Thunderstorms that prevented leaders from starting the third round of the PGA Championship on Saturday set the stage for a weird finish at rain-swamped Baltusrol.
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Top-ranked defending champion Jason Day of Australia, only two shots back of USA co-leaders Jimmy Walker and Robert Streb, and British Open champion Henrik Stenson, who sat three adrift, were among those unable to tee off due to unsafe weather.
They will resume the third round bright and early at 7 a.m. ET on Sunday. If not, the tournament could conclude during the week.
Kisner shot 5-under-par 65 and stood at 5-under 205 before third-round play was suspended at 2:15 p.m. due to weather and with more than half the field yet to finish.
Irish three-time major champion Padraig Harrington fired a bogey-free 65 and Italy’s Francesco Molinari closed with six birdies in a row to finish a round of 68. Of the 86 players who made the 36-hole cut and advanced to Saturday’s play, only 37 completed their rounds. Kisner and Harrington took aim Saturday before the rain, each with 65s.
Kisner said his mindset was simply to attack the birdie opportunities, per Ryan Herrington of Golf Digest, “Yeah, well, 20 under won the last major”.
How they deal with the conditions following Saturday’s weather will go a long way toward impacting the ultimate victor, but Day and Streb had plenty of momentum after their showings on Friday. I just think that the course is playing to where you can fly 6, 7, 8 irons at the hole, it’s going to stop right there.
While no one is alleging the 7,462-yard Lower Course at Baltusrol is easy, a chorus of golfers have said that the wet weather has de-fanged the course’s most formidable defense: hard, slick greens.
With the leaders still about two hours from teeing off in the third round of the PGA Championship at Baltusrol Golf Club, the player drawing the biggest gallery was Phil Mickelson.
Kisner was slowed by a pair of bogeys on the front nine, though he bounced back with two straight birdies and finished with three birdies in his last four holes. The greens are pristine.
“I think a 61 or 62 is out there”, Mickelson said. They both shot 4-under 66s to get to 2 under. The broadcast partners of the PGA will adjust to the new schedule too and TNT will come on the air two hours earlier than planned.
“Obviously, if you get off to a bad start you’re thinking about it, and vice versa is if you get off to a good start you’re thinking about it as well”.
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“I think [the major record of 63] will be broke [n] in the next two days”, Mickelson reiterated.
