The 105th PGA Championship is in the books and what a week it was in upstate New York.
Brooks Koepka won his fifth Major title, coming back after 'choking' away The Masters last month to overtake Rory McIlroy in the Major tally and firmly put his name among the world's best players once again.
As well as Koepka's superb triumph, there were plenty more huge stories from Oak Hill, highlighted by club pro Michael Block and his cinderella story.
Block finished as the leading club pro, and the only one to make the cut, to earn over $300,000 and pick up thousands upon thousands of new fans. He made a hole-in-one, got to play with Rory McIlroy on Sunday and earned two PGA Tour starts from it as well as an invite back next year.
Here we take a look at the biggest stories from the 2023 PGA Championship:
MAJOR KOEPKA BACK
After admitted that he "choked" away last month's Masters, Koepka looked back to his old self to win his fifth Major title and first in four years.
The former World No.1 has had a torrid last few years with injuries but is back healthy now and looking like his old self. He's up to 13th in the world despite playing in just six world ranking events since last year's PGA and is right back in the Ryder Cup frame.
He also joins Seve Ballesteros, Byron Nelson, Peter Thomson, James Braid and JH Taylor as five-time Major winners in the men's game.
"This one is definitely special," he said. "I think this one is probably the most meaningful of them all with everything that's gone on, all the crazy stuff over the last few years. But it feels good to be back, and to get No.5.”
It's safe to say he's going to go down as an all-time great.
Michael Block
The PGA Pro basically stole the show at Oak Hill this weekend, where he made the cut, played with Rory McIlroy in the final round and even made the only hole-in-one of the week.
Blocky earned over $300,000, far surpassing his career-high paycheck of $75,000, and even earned a spot back in next year's PGA Championship as a top-15 finisher. He was delighted that this achievement meant another PGA Pro would get the chance to compete as there will be an extra 20 qualifying at the PGA Professionals Championship.
To cap off his remarkable week, the 46-year-old has also received invites into this week's Charles Schwab Challenge and the RBC Canadian Open two weeks after.
"This week's been absolutely a dream," he said. "I didn't know it was going to happen, but I knew if I just played my darned game, right, that I could do this. I always knew it."
LIV Golf validated
We all knew that LIV's golfers didn't get bad at golf overnight, but there's no doubt that Brooks Koepka's victory has validated the 54-hole circuit. Would they be rusty from only 14 events per year? Is the 54-hole, no-cut format bad for their Major preparations? Will they lose motivation with guaranteed prize money?
These are just a few questions that have been asked time and time again, but Koepka has put them to bed with his third PGA Championship triumph.
"They belong and the Majors and golf knows," LIV CEO Greg Norman said on social media about his players. He's certainly not wrong and it surely also validates the Majors' decisions to allow LIV players to tee it up in golf's four biggest events.
Viktor Hovland is ready to win Majors
Having given away great opportunities to win Majors at St Andrews last year and Augusta last month, Viktor Hovland hung in tough and gave Brooks Koepka everything he had on Sunday.
"It is really cool to see that things are going the right direction," he said. "If I just keep taking care of my business and just keep working on what I've been doing, I think we're going to get one of these soon."
Hovland was just one behind his playing partner with three holes to play and would have got in a playoff with a par-par-birdie finish. His thinned iron shot agonisingly plugged in the face of the bunker on 16 and it led to a double bogey and his chances falling away instantly.
He composed himself to birdie the last to finish T2nd with Scottie Scheffler and will have learned an awful lot about how to win Majors. He'll certainly be back.
The Ryder Cup
There were plenty of Ryder Cup implications this week, with Sepp Straka's final round 65 to finish T7th edging him closer and closer to Luke Donald's team. Viktor Hovland, Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose and Shane Lowry, all inside the top 12, surely reminded Luke Donald that they're all locks for Rome - which, to be fair, we already knew.
Victor Perez was T12th too in a performance that will have caught Donald's eye.
Europe's side will likely feature no LIV players but the US side may well do.
"Yeah, he's on the team. He's got direct ownership in that, absolutely," US captain Zach Johnson said on whether a LIV player takes one of the six automatic positions.
Brooks Koepka now looks set to make his fourth Ryder Cup appearance in Rome. He's popular among his peers and now surely can't be left out of the side after winning the Major that is run by the organisation that co-runs the match...can he?
Has the PGA lost its identity?
In a subdued Rory McIlroy press conference on Tuesday, he came up with a fascinating answer on the Major's move from August to May.
"I always liked in August that this was glory's last shot and there was a real identity there," McIlroy said. "Not saying that it's lost any of that identity in terms of its still a Major championship, but I feel like having it be the last Major of the year maybe just gave it a little bit of something that it doesn't quite have right now."
It's undoubtedly a great championship and was a fantastic watch last week, with club pro Michael Block highlighting one of the best and most unique aspects of it - that it is the PGA of America's Major. But...it really did just feel like a US Open. The course was brutally difficult, like a US Open, and did feel like it perhaps was struggling with an identity crisis.
What can it do? Go back to match play? Nope. Move around the world? Surely not. Stay at the same venue to build up familiarization? Again that seems unlikely.
Perhaps the identity of the PGA should be the 'birdie fest' Major? Nobody came close to shooting a 63 last week, the lowest round in the Major's history, and the best entertainment came on Sunday when scoring was a little lower.
It's certainly a talking point, but whether anything needs to be done is another question.
McIlroy's major drought continues
While McIlroy's expectations were low, he ultimately came up short once again in a Major. In the end, he seemed fairly happy with his T7th finish after missing the cuts at the two previous biggest events of the year - The Players Championship and The Masters.
"I'll look back on this week as proud of how I hung in there, and I guess my attitude and sticking to it, not having my best stuff," he said.
"I feel sort of close but also so far away at the same time. It's hard to explain. I feel like sometimes it was the worst I could have played, but then at the same time, it's like the best I could have done."
He'll have gained great confidence from the week, though, in contending without his best stuff and will surely be hugely motivated to win another Major after seeing his friend and rival Brooks Koepka overtake him in the tally.
No longer can McIlroy be classed as his generation's best golfer - until he wins more than Koepka. Watch out for him at Los Angeles Country Club next month and Royal Liverpool in July.
Scottie Scheffler back on top
A story that has perhaps gone under the radar post-PGA is that of Scottie Scheffler.
The Texan finished T2nd at Oak Hill after a superb final round of 65, the joint-lowest of the week, to return to the World No.1 spot. And while returning to the top of the world is a great thing, he was more disappointed about not winning.
"That's great. I mean, it's just an algorithm. It's nice, but I really don't care," he said.
"I don't play for world ranking. I play to come out here and compete. Right now I'm a little sad that I wasn't able to get the tournament done, but I'm proud of how I fought, I'm proud of how I played the back nine today to give myself a chance.
"I got beat by somebody that played better this week, and tip of the cap to Brooks. Yeah, it's just how it goes."
