Breakthrough season
Run of 1st-time major champs could continue with leaderboard full of non-winners
SPRINGFIELD, N.J. — Jimmy Walker and most of the players on the leaderboard after the first round of the 98th PGA Championship have one apparently good thing in common: They haven’t won a major.
Of late, getting that first one hasn’t been the enormous hurdle it once seemed.
For the first time since 2011, the first three majors were captured by first-time major champions. That has been the case in five of the last seven majors.
Walker shot a 5-underpar 65 on Thursday at Baltusrol to take sole possession of the lead, and he certainly fits the profile of a top-quality player with the ability to break through — like the other three major champions for 2016: Danny Willett, Dustin Johnson and Henrik Stenson.
The late-blooming 37year-old from Oklahoma owns five PGA Tour victories and has played for the U.S. in the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup. Walker is among the longest hitters and better putters on tour.
“Three first-time major winners this year; I don’t think it’s a coincidence,” Walker said. “They are all good players and it was just a matter of time.”
He smiled and added, “Just keep it rolling.”
Among the 19 players closest to Walker, only four — Martin Kaymer (66), Stenson (67), Louis Oosthuizen (68) and defending champion Jason Day (68) — have won a major.
Former Ryder Cup player Ross Fisher of England birdied the back-to-back closing par-5s to shoot a 66, the same score recorded by Leader Jimmy Walker, who shot a 65, has five PGA Tour victories but no major titles. 23-year- old PGA Tour rookie Emiliano Grillo of Argentina.
Most of the best scores were recorded in the heat of the morning before the greens baked out and a breeze picked up. It should be much softer for the second round, during which heavy rain is expected early.
Beyond the top-ranked Day, few of the world’s highest- ranked golfers were able to solve Baltusrol. To the good were No. 5 Stenson, whose 67 came on the heels of his spectacular British Open win, and No. 7 Rickie Fowler, resurrecting his moribund game — three missed cuts in the last six starts — with a 68.
Mediocre were Jordan Spieth, who didn’t make a birdie until the 16th hole in shooting a 70, and Phil Mickelson, who overcame a terrible start to shoot 71.
Then there were the awful. U.S. Open champion Johnson had a chance to get to No. 1 this week, but forget that. He made two double bogeys and bogeyed the easy 18th to score a shocking 77. Rory McIlroy’s frustrations continued. He couldn’t make a birdie and shot 74.
Ahead of them all was Walker, who didn’t begin to regularly qualify for majors until 2014. That year he posted top-10s in the Masters, U.S. Open and PGA, but he never has contended deep into a Sunday.
The season has been a struggle for Walker. He tied for fourth at Torrey Pines but has only one top-10 since.
“I have been cranking away and busting it,” Walker said. “It just hasn’t showed.”
Fowler’s season has been nearly as frustrating. He had an early stretch of four top-10s in five starts that included a playoff loss to Hideki Matsuyama in the Phoenix Open. But he mostly has struggled since missing the Masters cut, also missing the weekend in the U.S. Open and tying for 46th in the British Open.
“You don’t have to sugarcoat it; it wasn’t very good,” Fowler said. “Missing cuts is not fun and definitely not what’s planned. It’s heading in the right direction.”
Fisher, 35, was remarkably accurate Thursday, hitting all but two fairways and two greens. He is 0-for-22 in majors and didn’t play in the first two this season because he’s ranked 101st in the world.
Seeing others, including two fellow Europeans this year, seize their first majors has given him hope.
“The variety of good golfers is amazing,” Fisher said. “It feels like anyone can turn up on any given day, pick it up and win.”