in each of the last two campaigns. He won the 2021 PLAYERS before winning his second Wanamaker Trophy last year at Southern Hills.

Now he is trying to keep alive his streak of TOUR Championship appearances. He has made the past seven TOUR Championships, finishing no worse than 12th in the FedExCup in that span.

The PGA Championship represents the perfect time for him to turn his season around.

-- Sean Martin