NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. (AP) — Scottie Scheffler made a Sunday charge that came too late at the PGA Championship, a 65 that wasn't enough to catch Brooks Koepka at Oak Hill. The runner-up finish came with a small consolation prize for Scheffler: He replaced Jon Rahm at No. 1 in the world.
Scheffler has been there ever since.
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Rory McIlroy, of Northern Ireland, speaks to the media prior to a PGA Championship golf tournament practice round at Aronimink Golf Club, Tuesday, May 12, 2026, in Newtown Square, PA. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Scottie Scheffler practices on the 18th hole before the PGA Championship golf tournament at the Aronimink Golf Club Monday, May 11, 2026, in Newtown Square, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Captain Jon Rahm of Legion XIII hits his shot from the first tee during the first round of the LIV Golf tournament at Trump National Golf Club, Thursday, May 7, 2026 in Sterling, Va. (Pedro Salado/LIV Golf via AP)
Jon Rahm, of Spain, speaks to the media prior to a PGA Championship golf tournament practice round at Aronimink Golf Club, Tuesday, May 12, 2026, in Newtown Square, PA. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Jon Rahm, of Spain, speaks to the media prior to a PGA Championship golf tournament practice round at Aronimink Golf Club, Tuesday, May 12, 2026, in Newtown Square, PA. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
As for Rahm? He can only wonder which direction his career would have gone had he not bolted from the PGA Tour at the end of 2023 to take the Saudi riches of LIV Golf.
He firmly dismissed the notion Tuesday that his departure — six months after the PGA Tour tried to strike a deal with the Saudis — was an attempt to force the two circuits to unite.
“I was never thinking that I was going to be any sort of weight that would tip the scales to make things come together," Rahm said. “That was never an argument in my mind.”
The Spaniard prefers not to look back — not at any shot or any round that cost him a chance to win any tournament. And certainly not a decision that is starting to look worse by the day as LIV's future no longer includes financial backing from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund.
“I've made a lot of decisions in my life, and I've never gone back thinking, ‘Oh, had I know this again, I would do ’x' and ‘y’ different. I could do that about 15 different golf shots on the golf course every single day," Rahm said. "If I lived my life like that as a golfer, I would be a very pessimistic person.
“So we don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, and all we can do is learn from things that happen in the past good and bad,” he said. “Just to speculate on what could have done, what could have been different doesn’t really make much sense.”
Three years ago can seem even longer considering where he was.
Scheffler won the Phoenix Open — Rahm finished third — to return to No. 1 in the world, which lasted all of one week until Rahm won at Riviera. Three weeks later, Scheffler went back to No. 1 by winning The Players Championship and stayed there for a month until Rahm won the Masters.
Back and forth they went — Rory McIlroy joined the fray in the summer — until December when Rahm famously wore that black letterman's jacket during the announcement that he had joined LIV.
Where are they now?
Scheffler has been No. 1 since that 2023 PGA Championship at Oak Hill, the longest streak of anyone other than Tiger Woods since the ranking began in 1986.
Rahm is at No. 20, a ranking that comes with an asterisk because LIV Golf started getting ranking points only last year, and then at a reduced rate because of the size and strength of its field. Only the top 10 on LIV receive points, but Rahm has never finished out of the top 10. Moot point.
Rahm, though, is keenly aware of the perception.
He referred to himself as being under the radar at the Masters this year, and then lived up to that by nearly missing the cut.
But he has a point because he hasn't been part of the conversation about the best golf. Despite two wins and four runner-up finishes in the seven LIV events this year, the talk of golf is Scheffler and McIlroy, with Cameron Young and Matt Fitzpatrick on the fringes.
“As good as I played this year, nobody’s expects anything from me this week,” Rahm said. “It’s just funny, in that sense. ... I think as players, we usually have a fairly good assessment of where we stand. I don’t really necessarily need a ranking to tell me where I’m at or where I feel like I’m at.”
And where is that?
Rahm wasn't about to attach a number to where he thinks he should be. That's asking for a debate he doesn't want.
“I will just say I feel like the way I’ve played, including the last three years, I feel like I'm playing better than the ranking I have now,” he said.
That makes weeks like this so important for Rahm.
It's only four weeks a year that he gets a crack at a full field of golf's best players, and it hasn't gone very well for him since he left a full schedule of top competition.
In the eight majors Rahm has played since leaving for LIV, he has finished out of the top 30 in half of them, including a missed cut.
He has had three top 10s but only one serious chance of winning. That was last year in the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow when he rallied from five shots back of Scheffler, only for his Sunday charge to stall. He played the last three holes in 5 over when the tournament already was decided and wound up in a tie for eight, seven shots behind.
He also tied for seventh in the U.S. Open, though he started the final round 11 shots behind. He tied for seventh in the 2024, eight shots behind.
Rahm described his form as “very, very comfortable.”
“I've been playing — obviously besides the Masters — pretty good golf up until now,” he said.
The Masters is where he gets the true measure. The PGA Championship is no different. Winning won't return him to No. 1 in the world or get him close to Scheffler or even McIlroy. But it might at least get him back in the conversation.
On The Fringe analyzes the biggest topics in golf during the season. AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
Rory McIlroy, of Northern Ireland, speaks to the media prior to a PGA Championship golf tournament practice round at Aronimink Golf Club, Tuesday, May 12, 2026, in Newtown Square, PA. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Scottie Scheffler practices on the 18th hole before the PGA Championship golf tournament at the Aronimink Golf Club Monday, May 11, 2026, in Newtown Square, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Captain Jon Rahm of Legion XIII hits his shot from the first tee during the first round of the LIV Golf tournament at Trump National Golf Club, Thursday, May 7, 2026 in Sterling, Va. (Pedro Salado/LIV Golf via AP)
Jon Rahm, of Spain, speaks to the media prior to a PGA Championship golf tournament practice round at Aronimink Golf Club, Tuesday, May 12, 2026, in Newtown Square, PA. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Jon Rahm, of Spain, speaks to the media prior to a PGA Championship golf tournament practice round at Aronimink Golf Club, Tuesday, May 12, 2026, in Newtown Square, PA. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
LONDON (AP) — U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer insisted Tuesday that he has no intention of resigning as calls grew louder within his Labour Party for him to step down and some junior members of his government quit in protest.
Starmer tried to shore up support within his Cabinet following a feverish few days in the wake of hefty losses for the Labour Party in local elections last week, which if repeated in a national election that has to be held by 2029 would see it overwhelmingly ejected from power.
Though no Cabinet member has quit or publicly stated the prime minister should step aside for a change in leader, the resignations of several junior ministers stoked speculation Starmer could suffer the fate of Boris Johnson in 2022 when dozens of ministers quit en masse and forced his departure.
While more than 100 members of Parliament signed a letter saying it was “no time for a leadership contest,” about 90 others said Starmer should stand down or at least set out a timetable for his departure.
That's not enough to trigger a leadership contest, though, as no candidate has issued a challenge to the prime minister. Under Labour party rules, a fifth of its lawmakers in the House of Commons, or 81 members, must publicly give their backing to a single candidate for a leadership election to take place.
On Tuesday, several junior ministers, some of whom were elected for the first time in Labour's landslide election victory in July 2024, resigned and urged Starmer to do the same.
Miatta Fahnbulleh, minister of housing, communities and local government, was the first to quit, urging Starmer “to do the right thing for the country.”
She was followed by Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister and a prominent member of the Labour Party. In her resignation letter, she described Starmer as a “good man fundamentally” but unable to make bold changes.
“I know you care deeply, but deeds, not words are what matter,” Phillips said. “I’m not sure we are grasping this rare opportunity with the gusto that’s needed and I cannot keep waiting around for a crisis to push for faster progress.”
Despite the party's dominant win driving out the Conservatives after 14 years in power, Labour’s popularity has plunged and Starmer is getting much of the blame.
The reasons include a series of policy missteps, a perceived lack of vision on the prime minister's part, a struggling British economy and questions over his judgment. Starmer's choice of Peter Mandelson as U.K. ambassador to Washington despite ties to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has continued to haunt him.
At the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Starmer said he took responsibility for the losses in last week’s elections but would fight on.
Labour was squeezed from the right and the left, losing votes to both anti-immigrant Reform UK and the Green Party, as well as nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales. The result reflects the increasing fragmentation of U.K. politics, long dominated by Labour and the Conservatives.
Starmer told his Cabinet that there’s a process to oust a leader and it hadn't been triggered.
“The country expects us to get on with governing,” Starmer said. “The past 48 hours have been destabilizing for government and that has a real economic cost for our country and for families.”
That cost was evident in financial markets on Tuesday, with the interest rate charged on British government bonds up by more than those of comparable nations. That shows investors think it's increasingly risky to hold British government debt.
As Cabinet members left 10 Downing Street, some voiced their support for the embattled prime minister.
Works and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden said nobody publicly challenged Starmer at the meeting, while Business Secretary Peter Kyle said the prime minister was showing “really steadfast leadership.”
Later, Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy warned Labour lawmakers that the only beneficiary of the party's “navel-gazing” over Starmer's position is the populist right.
“He has my full support, and what I say to colleagues is, look, let’s just step back," he said. “Take a breath.”
Starmer's efforts to save his position as prime minister came a day ahead of the state opening of Parliament, when the government will present its legislative program for the coming year.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting, long believed to be preparing for a leadership challenge against Starmer, was among senior ministers who dodged a barrage of shouted questions from a gaggle of reporters outside.
“Wes Streeting, do you want the job, or not?” a man yelled from across the street. “Are you measuring the curtains?”
The other two names often touted as possible successors are Angela Rayner, the former deputy prime minister who had to quit last year over an unpaid tax bill. She has long set herself apart as a different kind of politician with a compelling personal story, brought up in social housing and leaving school at 16 as a teen mother.
Andy Burnham, the popular mayor of Greater Manchester, is widely perceived to be one of the strongest candidates but is not currently eligible because he’s not in Parliament. To get in the race, he'll have to find a seat where he can be elected.
That may involve a close ally of Burnham's in the northwest of England vacating their seat for him to stand for election. However, he may be blocked as was the case earlier this year or could even lose, if last week's results are any guide.
Danica Kirka and Sylvia Hui in London contributed to this report.
A bookmaker takes bets for a possible next British Prime Minister on his betting board near Downing Street in London, Tuesday, May 12, 2026.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Larry the cat, Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office leaves 10 Downing Street during a cabinet meeting in London, Tuesday, May 12, 2026 as Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing the biggest threat yet to his authority after a growing number of disaffected lawmakers called for him to step down.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Larry the cat, Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office leaves 10 Downing Street during a cabinet meeting in London, Tuesday, May 12, 2026 as Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing the biggest threat yet to his authority after a growing number of disaffected lawmakers called for him to step down.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Secretary of State for Wales Jo Stevens arrives for a cabinet meeting in Downing Street, London, Tuesday, May 12, 2026 as Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing the biggest threat yet to his authority after a growing number of disaffected lawmakers called for him to step down.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Wes Streeting arrives for a cabinet meeting in Downing Street, London, Tuesday, May 12, 2026 as Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing the biggest threat yet to his authority after a growing number of disaffected lawmakers called for him to step down.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Ed Miliband arrives for a cabinet meeting in Downing Street, London, Tuesday, May 12, 2026 as Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing the biggest threat yet to his authority after a growing number of disaffected lawmakers called for him to step down.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer speaking to the media after meeting Labour Party members during a visit to AFC Wimbledon in south London, Saturday May 9, 2026. (Maja Smiejkowska/PA via AP)
Britain's Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer pauses as he delivers a speech, at the Coin Street Neighbourhood Centre in Waterloo, London, Monday May 11, 2026. (James Manning/PA via AP)
