It has been 382 days since we had live action from a men’s professional major, so you know we are fired up! TPC Harding Park, across the lake from Olympic Club, is the host venue for the year’s first major. It’s the San Francisco muny’s first major, and this week marks the first time the West Coast city is hosting a PGA Championship. For years, the PGA Championship was branded “Glory’s Last Shot.” This year, it’s appropriate to call it “Glory’s First Shot.”
A certain 15-time major champion will be looking to inch closer to Jack Nicklaus’ major record this week. Tiger Woods tees off at 8:33 a.m. (local time) off the 10th tee alongside Justin Thomas and Rory McIlroy. They’ll be just a few eyeballs on that group. Other notable tee times in the morning wave: Koepka, Gary Woodland and Shane Lowry, the past three major champs, are off at 8:11 a.m.; Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth and Justin Rose are off one group later at 8:22 a.m. All those groups are off No. 10.
The first groups have teed off! Major golf is officially back! The first groups on the course were: No. 1 tee: Brian Harman, C.T. Pan and Jeff Hart (club pro at Lomas Santa Fe Country Club in Solana Beach, Calif.). No. 10 tee: Scottie Scheffler, Tom Hoge and Danny Balin (club pro out of Fresh Meadow in Lake Success, N.Y.) Scroll down for the latest updates.
LIVE UPDATES (timestamps in eastern time):
10:44 a.m.: Tony Finau starts his PGA Championship off with a birdie at the par-5 10th hole, with a nice 11-footer or so to get under-par to start his round. Patrick Cantlay, also in Finau’s group, failed to get up and down after a nice pitch from behind the green. Cantlay missed his 6-foot uphiller to remain even-par in his round. They’re playing with Danny Willett, who bogeyed the par 5 after finding the right fairway bunker on his tee shot.
10:33 a.m.: We have some early highlights from club pros early on Thursday! Danny Balin, club pro from Fresh Meadow, holes a beautiful chip shot at the par-3 11th hole to move to 1-under. And John O’Leary, another club pro (at Trump National-Washington D.C.), nearly holed his approach at the par-4 first hole. O’Leary just misses the birdie putt, but got a nice shoutout from ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt in the process.
Scottie Scheffler follows that up with his second straight birdie to start his round, holing a long 25-footer for his birdie. Scheff moves to 2-under early! Like we said, the scoring’s supposed to be difficult here at TPC Harding Park. The afternoon, at least, the winds are expected to pick up…
Tom Hoge, in the same group as Scheffler and Balin, also birdied the par-3 11th — holing a 10-footer. That’s three birdies from this hot group!
10:23 a.m.: Scottie Scheffler joins C.T. Pan at the top of the leaderboard with a birdie at the par-5 10th hole. The young Texan got up-and-down from the right greenside bunker before holing an eight-footer for his birdie. And we’re off!
10:12 a.m. (eastern time): C.T. Pan records the first birdie of the major season at the par-4 opening hole. Impressively, Pan found the rough off the tee but put his approach to 6 feet before holing the putt. The first hole is a relatively benign, less than 400-yard two-shotter to open, but still a good birdie. And the groups off the 10th tee will be starting on a par 5, so we might see some birdies from in these groups just teeing off. But don’t let that fool you: The par-70, 7,250-yard TPC Harding Park is supposed to play a little more difficult today in some chilly weather.