Key events
Ludvig Åberg couldn’t make his birdie on 17 … and it’s close but no cigar on 18 as well. But that’s a par-par finish, and he’s now in the clubhouse with a 68. A five-way tie at the top. Meanwhile Scottie Scheffler still can’t purchase one of those delicious birdies, a 30-foot rake across 17 drifting millimetres wide right. So close. More irritation, but despite a round during which he must have felt like wading through quicksand, he’s still level par for the day and just two off that five-way lead.
Scottie Scheffler can’t buy a putt today. He whips out of a deep bunker guarding the front of the par-five 16th, but can’t make the seven-footer he’s left with, the ball horseshoeing out. A bit of frustration creeping in.
67 for Rai
Aaron Rai gathers himself and wedges from just off the front of the 18th green to three feet. He cleans up for bogey, and he did extremely well to limit the damage there. A 67, and the 31-year-old from Wolverhampton is in with a great shout of becoming the first English winner of the PGA Championship since Jim Barnes in 1919. And while a dropped shot can never be ideal, avoiding the glare and pressure of being in the final group isn’t the worst outcome in the world. Silver linings, all that.
-4: Schmid (F), Taylor (F), Rahm (F), Rai (F), Åberg (17)
In fact Rai is 67 yards from the flag. But the exact yardage is neither here nor there, because he gets nowhere near the green with his splash out, decelerating and taking way too much sand. Every amateur golfer will feel his pain. This is going to cost him any chance of a place in the final group tomorrow.
Aaron Rai’s ball is tangled up in rough … and yet he considers it sitting up well enough to take his hybrid out. He fires it out low and hard, hoping to send the ball scuttling onto the putting surface, but he shoves it to the right, and it disappears into a bunker 50 yards shy of the green. Trouble ahoy.
Aaron Rai almost hooks his drive at 18 into the thick rough down the left. He trudges off after it. Meanwhile back on 17, Ludvig Åberg clips his tee shot pin high, and will have a look at birdie from 25 feet.
Ludvig Åberg sends a gentle fade into the par-five 16th. Pin high. But the 13-foot eagle putt somehow stays up on the left lip. Half a dimple to the right and that was dropping. He can’t believe it. That looked in all the way. Shame, because the approach deserved the eagle. The birdie takes him up to -4, though. Meanwhile Rai and Gotterup lag long putts to kick-in distance, on 17 and 11 respectively. Rai will be delighted to get through the treacherous 17th with his par; Gotterup will be reasonably pleased to have limited the damage to bogey, because that could have gotten ugly real quick. They’re -5 and -3 respectively.
The wind’s back up a little bit. Not dramatically so, but it’s got a bit of whip again. So hats off to Aaron Rai for finding the heart of the par-three 17th amid the swirl. Meanwhile back on 11, Chris Gotterup makes the fatal error of plonking his approach into the thick rough covering a hill behind the green. He has to whip out forcefully enough to get his ball out of the gunk, but land it softly on the fringe so it doesn’t dribble down the sloping green too much. He does all he can, chopping the ball high and sitting it down gently on the fringe, but it still rolls 50 feet past the flag. At least it didn’t keep going off the green, and like I say, the mistake was putting the ball in there in the first place.
… and back on 16, Rai isn’t able to make the 15-footer he’s left himself for birdie, but tidies up for par. Three-putting never feels good, but doing so from 82 feet draws a bit of the sting.
-5: Rai (15)
-4: Schmid (F), Taylor (F), Rahm (F), Gotterup (10)
-3: McIlroy (F), Schauffele (F), Reed (F), Åberg (15), Greyserman (12), McNealy (10), Smalley (10)
Rahm shoots 67
… there’s some disappointment for Jon Rahm on the last. He’s left with a three-footer for par, and he gives the putt a wee bit too much welly, playing through the gentle left-to-right break. It horseshoes out and that’s a bogey to finish. He’s -4 and Aaron Rai has the lead all to himself now.
At 554 yards, the par-five 16th is a whopping three yards longer than the par-four 15th. That’s just the way it is. And while Aaron Rai was unable to get a full connection to his second shot at 15 from rough down the left, on 16 he’s able, from a similar position, to arrow a low runner that scampers all the way onto the front of the green. But the putting surface is huge, and he’s left with an 80-footer for his eagle. He gets nowhere close. And I mean nowhere. Still a long way to go with his second putt. More on that anon, though, because …
A slightly disappointing end to the round for Patrick Reed. After birdies at 13 and 16, he appears to be closing out his third round in style as he screeches his approach at 18 from 147 yards pin high to four feet. But he misreads the birdie putt, which doesn’t drift left to right as he’d expected. That’s a 67, though, and at -3 overall the 2018 Masters champion is not out of this.
-5: Rahm (17), Rai (15), Gotterup (9)
-4: Schmid (F), Taylor (F)
-3: McIlroy (F), Schauffele (F), Reed (F), Åberg (14), Greyserman (11), McNealy (9)
Scottie Scheffler grips down on a 3-wood at the driveable par-four 13th. His tee shot trundles through the dancefloor and off the back, into deep nonsense. He still swishes out to four feet … but the old putter woes resurface, as he dribbles a weak effort wide left. That’s a poor miss. A par that’ll feel like a bogey.
Aaron Rai looks to be in a spot of bother on the monster 551-yard 15th, the longest par-four in major championship history. His drive disappears into the rough down the left, and he’s forced to gouge out. But left with 108 yards, he lands his wedge a few feet past the hole and spins it back to 17 inches. He’ll tidy that up for a par that’ll feel like a birdie.
Chris Gotterup has been going about his business quietly. Now he hits the turn in 33, after birdies at 6 and 9. He joins Aaron Rai in the lead at -5 … as does Jon Rahm, who birdies the other par-five on the course, the 16th. Gotterup and Rahm become the 43rd and 44th [subs please check] players to lead this tournament today.
Scottie Scheffler is re-energised. From the bunker guarding the front of 12, he splashes out to kick-in distance. For a split second, the ball looks like dropping for another birdie, but stubbornly shaves the lip. Scottie spins round with great god-darn-it feeling. He thought that was in. But he’s still just three off the lead at -2, and the wind’s dropped a bit, so field watch out.
Problems for Min Woo Lee at the par-five 9th. He’s over the back of the green, and he’s unable to get back up with his chip. He ends up with a double-bogey seven, dropping to -1 overall. Meanwhile on the huge 8th green, Maverick McNealy leaves himself a 100-foot putt (!) and clatters it eight feet past and wide left. He can’t make the next one, and there goes that blemish-free run of pars. He’s -3. But Aaron Rai makes a nerveless save on 14, despite knocking his first putt six feet long. Rai still holds the sole lead at -5.
Finally some positive momentum for Scottie Scheffler. He wedges his approach at 11 over the flag to ten feet, and steers in the downhill swinger, with big right-to-left movement. Very well judged, especially in the context of the much easier putts he’s missed this afternoon, and he pumps the air gently with his fist as the ball drops. He’s back where he started the day at -2.
An incredibly careless three-putt bogey from 15 feet by Ludvig Åberg on 12. Maverick McNealy makes a graceful sandy save from a deep bunker at 7, without too much green to work with. That’s his seventh par in a row today. The new pretender to Nick Faldo’s crown? Because Stephan Jaeger is busy ruining his own steady-as-she-goes reputation: after that run of 29 consecutive pars was broken by birdie, he’s then carded back-to-back bogeys, at 7 and 8, to drop away to -2.
Birdie for Jon Rahm on 14. Reward for a tee shot at the par-three sent from 203 yards to 13 feet, and a putt rodded home. Meanwhile news of a disastrous finish to Justin Thomas’s front nine: bogeys at 7, 8 and 9, and he clatters down the standings to -1.
-5: Rai (12)
-4: Schmid (F), Taylor (F), Rahm (14), Åberg (11), Gotterup (7), McNealy (7)
-3: McIlroy (F), Schauffele (F), Lee (8), Greyserman (8)
Taylor cards 65
Nick Taylor finds the heart of 18 in regulation, and has a 12-footer for birdie and a share of the lead. But he lets the putt slip by. Par, though, and he’s the latest player to scribble his name at the bottom of a 65. His playing partner and compatriot Corey Conners let things slip dreadfully, though: having made it up the leaderboard to -3, thanks in no small part to four consecutive birdies, 3 through 7, he bogeyed six of the last seven holes to sign for a spirit-sapping 72. He’s +3.
When Justin Thomas won his second PGA four years ago, he came back from a seven-shot deficit after 54 holes. That matched the PGA Championship record set by John Mahaffey in 1978. Thing is, there were just six players above Thomas on the leaderboard at that point; when Mahaffey did it, there were just four above him. Now this is purely for illustrative purposes, but right now there are 55 players within seven shots of the lead. Should Aaron Rai drop a shot, there’d be 65. Not entirely sure what I’m trying to say here, other than this leaderboard is glorious nonsense … and nobody will be coming back from seven behind this week, you can be pretty sure of that.
Schmid shoots 65
Matti Schmid pars the last to sign for a wonderful 65. It’s extra-special, as Paul McGinley on Sky points out, given he’s completed half of that round in wind stronger than the earlier starters played in. At -4, Schmid takes over the clubhouse lead from Rory McIlroy and Xander Schauffele.
No, hold on, make that four off the lead … because Aaron Rai rolls in a 15-footer on 11 for his third birdie on the bounce, and the popular Englishman grabs the lead for himself! Given no English player has won this title since Jim Barnes in 1919, I’ll have to update the leaderboard now. Because just look at it!
-5: Rai (11)
-4: Schmid (F), Taylor (16), Åberg (10), Jaeger (6), Gotterup (5), McNealy (5)
-3: McIlroy (F), Schauffele (F), Rahm (12), Lee (7), Greyserman (7)
Scottie Scheffler can only par the par-five 9th, and he turns in 36 strokes. Not the performance anyone expected. And yet he’s just three off the lead at -1.
Chris Gotterup joins the leaders. Birdie at 6. This is getting old. I’m not updating the leaderboard yet. I’m not sulking, I just … I just can’t. I will soon, promise.
… so how did Stephan Jaeger join the leaders? Well, the simple answer is, with birdie at 6. But what’s really eye-opening is that the birdie snaps a run of 29 consecutive pars. That run makes Nick Faldo look like Maurice Flitcroft.
Make that a round dozen. The 38-year-old Canadian Nick Taylor is on a heater: birdies at 3, 6, 9, 14 and now 16, and he’s joined the ever-growing pack at -4. Two pars and he’ll match Kristoffer Reitan, Chris Kirk and Justin Rose’s best-of-day 65s. Meanwhile one par for Matti Schmid and he’ll have done that, after parring 17.
-4: Schmid (17), Taylor (16), Rai (10), Åberg (9), Jaeger (6), McNealy (4)
It’s been an up-and-down round for Min Woo Lee so far. Bogeys at 3 and 4, followed by birdies at 5 and 6. The latter birdie was a swashbuckling affair: a 380-yard tee shot at the driveable par-four, into the heart of the green … then an aggressive eagle putt that races six feet past. But he makes the one coming back … and now he’s set up another birdie chance at 7. Meanwhile back-to-back birdies for Aaron Rai, at 9 and 10, and according to Sky Sports (because I’m certainly not going back to count) he becomes the 11th different leader today! It’s quite the leaderboard all right.
Matti Schmid is looking to become just the third male major champion of all time, behind Bernard Langer and Martin Kaymer. The 28-year-old hasn’t come close before: his silver medal for low amateur at the 2021 Open at Sandwich, which saw him finish in a tie for 59th, is still his best effort in any major. But on PGA Championship debut this week, he’s finally making his presence felt. Birdies at 13, 14 and now 16 have whisked him into a share of the lead. And he’s joined there by Ludvig Åberg, after birdies at 4, 6 and 9. Many think Åberg’s major breakthrough, which surely will happen sooner or later, is most likely to come at Augusta, but here we are. This is quite the leaderboard.
-4: Schmid (16), Åberg (9), McNealy (3)
-3: McIlroy (F), Schauffele (F), Taylor (15), Rahm (11), Rai (9), Thomas (7), Lee (6), Jaeger (5), Gotterup (4)
-2: 15 players, life’s still going along at way too quickly a clip
Scottie Scheffler follows up one three-putt bogey with another. His tee shot into the par-three 8th nearly finds a bunker at the front. Instead it pings off the shoulder, to the right and then back to the front of the big green. His first putt up and over a ridge sails five feet wide left, and his uncertain par prod dribbles wide right of the green. Some shocked mumbling from the gallery, who haven’t seen Scottie putt like this since the early stage of his career, before something clicked with the flat stick and he went stellar. He’s back down to -1, and his expected charge across this supposedly easier front nine simply hasn’t materialised.
The wind is beginning to pick up now. Flags whipping. Trouser legs flapping. It’s not causing Justin Thomas any problems yet, though. The two-time champion birdies 5 and 6 to join the leaders. Meanwhile up on 18, Xander Schauffele pars the last to match Rory McIlroy’s 66, while Rickie Fowler signs for a blemish-free 68. They’re -3 and -1 respectively.
-4: Rahm (10), Thomas (6), McNealy (2)
-3: McIlroy (F), Schauffele (F), Schmid (15), Taylor (14), Åberg (8), Jaeger (4), Gotterup (3)
-2: 17 players, life’s too short
A careless bogey for Scottie Scheffler on 7. He gets a good break with his drive, which looked to be heading for the rough, but takes a bounce back onto the fairway. But he doesn’t take advantage. Distance control uncharacteristically awry, he flies the flag, and can’t get down in two putts from a higher portion of the green. Back to -2 for Scottie, and gaining and keeping momentum has been an issue for the world number one all week. Meanwhile Aldrich Potgieter fails to get up and down from greenside sand at 3 and hands the shot he’d just picked up straight back to the field. He slips out of the joint lead.
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