Fresh faces finding success in majors
TULSA, Okla. – First-time major winners have been nothing new in golf during this next generation of stars.
Sunday at the PGA Championship at Southern Hills was shaping up to follow the trent.
Mito Pereira of Chile opened the final round with a three-shot lead, trying to become the first PGA Tour rookie since Keegan Bradley in the 2011 PGA Championship to win a major. The last full-time tour player who made a major his first victory was Shaun Micheel, who won the 2003 championship at Oak Hill.
Chasing Pereira were Matt Fitzpatrick of England and Will Zalatoris. Neither had won a major. Fitzpatrick is a two-time Ryder Cup player from England. But he entered Sunday with only one top-10 finish in the 24 previous majors he has played as a pro. Zalatoris was runner-up in the Masters in 2021.
Cameron Young, who had never made a cut in a major until this weekend, started the day four shots behind.
Eight of the last 13 champions of the PGA leading into this year’s tournament had never won a major. That’s about the same ratio for the Masters and U.S. Open.
The 27-year-old Pereira isn’t a total unknown, though. He lost a playoff for the bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics.
In early final-round action, Rory McIlroy ripped off four birdies in a row to go from even par for the tournament to within five of the lead, only to hit a poor chip shot at the par-3 sixth and drop a shot there.
Later, Zalatoris had just made backto-back birdies and pulled into a tie for the lead with Pereira when he flew the green at the par-3 sixth and the ball came to rest inside a shrub.
Zalatoris took a penalty stroke for an unplayable lie andthen had to get relief from the new spot because a television tower was in his way. He wound up dropping onto the paved cart path and pitched from there onto the green, the shot coming to rest about 8 feet from the hole. He made the putt for a crucial bogey.
While Zalatoris was dropping a shot, Pereira rolled in a short birdie putt at the fifth to take a two-shot lead.
Pereira made a big par putt at the ninth to make the turn at 7 under and with a one-shot lead after making backto-back bogeys before converting an up-and-down from the bunker.