1 week later, 10 PGA scenes tell the story

It’s Friday now which means, when adjusting for attention-span inflation, the 2026 PGA Championship ended roughly three-and-a-half years ago.

But I haven’t quite moved on yet.

(In fairness, and in transparency, I planned to finish and publish this piece on Monday, but long story short, I didn’t. Here we are.)

I wrote about Aaron Rai on Sunday night. But here are 10 sights, sounds, stats and sensations from Aronimink that keep rattling around my skull.

1. Padraig’s dream

When I spoke to Padraig Harrington on Saturday evening, he was dreaming of a Sunday charge, of an impossible chase-down victory from T31, a half-dozen shots back on a jam-packed leaderboard.

He didn’t get his fairy-tale finish — but he got something pretty cool nonetheless. After a ho-hum first 15 holes on Sunday he holed out for eagle at No. 16.

Then after a par at No. 17, he knocked in a cool bladed wedge at No. 18 for birdie to secure an under-par, top-20 finish.

So just how impressive was Harrington’s tournament?

-His T18 was his best major result in five years (since his T4 at the 2021 PGA)

-He’s just the third player at 54 or older to finish top 20 at a PGA Championship, joining Sam Snead and Gene Sarazen. (Of note, Snead finished T4-T9-T3 in 1970-1971-1972 at ages 60-61-62. Preposterous.)

-Over the last 54 holes (removing his opening 74) Harrington shot 69-67-69, five under par, bettered only by Ludvig Aberg (seven under) and Aaron Rai (nine under).

On to the U.S. Open at Shinnecock, where Harrington will keep dreaming.

2. Cam Smith’s stroke

It was a joy to see Cam Smith back in contention at a major — in part just to watch him hit big-time putts. After six consecutive missed cuts at the majors, Smith hired a new swing coach (Claude Harmon III) and immediately put on a stripe show with his irons, which pairs well with a putter that’s been hot his entire golfing life.

Smith’s driving remains a complete adventure, which sort of adds to the thrill of watching. But he clearly found some magic at Aronimink, and I’m curious to see where he takes this form next.

Post-tournament, Smith expressed his excitement — and admitted just how bittersweet it was to find success with a new coach.

“I’m proud of how I showed up this week, with a new thought and a new swing,” he said. “It was a hard call to make to my coach. I had been seeing Grant [Field] since I was 9 years old. So I’d been with him for 23 years, and probably one of the most difficult phone calls I’ve ever had to make.

“And, yeah, it’s still kind of lingering, but I feel like I’ve made the right call, and I can see it in my golf and just my strike of the ball and seeing some different shots. It’s been nice.”

3. Rahm’s candor

Winning takes care of everything, as Tiger Woods used to say.

A corollary: Finishing T2 by playing very well only to get beaten by a guy who makes four birdies and an eagle in the final 10 holes takes care of almost everything. Enter Jon Rahm, who was cheery after his final-round 68 left him T2, his first major top-five finish since 2023.

I appreciated his golf, and I appreciated his candor on Sunday evening as he reflected on the early-week narrative that scores would be quite low:

“Most of Monday and Tuesday I spent thinking what was wrong with me, because everybody was saying we were going to shoot 15-to 20-under here, and I didn’t see any chance in the world of that happening,” he said. “Nine and six [under par, for first and second place] is still lower than what I expected.

“I mean, obviously I performed well last week [T8 at LIV Virginia]. I did really well in Mexico [winning LIV Mexico]. After the Masters [T38] I’ve been playing good. I just — when the pressure is the highest in majors, some of those things you’re working on, those weak links can damage the foundation, right? Just happy that all those things I felt like I could have done better at Augusta ended up working out this week.”

4. Two Masters invites

Alex Smalley wasn’t able to maintain the two-shot advantage he held entering Sunday’s final round. But he got a whole bundle of consolation prizes — including an invitation to next year’s Masters.

Long after the tournament’s winner had been decided, Smalley finished eagle-bogey-birdie to notch a T2 finish, while his playing partner Matti Schmid finished T4. Neither has ever played a Masters, and because any top-four major finish gets you an invite to Augusta National, that’s about to change.

And it’s clear that was on Smalley’s mind on the final green.

“I’m thrilled to be going to Augusta next year. I knew that top four and ties gets you into Augusta, so I knew that was a possibility,” Smalley said. “I wasn’t really thinking about it, honestly, until I hit the green on 18 and saw where I was. Was really just trying to two-putt, just trying to lag it up. That 20-footer up the hill on 18, I was just trying to get a tap-in. Fortunate enough that it went in.

(It was also worth, like, a million bucks.)

“As far as this tournament, in terms of my career, who knows? Maybe it’s a springboard. It gives me a lot of confidence coming away from this week to know that I can compete on the PGA Tour and even some of the major championships.”

5. PGA return invites

The top 15 finishers and ties get invited back to next year’s PGA Championship, which can mean a massive opportunity. (The 2025 PGA, for instance, included several wild-card contenders, which meant a few players like Davis Riley, Joe Highsmith and Jhonny Vegas got back to the 2026 PGA when they otherwise wouldn’t have played.)

Mostly this year’s top 15 was populated by high-ranked players who we’ll expect back next year anyway, but it’s a nice assurance for Smalley (World No. 42) and Schmid (No. 65) as well as Kurt Kitayama (No. 29) and Max Greyserman (No. 63) knowing they have one 2027 major tee time to count on, even if other stuff goes sideways.

6. World-ranking leaps

This is fun fact more than anything else, but some of the biggest world-ranking jumps post-PGA are a reminder of certain unexpected members of the week’s supporting cast.

-Club pro Ben Kern made the cut, finished 80th and went from unranked to No. 1781
-Harrington’s T18 rocketed him from No. 894 to 502
–Martin Kaymer finished T35 to jump from No. 1160 to 720
-Reigning Ryder Cup hero Luke Donald made the cut, finished T70 and jumped from No. 1300 to No. 1081
-And Cam Smith‘s T7 took him from No. 239 to 145

7. Scottie, Rory, Xander

Rory McIlroy finished T7, his 15th finish of eighth or better at a major since 2020.

World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler finished T14.

Just how consistent has their joint presence been at majors? It’s now been more than five years — since the 2021 Masters — since we finished a major without McIlroy or Scheffler in the top 10.

And then there’s Xander Schauffele, whose T7 was his 16th top 20 in his last 17 major starts. Preposterous consistency at the game’s biggest events.

It’s no coincidence these three have won seven of the last 10 majors.

8. Aaron Rai’s shot at No. 13

I posted up behind the drivable par-4 13th for a while on Sunday afternoon, watching the action while I listened to the rest unfold on the radio. (They give out these headsets at some big events. They’re especially fun to have when things get chaotic.)

McIlroy and Schauffele came through and each made a mess of the hole, battling just to make matching bogey 5s. But then Aaron Rai came through and, from the same front bunker where Schauffele had just sailed one past a hole location teetering in the back corner, pulled off the perfect shot. When he finished off his birdie 3, he seized control of the tournament for good.

9. Aaron Rai’s shot at No. 16

If there’s one ball flight I’ll remember from the 2026 PGA it’s the sight of Rai’s approach shot at the par-5 16th, a soaring, left-to-right banana ball I watched from behind the green It didn’t just find the green but landed in the perfect spot to chase towards a precarious back-right pin, setting up a short eagle putt that turned into a ho-hum birdie. If he’d made par there, the door would have remained ajar. Instead it really seemed over.

10. Aaron Rai’s putt at No. 17

I stayed in a comfy patch of grass by the 17th tee as Rai marched down towards the green on the penultimate hole, a par-3 over water. A sketchy tee shot (his brain’s anti-left mechanism taking over) left him with nearly 70 feet for birdie. All week the amphitheater around the 17th green and 18th tee had been the best place on property and I enjoyed the wide-angle view from a couple hundred yards behind the action. I wondered what a three-putt might mean. At impact Rai seemed to my eye to have crushed his putt, too; for a split second I wondered if it could race past the hole and into the water.

It turns out his judgment was slightly better than mine. As the ball found the bottom of the cup, I saw the crowd’s reaction just a split second before the sound reached me, which somehow made the roar hit even harder when it arrived.

(Squint and you can see a crouched fella in a white shirt and navy pants back by the tee…)

What an exclamation point.