Australian Min Woo Lee seized a share of the lead in Thursday\u2019s opening round of the PGA Championship while Rory McIlroy was frustrated after a miserable start.<\/p>\n
South African Aldrich Potgieter, top-ranked defending champion Scottie Scheffler, Japan\u2019s Ryo Hisatsune and Germany\u2019s Stephan Jaeger each fired a three-under par 69 to share the early clubhouse lead on a wild day at Aronimink.<\/p>\n
On the course at three-under were two-time PGA winner Justin Thomas of the United States, Canada\u2019s Corey Conners and Scheffler, who made a 38-foot birdie putt at the seventh hole, a 28-foot birdie putt at the 10th and curled in another from just inside nine feet at 11 to share the lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cDrove the ball really well,\u201d Lee said. \u201cI played pretty solid all day, didn\u2019t get myself in too much trouble.\u201d <\/p>\n
Second-ranked Masters champion McIlroy had no problems with his blister-hit right foot but plenty with his golf swing.<\/p>\n
McIlroy, a back-nine starter, closed a round of 74 with four bogeys in a row and five in his last six holes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just not driving the ball well enough,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cIt has been a problem all year for the most part.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s pretty frustrating, especially when I pride myself on driving the ball well. I just need to try to figure it out. I honestly thought I had figured it out.\u201d <\/p>\n
Aussie LIV Golf star Cameron Smith appears on track to break his horror run of missed cuts in majors, he is sitting two shots off the early leaders tied for 16th at one-under-par with fellow Aussie Jason Day.<\/p>\n
Smith has missed six consecutive cuts in majors, dating back to 2024 and including the US Masters last month at Augusta.<\/p>\n
But an up and down round of five birdies and four bogeys had the former world No.2 sign for a 69 and give himself hope of reaching the weekend.<\/p>\n
– \u2018Phenomenal shot\u2019 –<\/p>\n
Others on 69 included five-time major winner Brooks Koepka, two-time major winner Jon Rahm and South African Garrick Higgo, issued a two-stroke penalty for being late to the first tee.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t have been late if I knew I was running late,\u201d Higgo said. Spain\u2019s Rahm holed out from the fairway for eagle with a wedge from 101 yards at the second hole.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat can I say? It was a phenomenal shot,\u201d Rahm said.<\/p>\n
Two-time major winner Bryson DeChambeau fired a 76 with five bogeys and a double bogey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian Min Woo Lee seized a share of the lead in Thursday\u2019s opening round of the PGA Championship…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[2620,64,63,249192,317713,43486,2065,6930,5717,755,8463,324049,24415,6920,6919,10900,33064,324002,323995,756,2020,85,42359,324004,2614],"class_list":["post-671461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-agence-france-presse","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-min-woo-lee","tag-back-nine-starter","tag-birdie-putt","tag-canada","tag-corey-conners","tag-germany","tag-golf","tag-golf-swing","tag-grabs-share","tag-jack-nicklaus","tag-justin-rose","tag-justin-thomas","tag-matthew-fitzpatrick","tag-opening-round","tag-phenomenal-shot","tag-pretty-frustrating","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-spain","tag-sports","tag-stephan-jaeger","tag-trademark-undulating-greens","tag-united-states-of-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}