The last time the PGA Championship visited Kiawah Island’s famed Ocean Course, history was made.
Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy shot 13-under 275, closing with a 6-under 66, and established a championship record for largest margin of victory, winning by eight shots. (Jack Nicklaus, who had won the 1980 PGA by seven, was the previous record-holder).
That was nine years ago. The PGA Championship is back at Kiawah this week. Who might history tap on the shoulder this time?
McIlroy, who owns two PGA Championship titles among his four majors, enters as the tournament favourite, though just two weeks ago, at the Wells Fargo Championship in North Carolina, he won for the first time in 18 months.
The man with the most history on the line this week would be Jordan Spieth, who, at 27, needs to add the PGA’s Wanamaker Trophy to close out a career Grand Slam. Only five players have accomplished the feat, and the names are mighty: Gene Sarazen; Ben Hogan; Gary Player; Jack Nicklaus; and Tiger Woods.
Spieth recently ended a long winless stretch of his own. He had not won since The Open in the summer of 2017 before capturing the Valero Texas Open in early April. He has been playing nicely, chalking up another solid finish (T-9) at the AT&T Byron Nelson as he heads to the PGA armed with a nice amount of confidence.
This will be Spieth’s fifth shot at trying to land the last leg of the Slam – something that eluded greats Arnold Palmer and Tom Watson. Spieth says he tries to block out thinking about the extra historical meaning that winning a PGA would deliver.
“I think 2017 … was really the only time where it may have weighed on me, only given it was coming right off of a major win, and then I was playing really well kind of week-in and week-out there,” Spieth said. “So I felt in form. I felt a favourite going in and it was the last major (played then in August). And then the years after, I just didn't really feel in great form in PGAs. I mean, it's going to pick you apart if you're not driving the ball straight and far.
“Every year I go into that tournament, it's like it's the one that if I could pick one more to win, I would pick that one. But while I'm playing the tournament, it hasn't really hit me and added any pressure or anything like that. It just kind of excites me a little bit more going into it.”
In Texas last week, Spieth disclosed that between the Masters and the AT&T Byron Nelson, he had been down for two weeks battling COVID-19.
Golf finds itself in an interesting position as the second major of 2021 commences. COVID-19 greatly altered the golf schedule a year ago. The PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park, moved from May to August, kicked off a stretch of big-time golf that players and fans never may encounter again: six majors staged in 11 months. The PGA will be the fourth of those six.
After romping by eight shots in 2012 on an Ocean Course that had been softened by weekly overnight rains, McIlroy was asked to take a perfectionist’s view of his performance. What part of his game did he wish had been better?
“None,” Mcilroy replied. “It was all good.”
Funny, but he hadn’t really shown very good recent form going into that PGA week, missing the cut in four of his previous eight starts. McIlroy went on to produce a clinical performance. Perhaps that might be the model we watch this week, too.
Two top players, Dustin Johnson (a runner-up at Harding Park year ago) and Brooks Koepka, a two-time PGA champion, have been dealing with injuries.
Of the top-20 players in the current Official World Golf Ranking, more than half (11) are seeking their first major championship victory. Johnson (2), Koepka (4) and McIlroy (4) are the only players in that group counting multiple majors.
Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama will be making only his second start since capturing the Masters in April, and is trying to play his way back into form, coming in after shooting 12-under 276 and finishing middle of the pack at the AT&T Byron Nelson.
Matsuyama took his Masters champion’s green jacket home to Japan with him last month, not touching a club for the first two weeks as he had to quarantine upon landing. Breaking through with a major victory is something that might free him up and lead to more major success.
“I realize now the responsibility that goes with a major championship, especially the Masters,” he said. “I'm honoured. I'm flattered by the added attention, but at the same time, sometimes it's difficult to say no. But it goes with the territory and, again, grateful that I have this opportunity and I'll try my best to prepare well for what's to come.”
The Ocean Course, built by legendary architect Pete Dye ahead of the 1991 Ryder Cup, will be a star unto itself. After a soft and receptive Day 1 nine years ago at the PGA, it flexed its muscles in the second round, when bogeys piled high and 41 players failed to break 80. The stroke average for the day was 78. Vijay Singh’s 69 stood as low round. When the wind whips off the ocean at Kiawah, the course can be that demanding, that tough.
Tiger Woods, for one, has been on record stating that he is a fan of Dye’s designs, and what he asked of a tournament player competing on his golf courses.
“The golf courses that I have played that are Pete's, I do like them, just because of the fact that you have to think,” Woods said pre-tournament in 2012. “You can't just go up there and just swing away and hit it and go find it. You've got to really think about what you're going to do and how you're going to do it.”
Defending champion Collin Morikawa will attempt to become only the third player to win back-to-back PGAs since the event moved from match play to stroke play in 1958 (trying to join Woods, who did it twice, and Koepka).
Omar Uresti leads the Team of 20 club professionals who advanced from the PGA Professional Championship played at PGA National Golf Club. And for the first time in its history, the PGA of America will allow competitors to use distance devices during the competition.
But with high winds and firm conditions, tasting success at the Ocean Course demands more than running finite numbers. It’s Kiawah Island, and golf played along the shores of a rollicking ocean, amid whipping winds. As always, there is the chance for history. At one of America’s sternest tests of golf, players are ready to start chasing it.
- Jeff Babineau
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