CNN
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At this tournament a year ago, Scotty Schaeffler made a national headline after his arrest.
A year later, the world No. 1 won its first PGA Championship at the Quazur Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, trading the famous Shannamaker Trophy on mugshot and prison cell phones.
He finished Sunday’s final round with 11 under par, with five strokes ahead of Bryson Deccanbaugh, Davis Riley and Harris English.
Despite bosieing in the final hole, Schaeffler celebrates by wearing a hat on the ground, embracing his caddy Ted Scott, and quickly finds his wife, Meredith and son in the crowd.
This was the 28-year-old Schaeffler’s third career major victory, with the first two coming in 2022 and 2024 at the Masters.
Schaeffler told CNN he felt “a little on the rope” on the front nine.
“This golf course keeps you on your toes,” Schaeffler said. “It was odd because I felt like I had a really good tee shot at 7, 8, 9. And I was looking up a bit and there was 30 yards left. I don’t need it either.”
When asked by CNN’s Patrick Snell to look back at his journey from becoming father from his first major victory and now winning his third major, it added that “it’s really hard to say a word.”
You know (Meredith) and I were talking this morning, we still feel like we are in high school. I feel like we were in high school yesterday. We’ve just started dating and all of a sudden we know that life here is pretty cool right now,” Schaeffler said.
“This is a lot of fun, but for us it’s pretty much the same at the end of our lives at home. We have a pretty good little life, we have great friends at home and we look forward to going home and celebrating with them.”
Schaeffler also joined Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus as the only players to win three career majors and 15 PGA Tour titles.
The 2025 season didn’t start very kindly for Schaeffler.
The self-proclaimed “silly” Christmas Day injury was undergoing surgery and forced him to delay the start of his season.
Schaeffler made his season debut at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in Northern California in late January. He then didn’t win until two weeks ago when he won the CJ Cup Byron Nelson at TPC Craig Ranch in McKinney, Texas.
Schaeffler joined Seve Ballesteros as the only golfer in the last 100 years, winning his first three majors with three or more strokes.
But it wasn’t the best and easy round in the world.
Schaeffler entered the fourth final round with a three-stroke lead, but after three bogeys on the front nine, his lead quickly disappeared.
Liv Golf star John Rahm surged ahead of him, and the Spaniard was about to win his third major.
However, the winners of the 2021 US Open and the 2023 Masters were completely shaking on the back nine, especially at the infamous green mile in Quazul Hollow, where he was bogeyed once and twice that day to double bogey in the eighth tie.
When Rahm fell, Schaeffler rose past his early struggle and regained the lead by sinking consecutive birdies into holes 14 and 15, never turning back.
30-year-old former Arizona Sun Devil Rahm said this was a position he was not there when asked how he would “heal” from now on.
“I think it’s the first time I’ve been in a position to close it and get a major that doesn’t do that. I think I’m leading in the majors on Sunday, and I was able to close it down. It’s a very different situation,” Rahm told reporters after the round.
“So I don’t know exactly. But if it’s time, that’s for the family. Luckily, I’m going to go home on time to sleep with the kids. To them, whatever I do today, it doesn’t always bother me. So, it’s always a good point of view. Days, really bad things happen.
Following Sunday’s victory, Schaeffler said he had some “joking” protecting himself about his experience in his arrest last year.
Schaeffler said that despite the pressure to tell them, it was “not a good idea,” but expanded the reason it was “sweet” to sit with the trophy a year later.
“Last year, it’s still very little realistic. It’s really not. It’s one of those deals that I really don’t know how to explain it. But this year I can say it’s so sweet to sit with the trophy.”
Last year, Schaeffler was arrested for attempting to drive the scene of a fatal crash ahead of tee time at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky.
He was charged with a second-degree felony assault on a police officer and a few charges of criminal mischief from a police officer commanding traffic, reckless driving and neglect, Jefferson County Court records show. The charges were later dismissed.
What Schauffer called “a serious misunderstanding in a chaotic situation,” adding that the detective who arrested him “has “no malicious” and ultimately scored eight shots behind the eighth-place winner Xander Schauffele.
Schaeffler will be able to start his fourth major marjorjo victory next month at the Oakmont Country Club in Oakmont, Pennsylvania.