LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (AFP) — Top-ranked Scottie Scheffler, with four wins and a runner-up effort in his past five starts, is the clear favorite for next week’s 106th PGA Championship at Valhalla.

But the 27-year-old American star has taken two weeks off ahead of the major showdown at Louisville, Kentucky, for a life-changing event away from golf — his wife Meredith soon to give birth to their first child.

Scheffler captured his second Masters green jacket in three seasons last month then became the first player since 1985 to follow up the next week by winning the Heritage tournament.

Scheffler won at Bay Hill and The Players Championship in March then lost in a Houston Open playoff before taking his two April titles.

“I do have fairly high expectations for myself,” Scheffler said. “I’ve been putting in the work and been playing some good golf and it’s nice to be seeing some results for that with wins.”

“When things aren’t going the way I feel like they should, it can be very frustrating.”

Scheffler, who has until Tuesday afternoon to commit or withdraw from the Valhalla showdown, is the oddsmakers’ fancy at the PGA with Spain’s Jon Rahm and four-time major winner Rory McIlroy just behind.

They are followed by defending champion Brooks Koepka and Sweden’s Ludvig Aberg, who skipped the final PGA Tour tuneup with a sore knee after finishing second at the Masters in his major debut.

US star Jordan Spieth will make his eighth attempt to complete a career Grand Slam by winning the PGA Championship.

Spieth, whose last PGA Tour victory was at the 2022 Heritage, has been nagged by a left wrist injury suffered just before last year’s PGA Championship, calling it a “come and go thing.”

The three-time major champion missed the cut in four of his past six starts, including the Masters.

Valhalla hosts its fourth PGA Championship with the others won by Mark Brooks in 1996, Tiger Woods in 2000 and McIlroy in 2014.