Five years ago, Martin Kaymer was overwhelmed by the level of media attention and heightened expectations from his German fans after he won the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits in Kohler, Wisconsin. The July 4 football injury that forced the world No 1 to miss the Scottish Open and his defence of The Open and the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational last week is truly history. You have to go all the way back to the Byron Nelson in May to find a result that poor. Spieth won the Masters and U.S. Open already and he finished fourth at the British Open.
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Jordan Spieth does not have to win the PGA Championship to replace McIlroy at No. 1 in the world.
“My goal this year, I’m not thinking ahead to making the cut, winning the tournament, anything like that”.
After a week off Woods will arrive at Whistling Straits aiming to stop that skid. He says he’s been trying to use only one golf to help get his competitive feel back. Instead, Johnson was hit with a two-stroke penalty, an ugly end to the final major of 2010. The man who has come so close at so many majors is ready to turn heartbreak into a breakthrough and knows it would be special to earn his first major title at Whistling Straits.
The 2002 champion told Sky Sports News headquarters: “Rory has been getting some practice rounds in and doing a lot of work, so I would expect him to be at his best”.
“But then Steve wanted to do it behind closed doors, and do it without anyone really knowing what was going on, so it was sort of like a fitness test and I passed that one“. All bunkers inside the ropes will be raked each morning prior to play as normal.
After shooting a 4-under-par 66 at Firestone Country Club, Spieth was in a good frame of mind has he heads to the PGA Championship. The 26-year-old’s biggest weapon is his driver, and especially at a course that favors a long-ball hitter, McIlroy’s long game will need to be as well.
The PGA Championship has often been the most unpredictable of the four majors, in part because it attracts the strongest field, and this week is no different with 97 of the world’s top 100 players entered. If only Woods could sustain his flashes of brilliance he displayed at the Quicken Loans National throughout this entire week, then Woods might seriously be in contention when the weekend rolls around. “I found a shortcut and I can save about 10 minutes and actually get here in about 45 minutes”.
McIlroy managed to squeeze in his third practice round on Monday before the first of two thundery storms deluged the region located about an hour’s drive north of Milwaukee.
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Johnson just happened to be in an unfortunate situation where the cameras were on him during the right/wrong time. “So the whole lot feels fairly good“. Not many people have done that so I was really motivated to get a win that week.
