The PGA Championship’s coming back to Valhalla & Louisville in 2024, per report

Exactly a decade after Rory’s finish in the dark, one of the PGA’s most reliably dramatic venues is back in the fold -- this time in May.

With the Kentucky Derby slated for the first weekend of the month, May’s kind of a big month in Louisville. Looks like those horses-for-courses might have to share the stage for another type a few years down the road.

Per a report from longtime WLKY sports reporter Fred Cowgill, the PGA Championship is set to return to Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky in 2024 pending a Thursday announcement from the governing body.

That would mean the course’s return to the major rota exactly 10 years after its last appearance — a wild & memorable finish at the 2014 PGA that had Rory McIlroy teeing off to beat darkness on the 72nd hole while a just-trailing Phil Mickelson stood below in the fairway. They didn’t really beat darkness, Rory won, and it’s still perhaps the most surreal finish of any big-time sporting event I’ve ever witnessed in person. Words can’t do it justice, so here, watch for yourself.

This is big (or, heck, at least notable) for a couple of reasons.

The PGA & USGA reveal future venues quite often, and we rarely seem to stop to notice when we’re outside the major season. This one’s still nothing massive — Valhalla’s a proven venue that draws big crowds and supplies classic moments like Tiger vs. Bob May in 2000, Boo Weekley galloping down the fairway at the 2008 Ryder Cup, and Rory’s win in the dark. But, it perhaps does tip the hand about the PGA’s thought process behind the schedule change from August to May -- and something many northern and Midwestern golf fans feared might not be coming to fruition.

Perhaps one of the biggest hurdles for the schedule change that saw the PGA Championship move to May? Uh, climatological patterns and agronomy. Without going full greenskeeper, it’s not exactly easy to get a golf course ready for major championship play by early May in the Midwest or Northeast — the area most of the recent PGA Championship’s venues reside. Some courses, like Oak Hill Country Club in the Rochester, New York, area in 2023, were already set to host when the change was made. It was a fair concern to wonder if the PGA would start to opt for more events in California or southern locations, which tends to be oversaturated with golf events compared to the areas the PGA had traditionally served.

That’s evidently not going to be a problem.

Oh, and another reason to look forward to 2024? Here’s a readymade storyline for you.

If we’re looking into the future, the 2024 PGA Championship would come a handful of days after the 30th birthday of current champion and reigning PGA Tour Player of the Year Justin Thomas. And, yes, probably as you’ve heard before — Thomas is a Louisville native who grew up just down the road from Valhalla. In a city so passionate about sports but not exactly overgrown with golf stars, this would be a home game by the likes we don’t often see in pro golf. It’ll be fun as hell.

If he keeps up his current pace, he might just get to celebrate his turn into the third decade of life at home -- while trying to run down another major title in his own backyard.