NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. (AP) — Scottie Scheffler walked off Aronimink with his putter still in the bag, though the defending PGA Championship winner might not have been blamed had he chucked the club into the water.
His putter failed him, and cost Scheffler a major opportunity in a tournament where no standout has emerged and led to a bunched leaderboard through three rounds.
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Scottie Scheffler walks up the 16th fairway during the third round of the PGA Championship golf tournament at Aronimink Golf Club, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Newtown Square, PA. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Scottie Scheffler hits out of the bunker on the 16th green during the third round of the PGA Championship golf tournament at Aronimink Golf Club, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Newtown Square, PA. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Scottie Scheffler reacts to missing a putt on the 17th green during the third round of the PGA Championship golf tournament at Aronimink Golf Club, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Newtown Square, PA. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Scottie Scheffler reacts to a missed shot on the 10th green during the third round of the PGA Championship golf tournament at Aronimink Golf Club, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Newtown Square, PA. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Scottie Scheffler lines up his shot on the 10th green during the third round of the PGA Championship golf tournament at Aronimink Golf Club, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Newtown Square, PA. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Scheffler will still be in the mix in the final round — 14 players had at least a share of the lead at some point — yet the short game failures only stretched his odds at pulling out another PGA.
A four-time major winner, Scheffler missed six putts inside 10 feet, four of them for birdie. But he made a 9-foot bogey putt on 18 for a 71.
Scheffler shot 1 over in a round where he could have grabbed a healthy lead if not for the muffed putts. Scheffler followed an opening 3-under 67 with consecutive rounds of 1 over. He slipped 14 spots, into a tie for 23rd, and is 5 shots off the lead.
“If I continue to do what I’m doing and hole a few more putts, then I think I’ll be in a good spot when tomorrow ends,” Scheffler said.
The Scheffler who tore through the 2025 season, winning six times in a 4 1/2-month span, hasn’t arrived yet this year. Not even playing his best golf might be enough for Scheffler to pull off back-to-back PGA crowns.
Take last month's Masters, for a recent example.
Scheffler was trying to pull off what would have been an unprecedented comeback from 12 strokes down after 36 holes. He put a championship round together and shot a 4-under 68 at Augusta National, a terrific finish but he still finished one stroke behind winner Rory McIlroy.
Buoyed by that recent flashpoint for success, Scheffler believed he could play his way through a crowded field of contenders — from unheralded Alex Smalley looking for his first career PGA Tour win, to the blistering hot McIlroy — and shoot his way back to the top and leave with another Wanamaker Trophy.
Scheffler and McIlroy have won four of the last five majors, with McIlroy winning the 2025 and 2026 Masters and Scheffler taking the PGA Championship and British Open last year. They are ranked 1-2 in the world.
“It's quite literally anybody’s tournament,” Scheffler said. “There’s a lot of guys that have a chance. Going into tomorrow, just somebody is going to have a great round, and I’m going to make sure to do my best to give myself my best shot at being the one who has a great round.”
Scheffler continued to get heckled by Philly sports fans, who chanted the traditional “E-A-G-L-E-S Eagles!” chant at the noted diehard Dallas Cowboys fan. He credited the crowd for creating a spirited atmosphere in the first major in the Philadelphia area since the U..S. Open at Merion in 2013.
Just one day earlier, Scheffler said Aronimink claimed "the hardest set of pin locations that I’ve seen since I’ve been on tour, and that includes U.S. Opens.”
He didn’t complain about the pin placement on Saturday and his moments, including a birdie at 11 that had him back to even on his round. Scheffler had more pressing worries than pins, such as putting like a major champion rather than a weekday Aronimink member.
“It’s a challenging golf course and there’s a lot of slope on the greens,” he said. “The winds were quite heavy when we were out there this afternoon, and it’s just tough.”
AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
Scottie Scheffler walks up the 16th fairway during the third round of the PGA Championship golf tournament at Aronimink Golf Club, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Newtown Square, PA. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Scottie Scheffler hits out of the bunker on the 16th green during the third round of the PGA Championship golf tournament at Aronimink Golf Club, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Newtown Square, PA. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Scottie Scheffler reacts to missing a putt on the 17th green during the third round of the PGA Championship golf tournament at Aronimink Golf Club, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Newtown Square, PA. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Scottie Scheffler reacts to a missed shot on the 10th green during the third round of the PGA Championship golf tournament at Aronimink Golf Club, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Newtown Square, PA. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Scottie Scheffler lines up his shot on the 10th green during the third round of the PGA Championship golf tournament at Aronimink Golf Club, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Newtown Square, PA. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow advanced to a runoff in Louisiana’s Republican Senate primary Saturday, capitalizing on the power of President Donald Trump’s endorsement.
Trump supported Letlow over incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy, one of the few Republican senators who voted to convict him during his second impeachment trial over the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Letlow was running against Cassidy and state Treasurer John Fleming, a former U.S. House member and Trump administration official.
By receiving less than 50% of the vote, Letlow was unable to avoid a runoff. The second round is scheduled for June 27.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy faced a political reckoning Saturday night as polls closed in Louisiana’s Republican primary, with President Donald Trump supporting a challenger in another attempt to purge his party of people he views as disloyal.
Trump endorsed U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow over Cassidy, who voted to convict the president during his second impeachment trial, which was sparked by the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Cassidy, a doctor, has also clashed with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over vaccine policy, even though he provided crucial support to help Kennedy get confirmed.
The Louisiana primary comes in the middle of a month of campaigns by Trump to exact retribution on politicians who have crossed him. On May 5 he helped dislodge five of seven Indiana state senators who rejected his redistricting plan.
Next Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky will face a Trump-backed challenger, Ed Gallrein, in another Republican primary. Massie angered Trump by opposing his signature tax legislation over concerns about the national debt, pushing for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files and opposing his decision to go to war with Iran.
The president unloaded on Cassidy on Saturday morning, calling him “a disloyal disaster” and “a terrible guy” on social media. Trump criticized the senator's impeachment vote and said “he's going to get CLOBBERED,” adding that Letlow is “a winner who will NEVER let you down.”
Jeanelle Chachere, a 66-year-old nurse, said she considers Cassidy “a phony” and she voted for Letlow solely because Trump endorsed her.
“I’m going by what he says, because I like what he does,” she said.
A third candidate is state Treasurer John Fleming. If no one gets at least 50% of the vote, a runoff will be held June 27. The GOP primary winner will almost certainly take the November general election because of the state's Republican leanings.
The election was scrambled by a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision gutting a part of the Voting Rights Act that affects how congressional maps are drawn. Although the Senate primary is moving forward, Louisiana leaders decided to delay House primaries until a future date to allow them to redo district lines ahead of time, a shift that threatened to cause confusion for voters on Saturday.
Mary-Patricia Wray, who has consulted for Republican and Democratic candidates in Louisiana, said the change could weigh against Cassidy by dampening turnout among voters who are less fervently pro-Trump.
“Suspending the congressional primaries hurts Cassidy,” she said. “Some people believe the Senate primary is canceled.”
Cassidy also complained that a new primary system enacted last year confused voters by requiring them to ask for a partisan ballot instead of the all-party primary previously in place. He said some called his office to say they had been unable to vote for him.
“The process that was set up was destined to be confusing,” Cassidy told reporters Friday.
Dadrius Lanus, executive director of the state Democratic Party, said his team fielded hundreds of calls from voters statewide who said the changes undermined their ability vote as they planned.
“A lot of the information should have gotten to voters well in advance,” Lanus said. “It’s literally been a whirlwind of confusion.”
Cassidy has waged an aggressive campaign to convince voters he should not be counted out.
“Four months ago I would have told you it’s impossible for Cassidy to win this,” said Wray, the political consultant. “I still think it’s statistically unlikely, but no longer impossible.”
Paul Begue, a 41-year-old in New Orleans who works in the agriculture industry, said he planned to vote for Cassidy. He was bothered by a video of Trump saying Letlow was “as loyal as can be.” For Begue, that was “the final nail in the coffin.”
“I don’t care about her loyalty to President Trump,” he said, adding, “I like elected officials that seem to make their own decisions.”
The senator's campaign is expected to have spent roughly $9.6 million on advertising through May 16, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. And Louisiana Freedom Fund, a super PAC supporting him, is on track to spend $12.3 million.
By comparison Letlow’s campaign, which launched Jan. 20, has spent roughly $3.9 million, while a super PAC backing her, the Accountability Project, has spent about $6 million since then.
Fleming's campaign has spent about $1.5 million.
Cassidy and Louisiana Freedom Fund ran ads attacking Letlow within days of her entering the race for supporting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which Trump has tried to root out of the federal government.
Letlow, a college administrator before her election to the House, said she supported DEI while interviewing for the position of president of University of Louisiana-Monroe in 2020.
The ads, an attempt to characterize Letlow as a progressive trying to pass as a conservative, are one way Cassidy is trying to flip the script in a race where he's on the outs with Trump.
The senator's vote in favor of convicting Trump after his 2021 impeachment over the Jan. 6 Capitol siege has shadowed Cassidy throughout his second Senate term.
John Martin, a 68-year-old retired engineer in south Louisiana, said he would vote for Letlow because he was still upset by Cassidy's decision. He waved a flyer from Letlow’s campaign showing her standing alongside the president.
“I know a lot more about Cassidy than I do about her,” Martin said. “But if she’s endorsed by Trump, I’m going to believe that.”
Cassidy steered clear of Trump’s ire last year, supporting Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services despite his public reservations about the nominee’s anti-vaccine views.
Mark Workman, a 75-year-old retired infectious disease physician in the New Orleans suburbs, said he backs Fleming. Had Cassidy “stood up and blocked RFK,” Workman said, he would have supported the senator for taking a strong and courageous stance.
“He had the ability to stop him,” Workman said, “and he was too weak to do that.”
As chair of the Senate health committee, Cassidy has been more publicly critical of Kennedy, including over funding cuts for vaccine development.
Trump blamed Cassidy for the failed nomination of his second choice for surgeon general, Casey Means, who raised doubts about vaccinating newborns for hepatitis B, a practice Cassidy supports.
Trump withdrew the Means nomination and blasted Cassidy.
“Hopefully all of the Great Republican People of Louisiana, which I won, BIG, three times, will be voting Bill Cassidy OUT OF OFFICE in the upcoming Republican Primary!” Trump posted on social media.
Letlow considered running last year but only entered the race after Trump announced his endorsement in January.
By that time Fleming, a former House member and Trump administration official who was elected state treasurer in 2023, was already in the race as a Trump devotee. But Landry was looking for a better-known challenger, and he suggested Letlow to the president.
Letlow had an unconventional and tragic entry into politics.
In 2020, while she was a college administrator, her husband Luke was elected to the U.S. House but died of COVID-19 before he could be sworn in. Letlow ran for and won the seat in a March 2021 special election and was reelected in 2022 and 2024.
Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa.
U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., greets supporters at a campaign stop at Drago's Restaurant Tuesday, May 5, 2026, in Metairie, La. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
U.S. Senate candidate, current Louisiana treasurer and former U.S. Representative (R-La.) John Fleming, speaks at a Ronald Reagan Newsmaker Luncheon in Baton Rouge, La., Tuesday, May 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
U.S. Senate candidate Julia Letlow greets supporters at a campaign stop at Hammond Northshore Regional Airport in Hammond, La., Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., greets supporters at a campaign stop at Drago's Restaurant Tuesday, May 5, 2026, in Metairie, La. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
