A victory by Brooks Koepka at the 105th PGA Championship would have several layers of meaning, both for the man who achieves it and for the game of golf at large.
Quite often a player who comes close to winning a Major championship tends to give himself another chance almost right away if he keeps his form intact and carries the right attitude.
For what it’s worth, Block isn’t trying to get ahead of himself, trying to block out the noise and stay in the moment to appreciate it for what it is. He’s already achieved something he doubted, which is if he had the game to compete with the best, and through 54 holes, he has.
Between the Masters victory, three other PGA Tour victories in 2023 and a host of other high finishes, Jon Rahm has made the sport look easy this season. Surely, the Spaniard would tame Oak Hill, too, entering the week as the tournament favorite.
Years from now, Michael Block can spin a yarn about his week at the 105th PGA Championship at Oak Hill Country Club, and it’s going to sound like a fairy tale or a tall tale—and probably a little bit of both—but it won’t need any embellishment.
Ryan Fox stepped up round one as the obligatory mystery man, at least to US reporters unaware of his efforts on the DP World Tour, that tends to pop up on a first-round leaderboard of a major championship—though he shouldn’t be.
As I’m writing these words, Bryson DeChambeau is the clubhouse leader at the PGA Championship after his first round at Oak Hill. There’s a thematic similarity here to what we saw at the Masters when Brooks Koepka, who looked downtrodden and resigned for a very long time, re-emerged as a major threat and nearly won Read more…
Viktor Hovland shot a 2-under-par 68 on a thorny Thursday at the PGA Championship, settling nicely into the top five, but it was his clothes that perhaps made the loudest statement.
Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau and Sergio Garcia have been interviewed by the United States Department of Justice, along with lawyers from the PGA Tour, according to a report from the New York Times.