PGA Championship: Vegas, others stroke hopes of an unlikely winner come Sunday

Economic Times

17-05-2025

An oddball leaderboard populated with a plethora of unexpected contenders has given the PGA Championship a rare scent of underdog spirit. Jhonattan Vegas, ranked 70th in the world, surged into the early lead. Even though he did well to secure another sub-par round on Friday to consolidate his grip at the top, Vegas faces stiff odds.
The Venezuelan is the tenth golfer ranked outside the top 50 to secure opening round honours in a Major. Not one of the nine before him could convert the start to win the title. Si Woo Kim and Max Homa flew into contention on a 64 to turn the leaderboard into a veritable list of wannabes at the halfway stage of the tournament at Quail Hollow.
Matthieu Pavon (65), Michael Thorbjornsen, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Ryan Fox, and Alex Smalley are some of the others near the leader, many of them not the kind of names expected to lead the charge in a Major. With 26 golfers within five strokes off the leader, the weekend promises to be a slugfest of wild aspiration on a tricky course turned salty from the wet weather this week.
Vegas has four wins in 318 PGA Tour starts including the 2024 3M Open. He has never finished better than T22 in a Major (2016 PGA Championship). Others inside the top ten have a similar career, apart from Scottie Scheffler and Matt Fitzpatrick, both Major champions. The rest of the leading pack consists of journeymen pros who concern themselves with maintaining status by staying high enough on the FedEx Cup rankings. Their strong early showing, combined with resilient golf through muddy conditions, has raised hopes for an unlikely winner to emerge on Sunday. The luck of the draw has played a role too, the conditions in the afternoon sessions have been conducive for scoring, as the course dries out. Major championship draws have typically featured fancied stars in recent times. The last seven majors have witnessed some marquee winners too -- Brooks Koepka, Jon Rahm, Xander Schauffele (2), Bryson DeChambeau, Scottie Scheffler, and Rory McIlroy at the Masters recently. These are some of the most iconic stars in the sport, with three of them playing LIV Golf. But the race this week has witnessed some spirited performances from unheralded stars, who showed great discipline to produce a steady string of scores, outpacing the struggling band of superstars. Incidentally, McIlroy and Schauffele nudged their way into the weekend right on the cut line at +1 in T62.
Quail Hollow was expected to deliver a stern test of distance, speed, and control around the greens. Experts believed some of the long hitters with strong putting records would likely own the week. While those parameters remain a significant key to success in Charlotte, it is the lower-ranked players that have joined the PGA Championship party. The condition of the course came to the fore when Scheffler, McIlroy, and Schauffele succumbed to double bogeys on the 16th hole on Thursday. It sparked a conversation about the merits of playing it down in a Major with shabby course conditions.Interestingly, the last time there were just two Major champions in the top 10 and ties after 36 holes was the 2017 PGA Championship at the same course, where Justin Thomas won his first Major. Justin Rose, ranked 67th, finished T22 in the 2024 Masters after holding the lead in the first two rounds. Chris DiMarco, ranked 58th, finished T10 at the Masters in 2001. Gil Morgan, ranked 82nd, finished T13 at the US Open in 1992. Plenty of story lines are expected to emerge through moving day, as a tight knit pack of golfers' jostle for the inside lane to the draw for Sunday.Only eight of the 15 Liv Golf players have reached the weekend. Several of their big stars endured desperate struggles before checking out early. Past Major champions Koepka, Cameron Smith, Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Patrick Reed and Martin Kaymer have all fallen to the mid-week slice. DeChambeau (-3), Richard Bland (-3), and Rahm (-2) are comfortably inside, but Joaquin Niemann, Tyrrell Hatton, and Tom McKibbin slid into the weekend at 1-under 141, sitting in the middle of the table.
Even though the course is drying up fast, allowing the ball to run longer off the drive, there is a small probability of rain over the weekend continuing to keep the golfers tense and battle weary. Early on Saturday, play was suspended twice between 07.30 AM and 08.15 AM, a reminder of the fragile weather circling around Charlotte. Payne Stewart at Kemper Lakes in 1989 was the last golfer to win the PGA Championship from a seven or more stroke deficit at the PGA Championship. There are 47 golfers within seven strokes heading into Saturday, firing up expectations for a thrilling come from behind possibility when the tournament ends on Sunday. As expected, the Green Mile is playing firmly over par, with the 18th hole (4.41) the toughest on the course. The first is the second hardest hole (4.39), also a par-4, underlining the persistent trauma from the course, start to finish. Putting is important for every round of golf, especially so at Quail Hollow, where the greens are protected by sand, water, and deceptive green complexes with penal collection areas. While fairways made and greens in regulation are important considerations, strokes gained around the green and putting will most likely determine the winner on Sunday.