NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. – The final round of the PGA Championship is shaping up to be a doozy. There are 30 players within five shots of the lead, which could create an endless number of permutations for the leaderboard come Sunday afternoon.

It’s almost dizzying trying to figure out where everyone stands and who could be lifting the Wanamaker Trophy after the last 18 holes. We’d be here all night if the goal was to try and identify that list. Instead, let’s ponder the question: who needs this PGA Championship most?

Here are five players with the most at stake.

1. Alex Smalley

Let’s start with the obvious. Sunday could change Alex Smalley's life. The 29-year-old has operated in relative anonymity on the periphery of the PGA TOUR the last four seasons. He’s been solid enough to keep his card and contend a few times, but he’s never won. More importantly, he’s never come close to the spotlight that will shine on him Sunday at Aronimink Golf Club.

History doesn’t forget major champions, and Smalley has a two-stroke lead and 18 holes to play to try and etch his name on one of the biggest four trophies in golf. That’s a level of pressure and opportunity that’s hard to come by.

“Anybody who wants to play golf for a living dreams of winning on the PGA TOUR when they're younger. I recognize that I have an opportunity to do that tomorrow,” Smalley said. “I recognize that it's on a stage that's a little bit larger than most other TOUR events. I'm trying to downplay that as much as I possibly can just to make it seem like any other golf tournament, because essentially that's all it really is.”

It would be an amazing story. On Friday, Smalley revealed he still struggles with confidence when playing in front of big crowds. He won’t be able to avoid any eyes on Sunday. They will all be trained on him.

2. Justin Rose

Justin Rose is on an incredible run of major championship performances, but with each passing contention that slips through his fingers, it becomes harder to picture the next one.

That’s not from anything Rose has done. He’s a Renaissance man. It’s just simple math and history. The track record of golfers regularly contending at majors into their late 40s and 50s is small. And Rose, soon to be 46 years old, has fended off his age in an incredibly admirable fashion. He takes care of his body better than any TOUR player. He has the utmost confidence he can still win. Yet it’s also true that if he does win, he will be a statistical outlier.

That fact is motivating for Rose, who enjoys achieving what you don’t think he can. Enter Sunday at Aronimink. This is a course Rose knows better than anybody. He won here back in 2010 when it hosted a PGA TOUR event. He finished runner-up when the TOUR returned in 2018. He’s one of two players in the field to play in every modern men’s event contested at this venue. He’s even won a U.S. Open down the street at Merion Golf Club.

Simply, this is a great chance. Rose sits four strokes back of Smalley but only two behind the bevy of players tied for second at 4-under.

It will take a historic performance to climb out of the deficit. But then again, history is the only thing motivating Rose at this point.

3. Rory McIlroy

With every successive major Rory McIlroy picks off, he gains meaningful ground in a conversation of the best to ever play the sport. He remains a long way off from the titans that define that debate, but the only way to get closer to them is to win more majors, and McIlroy has a great shot to win No. 7 on Sunday.

McIlroy flew up the leaderboard with an early 66 before the conditions worsened. Then he sat in the clubhouse at 3-under and watched as nobody pulled too far away. Yes, Smalley established a three-stroke cushion, but McIlroy will back himself – the grand slam winner – over the unproven 29-year-old American.

“I feel like I still did enough to think I have a chance going into tomorrow,” he said.

A win would start a whole new conversation entirely, one we haven’t had since Jordan Spieth in 2015. That’s the last time a player won the first two majors of the season. Suddenly, the talk of winning all four majors in the same year doesn’t sound so crazy. Want to find a way to fast-track McIlroy onto the Mount Rushmore of professional golfers. That’s the way to do it.

4. Ludvig Åberg

Ludvig Åberg has reached the stage of his career where there are more memories of his Sunday struggles than his triumphs. He has a chance to end that narrative at Aronimink.

Åberg once again enters the final round of a crucial tournament with a great chance to win. He shot a steady 2-under 68 on Saturday to jump to 4-under, two back of Smalley. In a crowded group of players searching for their first major, Åberg is the most notable. He carries far more expectations than Matt Schmid, Aaron Rai, Nick Taylor or Smalley.

His talent is on par with recent major champions. He’s had plenty of experience in the spotlight, multiple times at the Masters and again at THE PLAYERS Championship. His issues closing out the latter earlier this year started to illuminate the scar tissue that was growing.

So what would a win on Sunday mean? It would shutter all those conversations. It would push him past numerous high-profile Europeans still looking for a major No. 1 – Viktor Hovland and Tommy Fleetwood, to name a few. And it would validate all the promise that’s easy to see in the 26-year-old Swede.

5. Xander Schauffele

When Xander Schauffele won his second major at The Open Championship in the summer of 2024, there was only one golfer you could credibly argue was better than him: Scottie Scheffler.

In the intervening 20 months, Schauffele has fallen off that pedestal. He’s still a great player, a fringe top-10 player. But the distance from that to the space that Scheffler and McIlroy occupy at the top of the sport is wide.

Schauffele can close that gap on Sunday and remind the world of his talent. Those are the stakes for Schauffele, who bounced back from a second-round 73 to shoot 66 on Saturday and jump into the laundry list of players at 3-under, two strokes back. He will play alongside McIlroy in the fourth-to-last group on Sunday afternoon.