Betting the PGA Championship at Kiawah Island

The men’s golf majors returned to a normal schedule in 2021 after a challenging 2020. There were a lot of breakthrough moments, and some disappointing ones. None lacked drama. We look back.

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NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Xander Schauffele began his second round by missing a 4-foot birdie putt. That was hardly a sign of what was to follow Friday in THE CJ CUP @ SHADOW CREEK. RELATED: Full leaderboard | What the pros are playing at Shadow Creek Schauffele made putts as short as 3 feet and as long as 35 feet. He chipped in from 20 feet. He seemingly couldn’t miss during a two-hour stretch when he made seven birdies over eight holes, including six in a row, for a career-best 29 on the back nine. His momentum slowed with the pace of play, and he settled an 8-under 64 for a three-shot lead over Tyrrell Hatton. "Some of those holes, you’re not really trying to birdie them, you’re just trying to leave yourself an uphill 35-footer. And fortunately, I made a couple of them," Schauffele said. “It was a nice stretch. Got a little bit stale there on the other side. Pace of play slowed down a lot, kind of hot, easy to let the mind wander. "Upset I didn’t make more birdies, but pleased I didn’t make any bogeys." He was at 14-under 130 and now has the course record at Shadow Creek, which is hosting THE CJ CUP for this year only because the COVID-19 pandemic made travel to South Korea impractical. Hatton, among six players who were in England last week for the European Tour’s flagship event, was headed for a rocky finish when he laid up into the rough on the par-5 16th that led to a second straight bogey. He rallied to close with a pair of birdies for a 68. Russell Henley (68) was another shot back at 10-under 134. Defending champion Justin Thomas found some momentum with six birdies, despite missing two easy chances on par 5s, for a 66 and was eight shots behind at the halfway point. "I guess I played my way somewhat back into it," he said before turning to look at the scores on a nearby monitor. "But Xander kind of went off today, so that makes it a little harder." Thomas kept glancing at video boards trying to figure out what Schauffele was doing, besides making a lot of birdies. "This is a place you can do it," Thomas said. "You can go crazy low out here. You’ve got a lot of bowl pins, a lot of pins you can get close to. If you don’t have control of your ball, as firm as the greens are, you can make a lot of bogeys, too." It wasn’t just Schauffele making birdies. He played alongside Collin Morikawa, who shot a 65, and Viktor Hovland, who had a 66. They were a combined 21-under par, with a better-ball score of 59. Schauffele was doing most of the damage. After his tee shot to 3 feet on the 211-yard 13th hole, he rolled in a 25-foot putt on the next hole, a birdie putt from just over 35 feet on the 15th, two-putted from a sidehill lie on the fringe at the par-5 16th and looked to be in trouble on the par-3 17th when his tee shot landed beyond the green near the creek. The hop was gentle, leaving him in thick grass, and he chipped in. Then on the par-5 18th, he had to lay up from a fairway bunker, hit wedge to 15 feet below the hole and made that. That’s when he hit the brakes, and so did the tournament. The course has enough reachable par 5s (and one par 4) to lead to congestion. And with so few volunteers, there is a lot of searching for balls, along with provisional tee shots. Hovland had one just short of the par-3 fifth hole as he looked through thick grass framing the bunkers. Brooks Koepka had his entire group searching left of the seventh fairway (he also hit a provisional) until it was found. He took a penalty drop into the rough, advanced it down the fairway and made a 12-footer for par. Koepka, who was 6 under through 13 holes, had to settle for a 68. He was 10 shots behind. Jon Rahm made a 5-foot eagle putt on his fourth hole. He made four bogeys and no birdies over his next 10 holes, birdied the last for a 73 and was 10 shots behind. Rory McIlroy had a mixed bag of seven birdies and four bogeys for a 69, leaving him 12 behind and looking for momentum to carry into next week at Sherwood Country Club.

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DETROIT – Matthew Wolff made things too complicated after his maiden PGA TOUR victory at the 3M Open last year. He put every facet of his game under a microscope – and got worse. No more wins, not even any top-10 finishes, just aggravation. Changing course, Wolff resolved to keep it simple. He’s obviously sticking to that, because by his own admission he shot a second straight 64 at Detroit Golf Club not because he’d optimized his spin rate or anticipated the nitrogen levels of the grass. No, no. Not even close. “I heard an ice cream truck circling the property,” said Wolff, 21, who will carry a three-shot lead over Ryan Armour (67) and Bryson DeChambeau (67) into the final round. “Seemed like every time I heard that, I made birdie or made a putt, so I’ve got to give a lot of credit to that.” RELATED: Leaderboard | Wolff: ‘Maybe I need to impress the old greats’ | Armour makes quiet ace If that seems like a wacky explanation, then maybe it’s because Wolff, he of the wacky swing trigger, had a decidedly wacky round: five pars, nine birdies, an eagle, and three bogeys. Add it all up and he’ll be aiming for win No. 2 almost exactly one year to the day after his first. Ice cream? The only guy who’s made more of the Fourth of July weekend is Joey Chestnut. “Felt like the putter was really good today,” Wolff said. “Wasn’t really thinking about much over the putt, lining it up, feeling confident in the line and stroking it really nice.” Not thinking about much other than ice cream, that is. (He’s a vanilla guy.) He didn’t even let a missed five-footer at the second hole get to him. He made over 117 feet of putts – second for the week in Strokes Gained: Putting – including a 13 1/2 footer for eagle at the par-5 14th. Now comes the hard part: Keeping his carefree outlook even with the trophy on the line Sunday. It might have been an intriguing study in contrasts had Wolff been paired with DeChambeau on Sunday. Each crushes the ball, each is a classic iconoclast, but they are mondo different between the ears. One guy, DeChambeau, squirts his golf balls with mist to study how they react in the rain. The other guy, Wolff, lets his thoughts drift with the seductive trills of the Mr. Softee truck. Anyway, it’s a mood point because Wolff will play the final round with Armour, whom he calls “a super good guy.” More than twice Wolff’s age, Armour has the same number of career PGA TOUR wins, one, but he may not go away quietly. After missing a three-foot putt to double-bogey the 17th hole, Armour drained a 21 1/2 foot birdie on 18 to get back to 16 under. “You can see a picture in your eye of what shot you want to hit based on the framing of the trees,” Armour said of the Donald Ross-designed Detroit Golf Club, which he said fits his eye and reminds him of his junior golf days in Akron, Ohio. “I think that’s really pretty.” DeChambeau, by the way, was relegated to a share of second place by Wolff’s eagle putt on the 72nd hole at the 3M. No telling whether history will repeat itself at the Rocket Mortgage, but rest assured the Mad Scientist won’t be thinking about ice cream trucks and trees. “Just going out there and being aggressive, being aggressive where need be,” DeChambeau said of his plan for the final round. That shouldn’t be a problem. He nearly drove the green at the par-4 first and 13th holes, birdied both, and leads the field in driving distance (347.3) by a wide margin. Still, he hasn’t quite put it all together. Five more players – Troy Merritt (67), Mark Hubbard (69), Seamus Power (69), Chris Kirk (70) and Wesley Bryan (65) – are at 14 under, five off the lead and with an outside chance. There will be fireworks. There will be ice cream. There will be golf. “I’ve really got to give it to a lot of mindset,” Wolff said of his success. “I feel like there was a lot of times in the past where I had good rounds and I let my head get in the way – I need to close this out or I need to do something, I want to try to make more birdies coming in. “Instead I would go the other way,” he continued, “whereas I’m taking it shot by shot, hole by hole and whatever happens, happens.”

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