Open champion Henrik Stenson recovered from a poor start to boost his bid for back-to-back major titles as the cream rose to the top of the leaderboard in the US PGA Championship. Instead, only three tour players had a worse score among the morning wave.
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He wasn’t alone in his misery.
The Australian roared back with seven birdies in his next eight holes on his way to a 65, while Grillo birdied four holes on his first nine in shooting 67.
Two closing pars kept him there and had him pondering possibilities in a year that has already produced three first-time major winners.
Lahiri got off to a awful start with bogeys on third and fourth as he missed very short par putts inside five feet and that set the trend for the day, even though he stemmed the rot for next five holes. “They are all good players and it was just a matter of time”.
Another shot back were 2010 PGA victor Martin Kaymer (69), and Americans Patrick Reed (65) and Brooks Koepka (67).
Kaymer had the best score in the afternoon, when the blend of poa annua and bent grass on the Baltusrol greens became a little more hard to navigate.
“I just have to eliminate the mistakes”, he said. It’s just great. And my golf has been good. “It’s frustrating. I would have loved to have had a better year than I’ve had so far to this point, but I know there’s always time to play well at the end of the year”.
Even with afternoon gusts that approached 20 miles per hour, and the late threat of rain, Baltusrol still allowed for good scoring.
World number one and defending champion Jason Day of Australia was at one-under on the day and three-under for the tournament after 10 holes.
The 23-year-old Grillo, who said after his 66 on Thursday that putting was the weakest part of his game, belied that with four birdie putts in his first nine holes at Baltusrol on Friday, including a a 40-foot bomb that fell in at the 15th. The birdies on 15 and 16 were nice and I made a good par on 17 – I had to pitch out in the fairway and lay-up again.
Rory McIlroy and Phil Mickelson weren’t so fortunate.
British Open champion Henrik Stenson had a second straight 67 and was at 6 under, one shot ahead of four golfers.
“It’s not the start I wanted”. His actual play didn’t get talked about a ton because of the weird drop he took, but Spieth is just six back and has hit it beautifully this week. He still was only 2 over going to the 17th and 18th, both par 5s, a chance for him to get back to even par.
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Walker, a back-nine starter, followed his lone bogey at the sixth with a 31-foot birdie putt at the seventh to grab the lead. We all know what he’s capable of doing with a golf ball and on a golf course. “You feel bad about what I did on No. 1, being in the middle of the fairway and then I make a double-bogey”. When he sank a 21-footer on the remote ninth (his final of the day), the small gallery surrounding the green erupted in cheers, knowing the putt was for a 63.
