PGA Championship has clear favourite but it's not straightforward as babies and Valhalla throw up curveballs

All of which points to Scottie Scheffler being the man to beat in next week’s 106th PGA Championship in Kentucky given that he’s currently dominating the game in exactly the same way as Woods and McIlroy were at the time of their triumphs in the PGA of America’s regular major and Irwin and Watson, too, in the same organisation’s over-50s’ equivalent.

Let’s not beat about the bush here. Based on recent form, Scheffler is almost at that point where he’s become unstoppable. He’s won four times in his last five starts, including a second Masters success in three years. That run also included the 50th edition of The Players Championship and two of the PGA Tour’s signature events – the Arnold Palmer Invitational and RBC Heritage. In short, he’s the game’s best player right now by a country mile. In four appearances so far in this particular event, the 27-year-old has recorded three top-ten finishes, including a tie for second last year behind Brooks Koepka at Oak Hill. He missed the cut in 2022, but blips like that just don’t seem to happen with Scheffler these days.

When his name was sitting at the top of the leaderboard heading into the back nine on the final day of last month’s Masters, the other Green Jacket contenders started to make mistakes. Collin Morikawa, the 2020 PGA champion, admitted he got “greedy” around the turn and duly paid the price, as did major debutant Ludvig Aberg after taking on the pin at the notoriously-tough 11th hole at Augusta National and ending up wet.

Still at high school when McIlroy landed his win a decade ago, this will be a new test for Scheffler in terms of tackling a golf course in a major, though maybe not if baby Scheffler hasn’t arrived over the weekend, with his wife, Meredith, now being overdue and, understandably, that’s all he’s been focused on over the past three weeks back home in Texas. “Scheffler is by far the favourite and, if he wins, we can’t wait until the US Open as we starting talking slam,” observed two-time US Open champion Curtis Strange, speaking on an ESPN media call ahead of the season’s second major. “But we don't know what the baby situation is going to be next week.”

As he celebrated his Masters win, Scheffler insisted he “will not take his eye off the ball” by any changes off the golf course, but, as lots of others have discovered before him, it remains to be seen if that will be easier said than done and golf, of course, has a habit of producing unexpected twists and turns. Just ask McIlroy, who chalked up major No 4 on his last visit to this venue but, a decade on, is still stuck on that number.

A hard-earned one-shot win over Phil Mickelson made it three wins in a row for McIlroy, having also landed The Open at Royal Liverpool and the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio, in the run up to what was then the season’s final major before moving to the second of them in 2019. But, for some reason and that’s become particularly frustrating for him in terms of the Masters as he bids to become just the sixth player to complete a career grand slam, he’s lost his major mojo.

In contrast, Koepka has become a major machine in that time. In the space of just six years, in fact, he’s jumped ahead of McIlroy when it comes to the wins that matter the most. Three of his five major titles have come in this event, having lifted that giant Wanamaker Trophy for the first time in 2018 then repeating the trick again the following year before finishing two shots ahead of both Scheffler and Norwegian Viktor Hovland 12 months ago. If anyone can stop Scheffler at the moment, it’s probably him and the 34-year-old warmed up for this title defence by becoming the first player to land LIV Golf League wins in the breakaway circuit’s most recent event in Singapore.

Koepka is spearheading a 15-strong LIV Golf contingent in Louisville, home of the great Muhammad Ali, and they’ll all be determined to land the golfing equivalent of a knockout punch next weekend as they go head-to-head with PGA Tour and DP World Tour players. Twenty PGA professionals as well and they include Michael Block, who lit up last year’s event by finishing in the top 15, capping a fairytale week by making a hole in one in the company of McIlroy in the final round.

Other storylines include Jordan Spieth making his latest bid to beat McIlroy in the race for a career grand slam, though his form has been patchy of late, and, of course, the spotlight will once again be on Woods as the 15-time major winner makes his latest rare appearance these days, having finished last out of those make the cut in the season’s opening major. It would be some story if he could win here again, but it’s highly unlikely.

"He's played well at Valhalla,” said Andy North, another double US Open winner, speaking on the same ESPN call. “But where is his game in the last month? How much work has he been able to get in? I think that's what it all boils down to.”