BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU’S jaw-dropping birdie putt on the final hole – from exactly 95 feet and five inches – pretty much summed up this glorious USPGA Championship. You simply have no idea what is going to happen next. And seeing Dustin Johnson on top of the leaderboard – a man who followed a win five weeks […]
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU’S jaw-dropping birdie putt on the final hole – from exactly 95 feet and five inches – pretty much summed up this glorious USPGA Championship.
You simply have no idea what is going to happen next.
And seeing Dustin Johnson on top of the leaderboard – a man who followed a win five weeks ago with rounds of 80-80-78 – adds to the level of uncertainty.
DeChambeau has become famous this year for bulking up and hitting monster drives.
It seems he can also hit long putts, and his reaction when the tramliner on 18 dropped showed as he was as shocked as the rest of us.
That took him to six under par, three behind Johnson in a five-way share of seventh place.
And with Harding Park in San Francisco offering up precious few really low scores, it looks like the winner is going to come from that group of 12 players on six under or better.
That takes in a trio of Englishman, led by Paul Casey on seven under, with Justin Rose and Tommy Fleetwood a shot back after grinding out level par efforts in round three.
Brooks Koepka, aiming for a hat-trick of USPGA titles and a fifth win in his last 11 Majors, is inevitably up there too.
He matched Casey’s score thanks to two late birdies after another hat-trick – of bogeys – threatened to derail his bid for glory.
Another former USPGA winner, Jason Day, is also on six under, alongside Tony Finau, who seems to put his name on the leaderboard every week without getting over the line.
But it is not just the usual suspects.
The two men just a shot behind Johnson are rookie Scottie Scheffler and the big-hitting Cameron Champ, who most pros believe could still hit it further than DeChambeau if he decided to really bend his back.
Collin Morikawa and Daniel Berger, two of the hottest players in the game since the PGA Tour’s three-month lockdown ended and both recent winners, are two more relatively fresh faces to consider.
And third round leader Haotong Li can consider himself unlucky to be just outside the top 12 on five under.
He was still ahead until his ball refused to come down from a tree on the 12th, costing him a double bogey.
That was another example of the blink and you will miss something incredible nature of this tournament.
It is no wonder we have missed Major championship golf so much over the last 14 months.
The east coast timings mean the final pairing of Johnson and Scheffler will not tee off until 9.50pm tonight for UK viewers.
And the winner will not be known until around 1.30am – assuming there is no need for a play-off, although it is hard to rule that out with such a congested leaderboard.
But everything we have seen so far suggests this is going to be a finish worth waiting up for.
To say 26-year-old DeChambeau was surprised by his monster putt would be an understatement.
He said: “It’s the longest putt I’ve ever made in any competition, ever.”
At 95 ft 5 in, it was also the longest putt made on the PGA Tour since Nick Watney’s 95 ft 7 in effort in the 2017 RBC Canadian Open.
DeChambeau added: “I just said to myself, well, I think this line looks pretty good.
“We’ve been doing a lot of speed testing so I knew I had to hit it like 130 ft relative to all of our stuff… I was able to start it on line and saw it kept going closer and closer to the hole and eventually dropped.
“Those moments, you just have to look back and laugh and appreciate what the game is, because that stuff happens at random points in time in life. This was a pretty good random moment to do it in.
“I’m proud of myself that I’ve been able to change my body.
“That’s something that is difficult to do… there’s usually a little struggle with that. So I really am blessed and proud.”
Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy‘s six-year Major drought shows no signs of ending.
He fell further back after a bogey-bogey finish saw him slip to a one over par 71, leaving him just inside the top fifty.
