Key events
Jhonattan Vegas’s round is beginning to take a similar shape to yesterday’s. He started that one in skittish fashion, only to pull himself together as the round went on, and the same appears to be happening today. Having steadied the ship after those two opening bogeys with a run of four pars, he’s now found the back of the par-five 8th in two. A chip and a putt, and the Venezuelan veteran has a share of the lead again! Birdie too for his playing partner Matthieu Pavon, who repairs the damage of the previous hole.
-7: Kim (7), Scheffler (7), Vegas (7)
-6: DeChambeau (11), Fox (8), Pavon (7)
-5: Rahm (14), Hisatsune (12), Riley (12), Poston (9), Fitzpatrick (7)
A huge break for Scottie Scheffler at 8. Possibly a little bit het-up at having to wait so long on the tee, he carves a hysterical drive into the woods to the right of the hole. That ball’s surely a goner … but it connects flush with a thick branch, and rebounds back into play, sitting up nicely in the apron! Yes, yes, the more you practice, the luckier you get, but there are limits.
Jon Rahm becomes the latest to go close with his tee shot at the short par-four 14th. From 305 yards to nine feet. The eagle putt that remains has a gentle left-to-right drift, but he gets a tad too aggressive and plays through the break. A tap-in for birdie isn’t to be sniffed at, though. He’s -5 again.
A lot of hanging around. It’s gonna be a slow one.
Ryo Hisatsune overhits a chip from the back of 11 and doesn’t get particularly close with the one coming back. He does well to roll in the five-foot bogey putt that remains, limiting the damage. He drops back to -5. Meanwhile back on 7, Scottie Scheffler underhits his eagle putt, leaving eight-feet’s worth of work. But he rolls in what remains with steely determination, and the world number one takes a position to match.
-7: Kim (7), Scheffler (7)
-6: DeChambeau (10), Vegas (6)
-5: Hisatsune (11), Noren (11), Riley (11), Poston (8), Fox (7), Fitzpatrick (6), Pavon (6)
Plenty of players in the field can’t reach the par-five 10th in two. Bryson DeChambeau flies the green with his second. He then swishes a soft-hands lob to six feet, only to pull the birdie putt. That’d have given him a share of the lead. As it is, it’s Scottie Scheffler who now has that in his sights, having lashed a 5-wood into the heart of 7, setting up an eagle putt from the best part of 65 feet.
Play is slower than it would have been with the normal two-ball format. But the weather came in this morning, and here we are with three-balls. And so the final group are having to do quite a lot of hanging around. As a result, momentum isn’t with them, and the quality is suffering slightly. None of Jhonattan Vegas, Matt Fitzpatrick or Matthieu Pavon are able to find the green at the long par-three 6th; the first two manage street-fighting up and downs to save their pars, but Pavon leaves his putt from the bottom of a bank at the back well short, and drops his first stroke of the day. Like Fitzpatrick earlier, he drops out of the second-placed group and into the bunch at -5.
… although having said that, and to be scrupulously fair, Rory then nearly chips in from the apron with his second ball. It would have been a second-ball eagle and an actual par, but that’s a bogey on a hole these pros expect to make birdie every time. Having effectively handed two shots to the field, McIlroy slips back to +1 and now he’s off for a trot around the Green Mile.
Rory McIlroy’s driver has been misbehaving all week. Now he flays a wild drive at the par-five 15th out of bounds down the right. If anyone was still harbouring hopes of his completing a calendar slam, it’s probably finally time to turn them in.
Maverick McNealy’s glorious run – three birdies and an eagle in five holes – comes to an unlucky end at the par-three 17th. His tee shot isn’t all that, disappearing down the swale to the right of the green, but he chips up from 56 feet to eight, and looks for all the world like he’s made the par saver. But his ball somehow performs a gravity-defying journey around the lip and teeters at the back, stubbornly refusing to drop. That’s a shame. He looks genuinely stunned, and no wonder. He slips back on this very crowded leaderboard. The one bright point for McNealy: unlike everyone else on it, he’s got two-thirds of the Green Mile out of the way.
-7: Kim (5)
-6: Hisatsune (9), DeChambeau (9), Scheffler (5), Pavon (5), Vegas (5)
-5: Finau (10), Noren (9), Fitzpatrick (5)
-4: Rahm (11), Highsmith (10), Riley (9), McNealy (8*), Poston (6), Fox (6), Homa (5)
Ryo Hisatsune nervelessly rattles in a 12-foot par saver on 9, and turns in 32. The 22-year-old from Japan already has the French Open on his CV, plus a top-20 finish at last year’s PGA Championship. Don’t rule him out for an early breakthrough into the big-time. He’s one off the lead at -6. Meanwhile Jon Rahm ends up with bogey on 11 after that spectator-bothering approach. He’s back to -4. And a first birdie of the day for Rory McIlroy, at the generous par-four 14th; he moves to level par for the tournament.
Some big birdies here. Bryson DeChambeau follows up his birdie at 7 with another at 8. Scottie Scheffler cards another at 5. Most spectacularly, Maverick McNealy holes out from a greenside bunker at 16, starting the treacherous Green Mile in style! But Matt Fitzpatrick drops his first shot of the day, the result of under-hitting his tee shot at 4, and being unable to get up and down from the swale.
Ow. Jon Rahm, from the centre of 11, yanks an awful approach towards the gallery by the left of the green. His ball clatters hard into some poor chap sitting behind the rope. The impact makes a proper TOK and the ball deflects dramatically back towards the green and off the other side at pace. Ugh. Thankfully, it looks on second viewing that the gentleman turned away just in time – Rahm did clearly shout fore, just to be fair – and the ball hit his shoulder as opposed to his head. That’ll still hurt, but it looks like the chap is made of strong stuff. He’s smiling, if smarting. Thank the golfing gods for that close shave. That could have been nasty.
Ryo Hisatsune and Alex Noren are feeding off each other’s momentum. Both men have just birdied 7 and 8, to move to -6 and -5 respectively. Meanwhile birdie for Jon Rahm at 10, and suddenly the big man is on everyone’s shoulder at -5. And in further Big Man On Shoulder news, Bryson DeChambeau birdies 7 to join Rahm at -5. He came close to leapfrogging him on the leaderboard, in fact, nearly chipping in from a bank to the left of the green. But birdie is always welcome. This leaderboard, which looked bang-average midway through the second round, is suddenly jam-packed with delicious star-name goodness.
-7: Kim (4)
-6: Hisatsune (8), Pavon (3), Fitzpatrick (3), Vegas (3)
-5: Rahm (10), Finau (9), Noren (8), DeChambeau (7), Scheffler (4)
Kim Si-woo doesn’t have a top-ten finish in any of the majors. But the 29-year-old from Seoul has four wins on the PGA Tour, the most prestigious of all the unofficial fifth major, the Players Championship, of which he became the youngest-ever winner at the age of 21 in 2017. He’s got the game. Currently unflappable, he splits the fairway at 5.
Scottie Scheffler nearly joins this week’s hole-in-one club at the 177-yard par-three 4th. A gentle fade, a couple of bounces, a tap-in for birdie. Kim Si-woo, whose tee shot to five feet had previously looked magnificent but has now been downgraded to highly decent by comparison, nevertheless cleans up for his birdie and grabs full ownership of the lead! Meanwhile Matt Fitzpatrick and Matthieu Pavon get up and down from either side of 3 for their pars. Maverick McNealy backs up his eagle at 14 with birdie on 15. That’s four under in four holes, and this leaderboard is now in full Concertina Mode.
-7: Kim (4)
-6: Pavon (3), Fitzpatrick (3), Vegas (3)
-5: Finau (8), Hisatsune (7), Scheffler (4)
-4: Rahm (9), Noren (7), DeChambeau (6), McNealy (6*), Poston (5), Fox (4), Thorbjornsen (4), Homa (4)
The wind is picking up, and the players are beginning to suffer. Matt Fitzpatrick sends his approach at 3 wide left; Matthieu Pavon into a bunker on the right. Ryan Fox allows himself to be buffeted around on the 5th green and misses a tiddler for par. He drops back to -4. All that early talk of a possible low score may have been wide of the mark. Having said that, Ryo Hisatsune is doing as well as anyone out on the course, two under for his round now with birdies at 4 and 7; he’s -5. See also Tony Finau, whose back-to-back birdies at 7 and 8 take him up to -5 as well.
Jhonattan Vegas wasn’t 80 yards out on 2; he was just 58. Yet he still doesn’t find the green with his wedge. That’s a dismal mistake, and his putt up from the fringe never looks like dropping. A bogey-bogey start, and there goes that lead. He was four clear three holes ago. Meanwhile Jon Rahm hits the turn in 33. The two-time major winner is right in this. Here, should he win this week, he’ll have a chance of joining Rory et al in the career-slam club at Portrush. But we’re getting a wee bit ahead of ourselves here.
-6: Kim (2), Pavon (2), Fitzpatrick (2), Vegas (2)
-5: Fox (3)
-4: Rahm (9), Finau (7), Hisatsune (6), DeChambeau (6), Stevens (4), Poston (4), Thorbjornsen (3), Scheffler (2), Homa (2)
Now then, Dame Laura Davies and Henni Zuël know of what they speak. Because now Maverick McNealy goes even closer than Nico Echavarria with his tee shot on the short par-four 14th. His effort ends up two feet and five inches away from the hole, which is soon filled with the ball for eagle. The 29-year-old McNealy is beginning to come good on the promise flagged early in his career, with a couple of decent showings at last year’s PGA and this year’s Masters, plus his first PGA Tour win coming last November at the RSM Classic. He’s -3 through five of his holes today, and properly involved in this championship now.
More trouble for Jhonattan Vegas. The leader started nervously yesterday, but got away with some early scrappy play, before hitting some form. He’s begun in skittish form again here, and now clatters his drive into trees down the left of 2. He’s got no option but to take his medicine and chip back out into the fairway. Unless he gets up and down from 80 yards, the leader will find himself hauled back into the pack in the shortest of orders.
Max Homa nearly aced the driveable par-four 14th yesterday. Now it’s Nico Echavarria’s turn. It’s playing at 305 yards today (as opposed to yesterday’s 341) and the 30-year-old Colombian creams his tee shot to three feet and nine inches (as opposed to Homa’s one foot and nine inches). In goes the eagle putt, and Echavarria is level par now for his tournament. On Sky, both Dame Laura Davies and Henni Zuël raise the possibility of a hole-in-one here today. Given Si-woo Kim’s antics on 6 yesterday, and indeed at Troon last year, he may just be our man.
Jhonattan Vegas finds a route from out of the trees down the right of 1. He just about manages to reach the edge of the green, but his ball stops on the lip of the bunker front-left, and he’s got next to no stance, balancing on tippy-toes when he tries to chip close. He doesn’t chip close, leaving it a good 25 feet short. He gives the long par putt a good chance to drop, but it breaks left just before the hole and rolls three feet past. He makes the one coming back, but that’s a bogey, and after the double on 18 yesterday afternoon, that’s a four-shot lead reduced to one in the blink of an eye.
-7: Vegas (1)
-6: Kim (1), Pavon (1), Fitzpatrick (1)
-5: Poston (2), Thorbjornsen (2)
-4: Bradley (8), Rahm (7), Hisatsune (5), Noren (5), DeChambeau (5), Higgo (4), Stevens (3), Fox (2), Scheffler (1), Homa (1)
Neither Scheffler nor McIlroy get close with their symmetrical chips at 1 and 10. Scheffler seriously underhits the uphill 20-foot putt he leaves himself, and that’s an opening bogey. His playing partner Max Homa drops a stroke too, the punishment for finding greenside sand. The third member of the group, Kim Si-woo, makes a sandy par save though. Over at 10, McIlroy nearly holes a chip from the fringe, but has to make do with par. He’s given his partner Xander Schauffele a read for opening birdie, though; the defending champ moves to level par.
-8: Vegas
-6: Kim (1), Pavon, Fitzpatrick
-5: Poston (2)
-4: Noren (5), DeChambeau (4), Higgo (3), Stevens (2), Fox (1), Thorbjornsen (1), Scheffler (1), Homa (1)
The leader Jhonattan Vegas takes to the tee. It’ll be understandable if he’s feeling the pressure, looking to become the first Venezuelan to win a major, and only the sixth player ever to win the PGA wire to wire. (Brooks Koepka was the last, in 2019.) He slices his opening drive into the trees down the right. His playing partners Matt Fitzpatrick and Matthieu Pavon find the short stuff.
… so having given Scottie Scheffler the grandstand introduction, he double-crosses himself and sends his approach at 1 towards the gallery to the left of the green. He’ll have a hell of a chip from there, from thick rough over sand. A pleasing symmetry to this.
… so having given Rory McIlroy the grandstand introduction, he carves his second at 10 towards the gallery to the right of the green. He’ll have a hell of a chip from there, from thick rough over sand. Meanwhile his playing partner, the defending champion Xander Schauffele, leaves his approach short and right, and immediately hollers “Mud ball!” Ah yes, mud balls …
By contrast, the world number one Scottie Scheffler is teeing off late on merit. He’s now the tournament favourite, and if he keeps striping them down the middle like he’s just done at the 1st, he’ll take some beating. He’s not even had his best stuff here this week; in fact he was strangely out of sorts for the first few holes on Thursday, hitting a series of weird clunkers, before snapping back into focus. And yet look where he is: -5, just three off the lead. Any sort of early surge from the big Texan could – nah, will – send shockwaves through the entire field.
Rory McIlroy takes to the tee, late on day three. Normally that’d mean he’s right in contention, but it’s the vagaries of the last-minute split-tee rejig that’s got him here. He only just crept under the cut line at +1, nine off the lead. Having said all that, a super-low number around here today – and he holds the course record here, shooting 61 en route to winning the Wells Fargo in 2015 – so nothing is out of his reach quite yet. And he crashes his first drive, at 10, down the right-hand side of the fairway. It’s on? Probably not. But then again, it’s Rory, so it’s not yet off.
Some short-game magic on display here. Ryo Hisatsune shortsides himself in a greenside bunker at 4, but elegantly holes out for birdie to move to -4. Meanwhile back on 3, Bryson DeChambeau wangs a wild tee shot over the trees on the left and onto the 4th hole, then sends his second back over those trees and behind the green, down a bank into thick grass. But he opens the face of his club and lobs smoothly onto the fringe, rolling out to six feet. He mops up for par, and that’s a big save. He remains -4.
Without things ever getting out of hand in the regular-Tour-event style, we’ve had some impressive low scoring this week. Jhonattan Vegas, Max Homa and the aforementioned Kim Si-woo have posted 64s, Matthieu Pavon carded a 65, Cam Davis shot 66. Keep it on the fairway, and Quail Hollow is there for the taking. That might be doubly true today, because after the morning rain, the rough may be lusher, but the greens will be a tad softer and more receptive. So there’s a score out there for someone to make their titular advance on Moving Day. Having said that, the wind is expected to get up as the day goes on, so nothing’s ever simple.
Birdie for Eric Cole at 3; he moves to -3. Cole made one of the two aces we’ve had here at Quail Hollow this week, at the 4th on Thursday. That was real fine, but nevertheless pales in comparison to the one recorded by Kim Si-woo last night at the 252-yard 6th. A low power-fade with 5-wood into the front of the green, the ball rolling out on an inexorable journey into the cup. Off down the track he went at pace, and with feeling, in the club-flinging style. A magical moment. It was the longest hole-in-one in major-championship history, beating the record set by … Kim Si-woo, who aced the 238-yard 17th at Troon in the Open last year! Man sure likes a long par-three.
A couple of potentially significant early moves. Jon Rahm, who has been woefully out of sorts in the majors since defecting to LIV, but is finally looking his old self this week, has birdied 1 and 3 to move to -4. He’s joined there by Bryson DeChambeau, whose major-championship form, by contrast, has arguably been boosted since his move to LIV. He guides in a 30-foot right-to-left swinger up 1 for birdie, and to get off to a flier.
-8: Vegas
-6: Pavon, Fitzpatrick, Kim
-5: Homa, Scheffler
-4: Rahm (4), DeChambeau (1), Thorbjornsen, Bezuidenhout, Fox, Smalley, Poston, MacIntyre, Stevens, McCarthy, Gerard
The start of today’s play was delayed by thunderstorms, and so the tee times were put back by three-and-a-half hours, and switched from two-balls to three-balls on split tees. Had that not happened, the pre-tournament favourite Rory McIlroy and the defending champion Xander Schauffele, both of whom squeaked under the cut line last night, would be finishing up right about now. But now, due to the vagaries of the split-tee system, they’re not teeing it up until 6.38pm BST, so this blog will have some BONUS HOT RORY ACTION that it otherwise would have missed out on. Yay! Yay? We’ll see, he’s been up and down this week and no mistake. He’s probably too far off the pace anyway, but he’s come back from seemingly impossible situations at Quail Hollow before, so let’s write nothing off just yet. It is Moving Day, after all.
Preamble
Welcome to Moving Day at the 107th PGA Championship! After 36 holes, the top of the leaderboard looked like this …
-8: Jhonattan Vegas
-6: Matthieu Pavon, Matt Fitzpatrick, Kim Si-woo
-5: Max Homa, Scottie Scheffler
-4: Michael Thorbjornsen, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Ryan Fox, Alex Smalley, JT Poston, Robert MacIntyre, Sam Stevens, Denny McCarthy, Ryan Gerard
-3: JJ Spaun, Aaron Rai, Taylor Pendrith, Bryson DeChambeau, Richard Bland, Davis Riley, Alex Noren, Ryo Hisatsune, Tony Finau, Ben Griffin
… while these (selected) big names missed the cut …
Akshay Bhatia, Shane Lowry, Sepp Straka, Padraig Harrington, Jordan Spieth, Hideki Matsuyama, Ludvig Åberg, Justin Thomas, Min Woo Lee, Rickie Fowler, Jimmy Walker, Gary Woodland, Patrick Reed, Im Sung-jae, Patrick Cantlay, Jason Day, Will Zalatoris, Cameron Smith, Martin Kaymer, Shaun Micheel, Brooks Koepka. Justin Rose, Dustin Johnson, Jason Dufner, and all 20 of the PGA club professionals including the 2023 hole-in-one hero Michael Block
… and that left us with a tee sheet – revised from two-balls into three-balls off split tees, as a result of a three-hour weather delay – that looked like this (all times BST). It’s on!
Starting at hole 1
16.43 Joaquin Niemann, Tyrrell Hatton, Wyndham Clark
16.54 Keegan Bradley, Marco Penge, Lucas Glover
17.05 Viktor Hovland, Tommy Fleetwood, Jon Rahm
17.16 Cam Davis, Adam Scott, Joe Highsmith
17.27 Tony Finau, Ben Griffin, Eric Cole
17.38 Davis Riley, Alex Noren, Ryo Hisatsune
17.49 Taylor Pendrith, Bryson DeChambeau, Richard Bland
18.00 Garrick Higgo, JJ Spaun, Aaron Rai
18.11 Sam Stevens, Denny McCarthy, Ryan Gerard
18.22 Alex Smalley, JT Poston, Robert MacIntyre
18.33 Michael Thorbjornsen, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Ryan Fox
18.44 Si Woo Kim, Max Homa, Scottie Scheffler
18.55 Jhonattan Vegas, Matthieu Pavon, Matt Fitzpatrick
Starting at hole 10
16.48 Rafael Campos, Matt Wallace, Tom McKibbin
16.59 Beau Hossler, Corey Conners, Luke Donald
17.10 Nicolai Højgaard, Harry Hall, Austin Eckroat
17.21 Byeong Hun An, Collin Morikawa, Cameron Young
17.32 Daniel Berger, Brian Campbell, Taylor Moore
17.43 Nico Echavarria, Harris English, Stephan Jaeger
17.54 Rasmus Højgaard, Thorbjørn Olesen, Maverick McNealy
18.05 Justin Lower, Tom Kim, Sergio Garcia
18.16 Brian Harman, Elvis Smylie, Kevin Yu
18.27 David Puig, Bud Cauley, Michael Kim
18.38 Chris Kirk, Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele
18.49 Max Greyserman, Sam Burns
#PGA #Championship #golf #day #live #PGA
