Predicting who will win this Sunday’s PGA Championship is not at all easy. The third day has left us with a very exciting finish on the green carpet of Valhalla. We have six players separated by only two strokes and in five we have fifteen. If a dividing line had to be drawn between those who have a chance of victory and those who do not, logic points to double digits. Anyone who is below ten under par seems too far away. Many strokes and many players ahead. Too many.
Collin Morikawa and Xander Schauffele with -15 lead the second Major of the year with 18 holes left. They have a one-stroke lead over Sahith Theegala (-14), two over Shane Lowry, Viktor Hovland and Bryson DeChambeau (-13), three over Justin Rose and Robert MacIntyre (-12), four over Dean Burmester (-11) and five over Justin Thomas, Lee Hodges, Harris English, Austin Eckorat, Tony Finau and Thomas Detry (-10). The mix is fantastic. There are Europeans, Americans, veterans, young people, winners of majors, hitters, iron virtuosos, Ryder men, LIV players, PGA Tour emblems… We have everything, ladies and gentlemen. More than a golf tournament, it seems like a botica.
And to all this we must add a course that has become a festival of birdies. This Saturday saw the second best third day in the history of the PGA Championship in terms of stroke average. Par was at 69.55, a record only surpassed by the 69.50 seen at Bellerive in 2018. Sunday’s conditions are not going to differ too much. Perhaps the greens will be a little harder, but not enough to significantly alter the course of events. So, the reasonable doubt is whether we will not see tomorrow a PGA Championship winner crowned with a card of 61 strokes, the best in the history of the Majors. It does not seem far-fetched. Lowry almost did it today.
If that happens, it is normal for it to be someone who comes from behind, one who knows that he has to look for birdies without looking in the rearview mirror, a Justin Thomas profile, fired up by playing at home, or Bryson DeChambeau, a player who has already shown that he can go under 60 strokes with his putter gets hot. In any case, you have to fly low this Sunday. The conditions demand it. After all, we have 15 players at -10 or lower. To date, the highest number of golfers at -10 or better in a Major before the last day was seven…
The third round leaves us with Schauffele and Morikawa being the finest from tee to green, the ones who are hitting the best irons, the ones who are leaving it on average closer. If the putt of either of the two works well on Sunday, they will undoubtedly be the main candidates. The difference is that Morikawa has already won twice, while Schauffele carries the backpack of seeking his first Major.
Theegala seems like the outsider, the one who has nothing to lose, the one who cheers up the cotarro, a kind of Tasmanian devil that when it boils over it is best to step aside. Today he has come back with a fantastic partial of six under in the last ten holes when it seemed that the tournament was going away from him. Lowry will find it hard to continue his wild performance on today’s greens and Hovland remains a mystery. Rarely has a semi-nocturnal work session before a Major offered better returns. It is hard to imagine Rose or MacIntyre lifting the Wanamaker trophy, at least harder than Dean Burmester, a dangerous golfer where there are, with a great birdie capacity in favourable conditions and who is one of the few who has grown in his jump to LIV.
The third round has left us with the curious circumstance that the three big favourites have fallen at the same time. Rory McIlroy (-8) has made the attempt to get in, but two bogeys in the final nine holes have left him out of combat. However, a 61 of his would still give him options. Scheffler (-7) has given in to the weirdest week of his life and Brooks Koepka (-4) has said goodbye without even showing his head on moving day.
In short, it will be a sprint battle to clean birdie and it is normal for the putt to end up deciding. The best on the greens will take the cat to the water. So far, of the main candidates the first three in the strokes gained putting statistic are Lowry, Theegala, English and Rose. Just in case it helps them, although I wouldn’t envy them.
