Former Mocs Golfer Stephan Jaeger Among Seven Tied For the Lead at PGA Championship
NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. (AP) — Scottie Scheffler missed a 4-foot putt and laughed. Jon Rahm angrily swung his club after an errant shot and the grass divot hit a volunteer in the face. Garrick Higgo was 10 seconds late to the first tee and penalized two shots before he even swung a club.
Aronimink waited 64 years to host another PGA Championship and made up for lost time in a big way Thursday, including the biggest logjam in a major championship since 1969.
When the long day was over, most predictable was seeing Scheffler’s name atop the leaderboard at 3-under 67, along with six other players. Another surprise: It’s the first time the world’s No. 1 player has at least a share of the lead after 18 holes of a major.
Scheffler wasn’t buying it.
“Is it a really a lead when you’re tied with like six guys?” he told ESPN with a laugh.
Scheffler took advantage of two long birdie putts and one big break on the 17th hole for his lowest start to a tournament since January. He was tied with six others — former PGA champion Martin Kaymer perhaps the most surprising — on a tough day in the Philadelphia suburbs.
Joining them at 67 were Aldrich Potgieter, Stephan Jaeger, Min Woo Lee, Ryo Hisatsune and Alex Smalley. The seven-way tie was the largest since nine players shared the lead in the 1969 PGA Championship at NCR Country Club in Dayton, Ohio.
“At this moment, it’s anybody’s tournament,” Scheffler said. Indeed, 48 players were within three shots of the lead. The difference between missing the cut and being part of the lead was six shots.
And to think it could have been eight players. Higgo had a 69, which included a two-shot penalty before he even hit a shot for being 10 seconds late to the tee for his group’s starting time.
Masters champion Rory McIlroy bogeyed his last four holes for a 74 that sent him to the practice range for most of the afternoon.
Not since Oakland Hills in 2008 — Jeev Milkha Singh and Robert Karlsson at 2-under 68 — has the low score to par after the first round of the PGA Championship been worse than 3 under. Aronimink with its severely sloped greens, fast fairways and plenty of wind that shooed away morning clouds was every bit a major challenge.
Scheffler has struggled with opening rounds for most of the year since opening with a 63 in his season debut at The American Express, his only victory. But this was quality work. He missed only one fairway, which cost him one of his two bogeys on the day.
“Definitely the best start I’ve gotten off to this year, maybe besides American Express,” Scheffler said. “Your scores are definitely going to be lower if you hit the ball on the fairway, but it’s still really, really difficult to make birdies.”
He made one from just inside 40 feet on the par-4 seventh, and another birdie from just inside 30 feet on the par-4 10th. And even the No. 1 player in the world needed a little help.
Scheffler was in the thick collar of rough to the right of the par-3 17th, facing a chip over a ridge and down toward the hole. But his golf ball was close enough to a sprinkler cap that he was given free relief, dropped on the fringe and putted it to close range for a par.
Kaymer won the PGA Championship in 2010 at Whistling Straits, giving him a lifetime exemption. Kaymer joined LIV Golf in 2022 and has yet to finish in the top 10 in the few European tour events he has played since then. He is No. 1,160 in the world ranking. He hasn’t been in the top 10 after one round of any major since the 2020 PGA Championship.
During the champions dinner on Tuesday, he said one PGA of America officer asked the German if he planned to play this week.
“I said, ‘Yeah, that’s why I’m here. I’m not flying from Europe to here to have a New York strip with you guys, you know?’ Of course, I’m playing. And that really motivated me.”
Patrick Reed was the only player who made it around Aronimink without a bogey, his two birdies giving him a 68 and in the large group with Xander Schauffele and Shane Lowry, who played the two par 5s in 3 under.
Jordan Spieth, lacking only the PGA Championship for the career Grand Slam, bogeyed two of his last three holes — and did not birdie the par-5 ninth, the easiest hole at Aronimink — to join the group at 69 that included Brooks Koepka, Rahm and Justin Thomas.
No one struggled quite like Bryson DeChambeau, who didn’t make a birdie until he ended on the par-5 ninth. That kept him from matching his highest score in the PGA Championship. He shot 76 and now has to work toward avoiding a second straight missed cut in a major.
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