With both Phil Mickelson and Henrik Stenson firing almost easy-looking 63s at Royal Troon two weeks ago, the golf world seems more overdue than ever for a record-setting 62 in a major championship, and there’s a very good chance it will happen this week.
Why? Three reasons. 1) It’s the PGA Championship, where the course set up is traditionally the least severe of the four majors. Of the 29 times a 63 has been posted, 13 have occurred in the PGA compared to 10 in the British Open, 4 in the U.S. Open and 2 in the Masters.
2) The site is Baltusrol, a par-70 and the only major venue that has already yielded three 63s—two by Jack Nicklaus and Tom Weiskopf in the 1980 U.S. Open and the other by Thomas Bjorn in the 2005 PGA.
3) The weather—with heavy rain yesterday and storms forecast for the weekend, there will be no fire in the greens, enabling the best players in the world to go on the attack.