This article is part of our Weekly PGA Recap series.
When a precocious 23-year-old named Emiliano Grillo played his first tournament as a PGA Tour member back in 2015, he already was a known quantity in golf. The Argentine had 16 worldwide top-10 finishes on his resume and was No. 72 in the rankings.
Yet it was no less stunning when he won the 2015-16 season-opening Frys.com Open in a field that included four-time major winner Rory McIlroy. He zoomed to 36th in the world and stardom loomed.
Stardom never got the memo.
Oh, Grillo has carved out a very fine career, winning Rookie of the Year and nearly $20 million in official earnings. But not only did stardom never arrive, neither did another victory. Until Sunday.
Nearly eight years after defeating Kevin Na on the second playoff hole in Napa, Calif., a now 30-year-old Grillo beat Adam Schenk on the second playoff hole in the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial for, yes, his long-awaited second PGA Tour victory.
"Obviously it's great," Grillo told reporters in Fort Worth, Texas, when asked what was going through his mind. "It made everything worth it. The playing, all the hours practicing, the effort from my family. It makes you think when you started playing all the emotions come through your head.
"It's been tough, but it's worth every second. People ask me if I would have done something different, obviously looking back, I wouldn't. This is just worth it."
Grillo had played seven PGA Tour events as a non-member before his Frys win, one of which was a playoff loss at the 2015 Puerto Rico Open. He had also starred in Europe and on the Korn Ferry Tour, winning the junior circuit's Tour Championship two weeks before the Frys. So there was plenty of game. And in the ensuing 200 or so post-Frys tournaments, there were five more runners-up, including to Patrick Reed at the 2016 Barclays playoff event.
Grillo has always been an elite ball striker and, um, a non-elite putter. He's dipped as low as 192nd in SG: Putting three seasons ago. This season, he's 106th -- but six weeks ago he ranked 173rd. Since then, he finished top-10 at both the Mexico Open and RBC Heritage and top-25 at the Wells Fargo. You don't need to be a math whiz to know how much the putting has mattered.
At Colonial, Grillo ranked second in SG: Putting, plus his typical sixth in SG: Approach. That will win you some golf tournaments.
Even though the Charles Schwab wasn't a designated event -- the RBC was -- it had a very good field, so don't dismiss this win.
Grillo is now ranked 42nd in the world -- not far from where he was nearly eight years ago when he joined the Tour. His career best is 23rd. He'll now get into the U.S. Open and will almost surely be priced in the $7,000s on DraftKings.
Not bad for an elite ball striker who suddenly has become a very good putter.
Also, just a quick word about a golf course that played about 7,000 yards on Sunday: The winning score was 8-under-par. Bravo, Colonial, nicely done.
MONDAY BACKSPIN
Adam Schenk
Schenk kind of had a tournament stolen from him 10 weeks ago at the Valspar. On Sunday, he almost stole one back. In the end, all he has to show for them are two runners-up, which is still pretty darn good. Schenk ranked 12th in the Colonial field in SG: Approach and ninth in Putting. He's now ranked 60th in the world, which is the magic number on June 12 for U.S. Open entry. Schenk deserves to be in that field. He'll need to defend his ranking this week at the Memorial and, if needed, at the Canadian Open in two weeks. There's also Open qualifying in between. Remember, this is the guy who played 10 straight weeks at the beginning of the year.
Scottie Scheffler
It sounds almost silly to say the No. 1 golfer in the world has a problem. But Scheffler has a putting problem. He could've won the PGA Championship but ranked 34th in SG: Putting. At Colonial, where he tied for third, one shot out of the playoff, he ranked first in both SG: Off-the-Tee and Tee-to-Green, and fourth in Approach – and 71st in Putting. On at least one hole on Sunday, Scheffler solved his putting issues: He had a hole-in-one on the 189-yard No. 8.
Harry Hall
The 26-year-old Englishman, UNLV alum and Tour rookie came as close to a wire-to-wire win as possible: 71 holes. After opening with a 62 on Thursday, Hall hung around until bogeying the 18th hole on Sunday to agonizingly end up one shot out of the playoff. He led the field in SG: Putting but that's hardly a surprise – he's ranked fifth on the season, no small task for a Tour rookie.
Paul Haley II
Haley is 35 and, before this season, last played on the PGA Tour when he was 25. That's right, 10 years in between tournaments. He hasn't been great, missing half his 20 cuts, including five in a row heading into Colonial. But the Dallas native tied for fifth in his hometown tournament, moving him to 118th in the FedExCup standings and assuring him a spot in the Canadian Open in two weeks (he probably would've gotten in anyway).
Rickie Fowler
Fowler's excellent play continued with a tie for sixth. Imagine if he could've made a putt. He ranked 41st in the field in SG: Putting, to go along with fifth in Tee-to-Green and first in Around-the-Green. It was Fowler's fifth top-10 and 11th top-25 in a season in which he's missed only two cuts. He moved up to 46th in the world.
Sam Burns
The defending champion was never in the mix to win but hung around all week and tied for sixth. Burns ranked second in the field in SG: Tee-to-Green and 48th in Putting, a far cry from his greensmanship last year (yes, we know that's not a word). Burns remains one of the hardest guys for us to handicap, having so many good weeks but quite a few bad ones, too. He had missed two cuts in a row, including at the PGA, before Colonial.
Michael Kim
Kim opened 2022-23 with five straight missed cuts. He's had only four more since in 16 starts. Kim tied for sixth at Colonial, adding to his T11 at Pebble, solo fifth at Puerto Rico and solo seventh at the Wells Fargo, a designated event. Kim is now 79th in the FedEx and having a very good 2023 portion of the season.
Max Homa
A week after another dud at a major, Homa, tied for 12th at the Charles Schwab. Wake us when he makes some noise at a major. Homa will take this week off and not play the Memorial.
Justin Rose
Nearly 43-year-old professional golfers are supposed to get tired. But apparently not Rose. A week after a top-10 at the PGA Championship, he tied for 12th at Colonial to move up to 28th in the world rankings. Well, maybe Rose is tired now – he's skipping the Memorial.
Harris English
English had the worst round of the day among the leaders, a 76, falling to a tie for 12th. Ranked seventh in the field in SG: Tee-to-Green for the week, English ranked 62nd on Sunday. It sounds like he just ran out of gas.
Viktor Hovland
Hovland started out Sunday contending for a title. By dusk, he was tied for 16th. He played the last five holes in 5-over with three bogeys and double to just fall off the map, or at least the first page of the leaderboard. Hovland had been grinding ever since the beginning of the PGA Championship, so maybe tiredness set in. He wound up 42nd in SG: Around-the-Green, a stat we'll always be watching for Hovland.
Ryan Fox
Now with Special Temporary Membership, the big-hitting New Zealander showed he can play on a shorter track. While ranking sixth in driving distance, Fox also was 26th in Putting and tied for 21st.
Ben Martin
Martin stood at T4 two holes into Sunday. He had birdied them both. He proceeded to triple the third, then tack on three more doubles the rest of the way en route to a 79 and a total collapse to 57th place.
MISSED CUTS
Some of the big names: Denny McCarthy, Cam Davis, Tony Finau, Sungjae Im, Tommy Fleetwood, Lucas Herbert, Taylor Moore, Jordan Spieth, Chris Kirk and Ryan Palmer. The biggest surprise was Spieth, who has won here and finished second twice. There was one other name of note who missed the cut:
Michael Block
The darling of the PGA Championship came back to Earth. He finished last in the 120-man field by three shots at 15-over. Not to knock on Block, who has been a wonderful story and seemingly a good, humble guy, but there's a reason no one had ever heard of the 46-year-old club pro before last week – because he's a 46-year-old club pro. But Block is not going away, just taking a week off. He'll use another sponsor invite to play the Canadian Open in two weeks. We could also see him earlier that week in U.S. Open qualifying.
