Category: 2023 PGA Championship

Lynch: With a number of potential protagonists, Thursday’s first act at Oak Hill didn’t clear much up

Thursday’s opening round at Oak Hill provided little clarity as to where this PGA Championship is headed.

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ROCHESTER, N.Y. — It’s a testament to the vagaries of golf that a man who has looked almost peerless as world No. 1 shot 76 in the opening round of the 105th PGA Championship to find himself 10 strokes adrift of someone who has bettered 16th place in 48-man fields larded with also-rans just once this year.

Jon Rahm will be less concerned about the double-digit deficit he faces against Bryson DeChambeau than the nine strokes he spotted his closest pursuer in the world rankings, Scottie Scheffler, whose bogey-free 67 offered no obvious chink in the armor to the other 155 men at Oak Hill Country Club.

Rahm, the Masters champion, gamely rationalized what was the most unexpected score Thursday.

“The only thing I can look back on myself is the three short putts I missed on the back nine, I’m between three to five feet, if I make those putts, I shoot 3-over which is not the worst-case scenario,” he offered.

But Rahm didn’t make those putts, nor many others, and so finds himself several zip codes distant from the lead.

“I mean, it wasn’t my best swings on the last two holes and made a birdie and a par. So there’s many ways to do this. You don’t need to play perfect,” he continued, at least salvaging optimism from his bruising morning.

Rory McIlroy salvaged a semi-respectable total (71, one-over-par) on a day where he too looked awfully ill at ease.

“Didn’t hit the ball well at all. Thought I did really well to shoot what I did,” he said. The round seemed perilously close to getting away from him most of the day, during which he found just two of 14 fairways.

“It was pretty tricky to hit fairways, even some of the decent drives that I hit were just missing the fairways,” he said.

McIlroy tied his playing partner Collin Morikawa, who struggled again with his much-vaunted ball-striking — losing strokes to the field both off the tee and with his approach play — but was saved by his oft-lamented putter, requiring just 25 blows on the greens. The third member of the supergroup, defending champion Justin Thomas, wobbled to a dreary 74.

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That left Thomas in a group with Brooks Koepka, one of the most high-profile LIV Golf players in the field and one who finished runner-up in the Masters last month. After the round, Koepka bemoaned the quality of his ball striking.

“That was the worst I’ve hit it in a long time. Scrambled really well. Missed a couple putts early but scrambled really well late. Yeah, that was the worst I’ve hit it in a really long time,” he told the media.

Despite missing half of the fairways and two-thirds of the greens, the two-time champion insisted he’s not out of the running for a third Wanamaker Trophy in a later conversation by the clubhouse. “I think 4-under wins,” he said. “A couple good rounds and I’m right there.”

While the elite furiously scratched and sniffed for positives, his Serene Highness Scheffler sounded positively relaxed. “I came into today’s round just trying to play solid golf. I kept the course in front of me for the most part and hit some really good tee shots on the important holes,” he said, with the air of a man wholly untroubled by the petty indignities Oak Hill was inflicting on most of his colleagues.

So went day one. Scheffler’s game plan for day two, now that he’s gained distance on most of the game’s best?

“Going into tomorrow I’ll try to do more of the same,” he shrugged.

That’s a luxury most of his elite peers don’t share.

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2023 PGA Championship: A slimmer, happier and more hopeful Bryson DeChambeau shoots 66 at Oak Hill

“Luckily, I was able to play some really good golf, hit a lot of fairways, did my job and made some putts.”

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ROCHESTER, N.Y. — A year ago, Bryson DeChambeau looked like he could start at nose tackle for the Buffalo Bills, but on Thursday at Oak Hill Country Club, where he shot an opening round 66, the 29-year-old looked more like a running back or a safety.

The 2020 U.S. Open winner still has broad shoulders and a muscular frame, but the bulk he amassed chugging protein shakes, putting himself through grueling workouts and training his body to maximize speed is gone. So is the sour demeanor, at least for a day. Shooting 66 will do that, but DeChambeau seemed more upbeat about his play than he has been in over a year.

That said, Thursday’s performance was not something DeChambeau saw coming.

“I was looking at [the course] throughout the week and was like, ‘Man, I don’t know how shooting under par is even possible out here,'” DeChambeau said. “Luckily, I was able to play some really good golf, hit a lot of fairways, did my job and made some putts.”

Before the tournament started, pundits and players were comparing Oak Hill to a U.S. Open venue, possibly Winged Foot or Bethpage Black, with thick rough, narrow fairways and tricky greens. DeChambeau saw it too and played a U.S. Open-style golf Thursday, hitting nine of 14 fairways off the tee and 15 of 18 greens in regulation. He also averaged 347 yards per tee shot — the man still has crazy speed — but Thursday’s consistency is what DeCheambeau has been missing for over a year.

“It’s been a while, so it was nice to come back and start to finally figure out what’s going on with my golf swing,” he said. “As I’ve told you guys before, I’ve struggled with my driving. You see me out there on the range, that’s something I don’t want to do. I don’t want to be out there all night, but I’ve had to figure out what I did so well in 2018 and what made me so successful then. I feel like I’m catching on and trending in that direction. I figured out a couple of things this week, and it certainly paid off today.”

The physical transformation started after DeChambeau couldn’t figure out why he felt tired, sick and run down about a year ago. He took a blood test that checked for allergies and food sensitivities and discovered he needed to make some changes.

“I was allergic to corn, wheat, gluten, dairy, pretty much everything I liked, I couldn’t eat,” he said with a smile. “I took that out. Started taking it out in August and over the course of time I’ve lost all this inflammation, lost a lot of fat and slimmed down like crazy. I lost 18 pounds in 24 days. It was crazy. It wasn’t fat. It was all water weight.”

Bryson DeChambeau
Fans were eager for high-fives and fist bumps with Bryson DeChambeau as he walked off the 18th green Thursday at Oak Hill Country Club. (David Dusek/Golfweek)

Going from 5,500 calories a day to 2,900, and losing weight, has not decreased DeChambeau’s power. Thursday, he hit 6-iron, 8-iron into the 462-yard seventh hole.

“It’s still an asset, and it was a fun experiment, but I definitely want to play some good golf now,” DeChambeau said.

The physical changes DeChambeau has made are easy to see, but the mental struggles he has been trying to overcome are not apparent from the outside. When players who have achieved success start to struggle, like everyone else, they begin to question themselves. DeChambeau, who missed the cut at the Masters and finished T-56 at the 2022 U.S. Open before joining the LIV Tour last summer, also missed the cut last month at the 2023 Masters. His best finish in a no-cut, 48-man field LIV event was 10th last year in Chicago. He admits that he wondered if he’d ever play elite golf again.

“The emotions have definitely fluctuated pretty high and pretty low, thinking I have something and it fails and going back and forth,” DeChambeau said. “It’s humbling. Golf, and life, always have a good way of kicking you on your you know what when you are on your high horse.”

It’s hard to know whether the rest of the 2023 PGA Championship will challenge DeChambeau more physically or mentally. He’ll be happy if he keeps hitting fairways and making putts, like any other golfer. If he spends the day on Friday hacking out of the rough, watching approach shots find bunkers and putts lip out, his attitude will be tested.

Thursday showed that Bryson DeChambeau can still shoot a low round on a tough golf course in a major. Thursday, that was enough for him.

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2023 PGA Championship: Scottie Scheffler shoots 67, his first bogey-free round at a major

Scheffler backed up his confident pre-tournament talk at the 105th PGA Championship, carding a bogey-free 3-under 67 at Oak Hill.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – During his pre-tournament interview on Tuesday, Scottie Scheffler said on more than one occasion that his game was in “a really good spot” heading into the 105th PGA Championship at Oak Hill.

On Thursday, Scheffler backed up his confident words, carding a bogey-free 3-under 67 at Oak Hill, which tied him with Canadian Corey Conners for second place, just one stroke off the pace set by clubhouse leader Bryson DeChambeau.

“Today was probably the easiest conditions we’ll see all week with the golf course. So getting around with no bogeys was really good,” Scheffler said. “If you can limit the mistakes, good things will happen, I guess.”

Good things have been happening for Scheffler, the world No. 2, all year. He already has bagged two PGA Tour titles, the WM Phoenix Open in February and the Players Championship in March. In 10 starts this year, he hasn’t finished worse than T-12, and is coming off a T-5 at the AT&T Byron Nelson in his hometown of Dallas last week.

Scheffler, who started on the back nine, poured in 15-foot birdie putts at the short par-4 14th and the par-3 fifth and wedged from 121 yards to 3 feet to set up his final birdie of the day at No. 8.

The start of the tournament was delayed for nearly two hours by frost, but it didn’t bother Scheffler, who received word that tee times would be pushed back while he was still at his rental house.

“So I showered and shaved and all that stuff. I basically just went back to sleep,” he said.

If there has been any weakness with his game of late it has been with his putter – especially at the Masters in April – but that wasn’t the case in the opening round of the PGA Championship.

“I hit a lot of good putts today,” he said. “The more free and loose I can play, especially on the greens, it’s usually the better off I am.”

May 18, 2023; Rochester, New York, USA; Scottie Scheffler reacts after missing a putt on the ninth green during the first round of the PGA Championship golf tournament at Oak Hill Country Club. Mandatory Credit: Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports

Scheffler’s scorecard was better off for him sinking a clutch 4-foot par putt at the par-5, fourth hole after tugging his tee shot into trouble.

“I would hate to bogey a par 5, especially when there’s only two of them around this place. That was good momentum,” he said.

Scheffler carried that momentum to his first bogey-free round in a major in his 15th major start (51 rounds) thanks to going 7-for-7 in scrambling.

Scheffler said the Donald Ross design, which has undergone a restoration by Andrew Green since this championship was last held here in 2013, played like a major, perhaps more like a U.S. Open, where hitting fairways is paramount and par is a good score.

“I felt like at the beginning of the week it was going to play pretty hard, so I’m glad that it wasn’t just me that felt it is that way,” he said.

DeChambeau, the 2020 U.S. Open champion who joined LIV Golf reportedly for more than $100 million last year, made six birdies en route to the low round of the day.

“It’s a fantastic round of golf at Oak Hill,” he said. “As I was looking at it throughout the week, I’m like, man, I don’t know how shooting under par is even possible out here on some of the golf holes.”

Two-time PGA Championship winner and world No. 3 Rory McIlroy overcame a sluggish start and hitting just two fairways, his fewest ever in a major championship round, to shoot 1-over 71.

“I’m just struggling with my swing,” McIlroy admitted. “It’s pretty messy out there, so just trying to make pars.”

Defending PGA champion Justin Thomas managed just one birdie in shooting 2-over 72 while good friend Jordan Spieth, who is bidding to complete the career Grand Slam this week, posted 3-over 73. That was still better than world No. 1 Jon Rahm, who made five bogeys in a six-hole stretch and shot 6-over 76, his highest score of the year.

“If I can somehow manage to putt a low one tomorrow and find myself close to even going into Sunday, I think I’ll have a decent chance,” Rahm said.

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Rory McIlroy in the mix at 2023 PGA Championship after incredible par save jumpstarts back-nine turnaround

McIlroy called his opening round “messy” and “erratic.”

Rory McIlroy’s start to the 2023 PGA Championship at Oak Hill was less than ideal.

After making five pars to open, the 2012 and 2014 PGA winner failed to get up-and-down on the par-3 15th — his sixth hole of the day — and had to settle for bogey. He’d add two more squares to the card on Nos. 17 and 18 and made the turn with a 3-over 38.

A substandard pitch from the front of No. 2 green left him in a treacherous spot from over the back and all of a sudden McIlroy was staring a double bogey in the face.

Until he wasn’t.

The four-time major winner canned a 37-foot putt from the collection area and walked to the third tee box with an unlikely par.

“It was massive,” he said of the made putt. “I don’t know how — depending on what happens over the next three days and what I go on to do, you know, I may look back at that shot as being the sort of turning point of the week.”

McIlroy then stuffed his tee shot on the par-3 third to two feet for a tap-in birdie then laced a 347-yard drive on the par-5 fourth and would go on to make another easy bird.

He’d trade a bogey at No. 5 for a circle at No. 8 and the Northern Irishman finished his round with a 1-over 71.

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“Didn’t hit the ball well at all,” he said. “Thought I did really well to shoot what I did.”

The start McIlroy was looking for? No. But the fight to get back into the tournament was noteworthy. The driver put him behind the eight ball all day, finding just two of 14 fairways. On top of that, McIlroy lost 1.5 strokes to the field on the greens.

“Just not at my best. I’m just struggling with my swing,” he said when asked about the missed fairways. “Yeah, it’s pretty messy out there, so just trying to make pars.”

Although he may want to use Thursday afternoon as a clean-up-the-game range session, McIlroy is dealing with an illness.

With a scarcity of low scores thus far in Rochester, New York, McIlroy is firmly in the mix at 1 over.

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Bryson DeChambeau hits PGA Professional Kenny Pigman with wayward tee shot at 2023 PGA Championship

Do you think he yelled fore?

It’s been a busy morning at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, New York, for the opening round of the 2023 PGA Championship.

We’ve seen hole-outs, near aces and a lot of high scores.

And we’ve also seen a player in the field get hit by another player’s drive thanks to Bryson DeChambeau.

PGA Professional Kenny Pigman was over his ball, ready to hit a tee shot on the par-4 18th — his ninth of the day — when DeChambeau’s wild tee shot hit him.

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Pigman, who grabbed his shoulder but seemed to brush it off quickly, went on to bogey the hole. DeChambeau was even par through his first eight holes.

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PGA Championship 2023 live updates: Final round at Rochester’s Oak Hill Country Club

Golfweek, the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle and USA TODAY Sports have the updates.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — We have a winner. A three-time winner, as a matter of fact.

Brooks Koepka is the 2023 PGA Championship winner after earning a two-stroke victory at Oak Hill Country Club. It’s the fourth time the course has hosted the championship. It’s the third time Koepka has hoisted the Wanamaker Trophy.

Golfweek, the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle and USA TODAY Sports will provide the latest news, updates, analysis and more throughout the day.

 

Four players aced No. 6 on the same day in 1989 U.S. Open at Oak Hill, but there’s a major reason it won’t happen again at 2023 PGA Championship

Four aces on one day on the same hole was cool, but it certainly won’t happen again this year.

Here’s perhaps the safest bet for this week’s PGA Championship: Four players won’t make holes-in-one on the same day at No. 6 of Oak Hill’s East Course. Sounds like a silly bet, of course, but it happened during the second round of the 1989 U.S. Open on the East.

There’s no way that exact feat will reoccur in this year’s PGA Championship on the same layout, because that hole no longer exists.

In a two-hour span that morning in 1989, Doug Weaver, Mark Wiebe, Jerry Pate and Nick Price each made an ace on the 167-yard par 3. The hole wasn’t exactly in a bowl, but it was pretty close, having been cut into the base of a swale. None of the four holes-in-one flew into the cup, each instead landing left, right or beyond the flag then curling into the cup. Each player used a 7-iron.

An amazing occurrence, for sure. It had never happened before in major championship or PGA Tour golf. Before the round, tournament officials had noted that it was a likely spot for ace, and they ended up with four.

That hole isn’t on the course any longer, thanks to a recent renovation by architect Andrew Green to Donald Ross’s layout in Rochester, New York. That sixth hole from 1989 was created during a 1970s renovation to the course by George Fazio and Tom Fazio. Green ripped it out, instead installing a new par 3 as No. 5. Green’s new No. 6 is a punishing par 4 that plays over and along a creek, earning the name Double Trouble. The hole is listed on the scorecard at 503 yards.

Not that a repeat of what has been dubbed the “Four Aces” – not to be confused with the LIV team of the same name – was likely anyways. The PGA of America reports that the odds of any Tour player making an ace on a given par 3 are 3,000 to 1. The National Hole-in-One Association calculated at the time that the odds of four Tour pros acing the same hole in one day to be 8.7 million to one, although such a friendly hole location that allows balls to break into the cup from multiple directions surely improved those odds a bit.

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Brooks Koepka has the solution for PGA Tour’s pace-of-play problem: Penalty strokes

“There’s a lot of guys out here that take their time. I think it is a problem.”

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Brooks Koepka has the solution for the PGA Tour’s pace-of-play problem.

“I would start stroking guys,” he said on Wednesday during his pre-tournament press conference ahead of the 105th PGA Championship at Oak Hill. “If you are going to take that long, you have to get stroked.”

As in penalty strokes. Hit’em where it hurts most is his thinking.

“There’s a lot of guys out here that take their time. I think it is a problem,” Koepka said. “Technically in the rule book it says you have 40 seconds to hit your shot. I think that’s what it is. If you are taking over, technically you’re breaking the rules, right?”

The Tour’s pace of play has been a hot-button topic this season. Koepka, who played in the final pairing with Jon Rahm, complained about slow play at the Masters, and waiting repeatedly behind Patrick Cantlay and Viktor Hovland.

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“Yeah, the group in front of us was brutally slow. Jon went to the bathroom like seven times during the round, and we were still waiting,” Koepka said.

In their defense, Cantlay and Hovland waited much of the day, too, and were never put on the clock, but the problem persists with little effort to remedy the problem.

In an effort to create a quicker pace of play, Major League Baseball established a 30-second timer between batters this year. Between pitches, a 15-second timer will be in place with the bases empty and a 20-second timer with runners on base. It has made a significant difference. Koepka noted that the DP World Tour previously held a tournament with a shot clock, but it didn’t catch on.

“I know if you follow guys around with a stopwatch this week, there will be plenty of guys that are over time and stuff like that, but I can’t remember the last time anybody was stroked. I remember the little kid at Augusta (14-year-old Guan Tianlang of China). I don’t know if anybody has been stroked since.  That’s kind of the most recent one I can think of. (Jon Catlin was penalized at the 2021 PGA Championship). There are some guys that probably definitely could be stroked.”

Under the Tour’s current pace of play regulations, a player’s group would have to be warned, then put on the clock, then get two bad times in the same tournament before getting docked for any stroke penalty. Speaking to Golf Digest’s Shane Ryan recently, Gary Young, the PGA Tour’s Senior Vice President of Rules and Competitions, conceded that “you’d have to be brain dead to get that.”

Koepka is no longer a member of the PGA Tour but he’d still like to see the problem addressed.

“There are certain circumstances where the wind switches, something like that, it’s understandable, but taking a while is I just think unnecessary,” Koepka said.

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Jason Day dishes on his text from Tiger after his first win in 5 years and a peculiar pre-PGA Championship prep plan

“It sucks to not be able to prepare the way I want to, but having mental tiredness out there won’t do me any good.”

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Jason Day grew up idolizing Tiger Woods, later became competitors and friends, and in recent years as they both battled a myriad of injuries they pushed each other to mount comebacks. Day, who won the 2015 PGA Championship and spent a year at world No. 1 before tumbling to No. 175 in October, ended a five-year victory drought on Sunday at the AT&T Byron Nelson in Dallas.

Among those to text him? None other than Tiger.

“I can’t say what he said because a lot of it was like F-words in it,” Day said during his pre-tournament press conference on Wednesday ahead of the 105th PGA Championship at Oak Hill.

Day, 35, smiled wide amid laughter but with each passing answer to a question he grew more reflective on what hoisting his 13th PGA Tour title meant to him.

“It’s more about the actual journey and working towards and all the hours that you get into practicing behind the scenes and working on your body and all that stuff. They’re the moments that I live for the most, and then the wins kind of get in the way,” he said.

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Day’s career was derailed primarily by injury, most notably to his back and it forced him to change his swing.

“It almost feels like you’re handcuffed when you do have an injury, and you’re playing against the best players in the world trying to compete and win,” he said. “That can be frustrating, disappointing, and it can almost be a feeling of depression sometimes just because of the amount of work that you’re putting in.”

As his back worsened and his play deteriorated, Day considered calling it quits. “I never told my wife that, but I was OK with it, just because it was a very stressful part of my life,” he said. “Ellie, she never gave up on me trying to get back to the winner’s circle again. She just always was pushing me to try and get better.”

2023 AT&T Byron Nelson at TPC Craig Ranch
Jason Day poses with the winner’s trophy during the final round of the AT&T Byron Nelson golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: Raymond Carlin III-USA TODAY Sports

A total of 1,835 days elapsed between wins, going from being, as he put it, “the best in the world to you can’t bust an egg with a hammer.” Through nothing more than hard work, Day has emerged as a winner again.

“Delayed gratification is probably the best feeling of all time,” he said. “Instant gratification is great, but delayed gratification is the best.”

Now, he is setting his sights on bigger things. He’d like to win another major and return to world No. 1. On the eve of the PGA Championship, Day noted that winning on Sunday has impacted his preparation for this week’s major and he plans to play Oak Hill, where he finished T-8 in 2013, the last time a major was played here, without having played a practice round. He’s made this choice to save his energy.

“It sucks to not be able to prepare the way I want to, but having mental tiredness out there won’t do me any good,” he said.

It’s an unusual way of preparing for his 14th start at the PGA and one of the biggest weeks of the year.

“It would have freaked me out. I would have had guilt like just washing over me that I hadn’t prepared the way I needed to prepare,” said CBS’s Trevor Immelman, a former Masters champion, who played here in 2003. “Jason knows his game is in a great spot so I’m going to trust him on that call.”

Day has climbed to No. 20 in the world and his validating win has his confidence soaring. Can he start collecting trophies in bunches again as he did during his prime? Day is trying to temper expectations and focus on the journey back to No. 1 and his pursuit of the top of the mountain.

“You definitely learn a lot about yourself through the lows more so than the highs,” he said. “I learned that I can handle the pressure still and focus, and I’ve still got the game to win.”

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Watch: Stunning flyovers of the back nine at Oak Hill show a great closing stretch for 2023 PGA Championship

The back nine will provide plenty of challenges for players and outstanding looks for audiences.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — With the restoration of Oak Hill’s East Course back to more closely emulate the original Donald Ross design, even fans who are familiar with the storied course will notice some subtle differences.

The back nine will provide plenty of challenges for players and outstanding looks for audiences.

Oak Hill’s East will play to 7,394 yards with a par of 70 for this week’s major championship.

The East ranks No. 12 in New York on Golfweek’s Best list of private courses in each state. It also comes in at No. 42 on Golfweek’s Best ranking of all classic courses in the United States.

Here’s a look at the back nine of the course, which will be in the international spotlight this week:

MORE: See the front nine at Oak Hill as you’ve never seen it