For us golf fans, Sunday at a major championship is like Christmas morning. It is different than all other Sundays, there are only four a year and they carry a different type of nervous energy. The air feels thicker, the tension seems more palpable and the desperation for a photo finish down the back-nine to the 72nd hole of the tournament is like a thirst dying to be quenched. All of this has been plated for us in the 108th playing of the PGA Championship at Aronimink GC in Philadelphia which will host its final round today.
The PGA Championship, through no fault of its own, has often been viewed by spectators and golf junkies as the forgotten major, the black sheep of majors if you will. It lies second on the major schedule coming weeks after The Masters, arguably golf’s most prestigious major. It precedes the U.S. Open which carries a certain level of importance to the game of golf because of its inclusivity. Inclusivity in the respect that any amateur player, regardless of age, stature or skill, can earn a spot through qualifying tournaments across the country. And, of course, the Open Championship (a.k.a. the British Open) which is golfs oldest continuously running championship and is often held at Scotland, the birthplace of golf.
Each major has its own personality and character. The Masters is known for its commitment to perfection for both player and patron. Held at Augusta National Golf Club each year, it is the only major that never changes venue, never bends a knee to outside pressures and never has a blade of grass out of order. It is, for all intents and purposes, the closest thing to golfing perfection you will find. The U.S. Open is touted for being the toughest tournament to win simply due to its ferocious conditions. Often at the U.S. Open, you can stand in the rough and drop a ball, and it will disappear before your very eyes like a David Blaine magic trick. You can also stand on certain spots of almost any green and drop said ball, and it will scurry away from you like a scared rodent trying to flee from a predator. It makes the best players on the planet look like average joes for four straight days. The Open Championship is played on a completely different style of golf course referred to as ‘links style’. This style of course sees long structure with open fairways accented by a smattering of deep bunkers that sheep used to take cover in back in the early 1800’s. At The Open, players also have to deal with rapidly changing weather from gusting wind to punishing and pelting rain. It will produce a completely separate style of play. Which brings us to the PGA Championship.
This week’s major is a bit of a mix of all listed prior. You can almost go through the three other majors and pick out certain characteristics and it will produce you a PGA Championship venue. For example, at this weeks hosting course Aronimink, players are met with treacherous rough paired with a smattering of bunkers around greens and situated periodically up fairways like black keys on a piano. The greens are also a quandary to manage with their speedy look yet slower pace. The greens themselves make players brains malfunction because they are seeing one thing but playing another. It has been a bundle of obstacles that players have struggled with, but has produced what promises to be a cinematic final round today.
This week has been full of storylines, one of which generated from the young South African, Gerrick Higgo. Higgo was about one minute late to his Thursday tee-time which in turn earned him a two-stroke penalty. He played the opening par 4 hole in four strokes, but carded a six because of his tardiness. To his credit, he was able to fire a -3, 67 that would go into the system as a -1 69, putting him in the heart of contention. His counter to the PGA official’s penalty was, “Obviously I was on time, but I was late”, leaving us all a bit confused. Had Higgo been able to make his 7:18 AM ET tee-time, he would have played the weekend and earned himself a nice paycheck. However, the two-stroke penalty and a 76 on Friday all culminated to a tournament score of 145 (+5) for Higgo, missing the cut which was set at +4. Kids, it pays to be on time.
Another major story line was how the soon to be former LIV Tour players would perform back on the PGA circuit. LIV golfers have been denied the opportunity to rejoin the PGA Tour unless they meet a certain set of requirements set by the tour, which only a handful do. The reason there are multiple LIV players competing this weekend is because they meet the established qualifications, including world ranking positions, past major wins, and specific exemptions created by the major organizers. One of LIVs biggest stars is YouTube golf creator Bryson DeChambeau.
DeChambeau has drawn an immense amount of criticism for his on-course follies which include a viral collision with a rope that, by his reaction, almost ended his career (NSFW: The video contains explicit language and DeChambeau’s version of devastating injury). DeChambeau has also been in clashes with the media after playing poorly, like he exhibited in an interview after a poor round at The Masters. In front of the cameras, DeChambeau (for the most part) plays the role of happy-go-lucky guy who wants everyone to be his friend. Behind the scenes there are a plethora of stories that convey DeChambeau as rude and arrogant.
DeChambeau was maybe LIVs biggest pull because of his brash style, massive YouTube presence and feuding rivalry with some other professional players like Rory McIlroy and Brooks Koepka. He certainly rubbed the PGA Tour the wrong way, which may explain why DeChambeau’s disastrous Thursday round saw as much airtime as the leaders of the tournament did. It almost felt like DeChambeau was being taught a lesson and his punishment was public shaming as ESPN continued to air poor shot after poor shot from the big hitter. Bryson missed the cut and shot a +7, though his score nearly got to double digits at one point.
Maybe the biggest story from the week into the weekend has been the pin placements set by PGA officials. On Friday especially, pins were placed on edges of greens guarded by bunkers, on spines of greens where a ball could roll either way, and on certain greens where if you miss it one yard long or one yard short you would be off the green either way. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler was asked about the pin placements and made some jarring statements that you don’t often hear from the light-hearted sniper, “Most of the pins today were kind of absurd, I was a bit surprised how far they pushed a lot of these pin locations.” One pin in particular that Scheffler was a bit peeved with was the 215-yard par 3 14th, “That was one of the craziest pins I’ve seen, they put the pin on like this microphone, like it was just like a high point. I hadn’t seen anything like it.” Scheffler admitted he asked one of the most seasoned caddies on tour in Mark “Fooch” Fulcher who totes Justin Rose’s bag if he had seen anything like it. Fulcher said he saw only one other tournament with pins as diabolical as these, and that was the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills back in 2018 when Brooks Koepka won with a score of +1.
Say what you will about the difficulty of Aronimink for this championship, but it has certainly delivered us one of the most thrilling and loaded leaderboards for a final round at a major in recent memory. When you look at the leaderboard through 54 holes, while it isn’t exactly infiltrated with the most notable names at the top, you see a lot of the same numbers which has golf fans licking their chops. At the top is a guy by the name of Alex Smalley. Smalley was in the final group after taking the overnight lead into the third round. Smalley has only a small sample size of major championship golf with his best finish in one of the four was a T-23 in 2023’s PGA Championship. Not exactly a major ringer leading the pack. Smalley sits two-strokes ahead of a small army of players under par. A half-dozen of which sit at -4 with another 15 players at either two or three under. Add another eight players at -1, to say the leaderboard is congested would be an understatement.
A two-stroke lead in this major championship for Smalley feels like a two-touchdown lead in a football game. However, for Smalley that lead certainly doesn’t feel as big as it might look. The course has surrendered a fair share of birdies but has stood tall handing out a lot more bogeys. Strokes are coming at a premium at Aronimink with both sides of the golf course playing hundreds of strokes over par for the players. For a guy like Smalley with an ample amount of major championship experience and never having led one before, this lead does not exactly feel safe. Especially with some of the names he is looking at in his rearview mirror. 97 of the top 100 players in the world are playing in this tournament. Within striking distance are names like John Rahm and Ludvig Aberg who are two strokes back. Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele and Patrick Reed three strokes behind. Scottie Scheffler, Rickie Fowler, Brooks Koepka, Hideki Matsuyama and Sam Burns are all knocking on the door. This tournament is far from over.
The final round will be a test of talent, skill, but mostly patience. You will be seeing a slow day of golf due to the course design, it is not conducive to professional tournament play with the way some of the holes almost intertwine. This just means we will be able to enjoy what should be a cinematic major finish. With the early groups going out, here’s what the midday and afternoon tee times comprised of the contenders look like. Today, Kurt Kitayama is in the midst of a tournament best round at -6 as this is released, so you know some of the guys are watching success be had and feel good about attacking the course today.
Midday (11:00 a.m.–12:55 p.m.)
- 11:05 a.m. – Si Woo Kim, Cameron Young
- 11:15 a.m. – Andrew Putnam, Andrew Novak
- 11:25 a.m. – Dustin Johnson, Daniel Hillier
- 11:35 a.m. – Padraig Harrington, Tom Hoge
- 11:45 a.m. – Nicolai Højgaard, Michael Kim
Afternoon (12:05 p.m.–2:35 p.m.)
- 12:05 p.m. – Scottie Scheffler, David Puig
- 12:15 p.m. – Rickie Fowler, Harris English
- 12:25 p.m. – Sam Burns, Brooks Koepka
- 12:35 p.m. – Brian Harman, Mikael Lindberg
- 12:45 p.m. – Hideki Matsuyama, Chris Gotterup
- 12:55 p.m. – Min Woo Lee, Max Greyserman
- 1:05 p.m. – Ben Griffin, Cameron Smith
- 1:15 p.m. – Martin Kaymer, Bud Cauley
- 1:25 p.m. – Justin Rose, Joaquin Niemann
- 1:35 p.m. – Kristoffer Reitan, Chris Kirk
- 1:55 p.m. – Patrick Reed, Maverick McNealy
- 2:05 p.m. – Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele
- 2:15 p.m. – Aaron Rai, Ludvig Åberg
- 2:25 p.m. – Nick Taylor, Matti Schmid
Final Pairing (2:35 p.m.)
- Alex Smalley, Matti Schmid
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