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The deepest field in golf will be challenged by the longest track in major championship history this week at The Ocean Course at Kiawah to decide the 103rd PGA Championship. Kiawah Island, South Carolina, will host 99 of the top 100 players in the world and they will be challenged by arguably Pete and Alice Dye’s toughest test. Stretching to 7,876 yards (Par-72), the Ocean Course at Kiawah overtakes Erin Hills as the longest major championship set-up in history. RELATED: Power Rankings | Expert Picks The PGA Championship was hosted here in 2012 and became the first major championship contested on Seashore Paspalum grass from tee thru green. The putting surfaces average 6,000 square feet and will run at tournament speed and there are 28 acres of fairway to swing at off the tee. Conversely there are 30 acres of sandy areas running along, behind and in front of most holes. The rough is Bermuda but will be over-seeded with ryegrass (up to three inches) to thicken and green it up. The 2021 edition will play 200 yards longer and in the month of May, not August like 2012. Springtime in the Carolinas will bring cooler temperatures and more consistent breezes to add to this already difficult Dye challenge. When the wind blows, the fairways and greens will shrink so controlling the golf ball in the breeze is required. While there will be spectators, there won’t be any grandstands to obstruct views or knock down errant shots. Closely mown areas around the sandy areas greenside will provide more decisions to be made to get it close. Getting up and down to grind out pars will be paramount. For more on the course design and history read THIS from our Sean Martin. As with any major championship examination mental toughness will also factor this week. While not many races have been run on Kiawah Island, there are many Pete Dye examples to examine, especially Whistling Straits, host of three previous PGA Championships. Those who have embraced the Dye designs and have found past successes on these layouts will feel they have a leg up on the rest of the field. The field of 156 players was completed with KH Lee after his win last week at AT&T Byron Nelson. Also, 20 PGA Professionals are entered this week along with any former champions. The purse for the event in 2020 was $11 million with $1.98 million plus 600 FedExCup points and a five year exemption on TOUR to the winner. Recent Event Winners Stats Recent Winners and Notables Recent Winner and Notables 2012: Rory McIlroy (-13, 275) Fired a bogey-free 66 to win his second major championship. … Set the PGA Championship record for margin of victory as he won by eight shots. … Only needed 24 putts in the final round. … Carded 67 in Round 3 to lead by three after 54 holes. … Signed for 75 in Round 2, three shots better than the average that day, to sit two back after 36 holes (-2). … Opened with 67, one of four players one off the lead. … One of three players to card less than 10 total bogeys. … Second major win and second by eight shots. … First top 10 in a major since his 2011 U.S. Open triumph. … Hits the podium for the third time in four starts (Win-T40-T3-T3) at the PGA Championship. … 2012 majors finishes: T40 (Masters), MC (US Open defense) and T60 (Royal Lytham & St Annes). … Played the week before (T5) WGC-FESJC (WGC-Bridgestone at the time), his seventh top five of the season. … Won Honda in March. Notables Entered This Week: Defending champion Keegan Bradley (T3) was playing in just his second PGA Championship. … Ian Poulter (T3) picked up his best PGA Championship check to this day. … Justin Rose (T3) led the field in GIR and was T2 Birdies (18). … Steve Stricker (T7) was one of nine players who played both weekend rounds in the red. … Adam Scott (T11) ranked T2 Putting. … Bubba Watson (T11) made nothing but was T8 GIR. … Louis Oosthuizen (T21) also circled 18 birdies (T2). … McIlroy and Rose both posted 66 on Sunday, one off the best round of the week. … Perfect weather in Round 1 saw 44 players break par. … Round 2 scoring average was 78.1 and only four golfers broke par (49-year old Vijay Singh 69, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Ian Poulter, 71). … Cut was +6 and only 10 players were under par after 36 holes. … Round 3 had eight rounds in the 60s as a thunderstorm halted play in the afternoon. … Round 4 had 18 rounds in the 60s. … 74.6 scoring average for the week. Of 72 players making the cut, 24 hit 71 percent or better Fairways. … Rose was one of only seven players to hit 50 or more GIR. … There were only six Americans in the top 17. … Others playing in 2021: T18 John Daly (1991 winner) T18 Padraig Harrington (2007, 2008 winner) T21 Jimmy Walker (2016 winner) T27 Jason Dufner (2013 winner, 2011 runner up) T27 Marc Leishman T36 Rich Beem (2002 winner) T36 Phil Mickelson (2005 winner) T36 Vijay Singh (1998, 2004 winner) T36 YE Yang (2009 winner) T42 Martin Laird (led the field in Total Driving) T42 Gary Woodland T48 Dustin Johnson T54 Francesco Molinari T59 Charl Schwartzel T62 Chez Reavie T66 Alex Noren 70 Zach Johnson 72 Cameron Tringale Missed Cut: George Coetzee Sergio Garcia Webb Simpson Bernd Wiesberger Stewart Cink Jason Day Lee Westwood Branden Grace Rickie Fowler Matt Kuchar Shaun Micheel (2003 winner) Charley Hoffman Ryan Palmer Martin Kaymer (2010 winner) Paul Case Kevin Na (DQ) Key stat leaders Top golfers in each statistic on the 2020-2021 PGA TOUR are listed only if they are scheduled to compete this week. 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There’s a line of demarcation in Rory McIlroy’s 2019-20 season, and it’s the PGA TOUR’s three-month layoff in which the entire sports world paused for the coronavirus pandemic. Before the TOUR shut things down after the first round of THE PLAYERS Championship in March, McIlroy – the defending FedExCup champion and Player of the Year – had six straight top-five finishes, including a win at the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions. Since then? Five starts and just one top-30 finish, a T11 at the Travelers Championship. “Before the world sort of shut down, I was playing some really good golf, consistent,” McIlroy said from San Francisco’s chilly TPC Harding Park, where he is gearing up for this week’s PGA Championship. “And then yeah, having that three-month break, coming back, everything sort of changed. Everything feels different, in the competitive arena, anyway.” Not that McIlroy has faded into obscurity. Hardly. He’s fifth in the FedExCup, and had retained the No. 1 world ranking until losing it to Jon Rahm last month. (Rahm has since lost it to Justin Thomas.) No, the results for McIlroy have just been – flat. “My game doesn’t feel that far away,” he said. “I feel like I’ve played pretty well. I just haven’t got a lot out of my game. Haven’t scored as well as I was doing before the lockdown. … Haven’t been efficient as I was back then. Short game hasn’t quite been as sharp.” The question is why, and can he get it back. Coastal-adjacent TPC Harding Park, where he won the 2015 WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, beating Gary Woodland in the final, is one of his happy places on the schedule, so a return to form there this week would not be entirely unexpected. Maybe there’s still some McIlroy mojo hovering up there in the marine layer. Granted, the layout and routing are different, and the course is playing longer, and with narrower fairways. The damp conditions are more or less the same. The sweater weather remains. Also, as McIlroy noted, the PGA setup man is still Kerry Haigh, whom he likes. (The PGA is the lone major McIlroy has won twice, at Kiawah in 2012 and Valhalla in 2014.) As for his relatively lackluster results, the chattering class has speculated about the why, and McIlroy hasn’t denied it. Having noted a certain week-to-week sameness in golf’s (and other pro sports’) quiet new normal, he suggested he has struggled to play without galleries. “He draws a lot of his energy from the fact that fans of all nationalities pull for him,” said Golf Channel analyst and former world No. 1 David Duval. “He’s a world-favorite player. Being out here where there are so (few) people around can take some adjustment.” McIlroy wouldn’t deny that, but knows things aren’t likely to change overnight as the virus shows no signs of going away. And he knows he’s going to have to find his A-game on his own. “I’ve said in the last few weeks that I’ve struggled to adapt to it,” he said, “but it is what it is. You need to go out there and do the best that you can. We all wish that we were playing in front of fans and have it feel like a real major championship, but I think we’re just lucky that we’re able to play golf tournaments at this point and grateful to PGA of America and all the governing bodies for adapting and pivoting and being able to put on these championships.” And again: He’s not far off. “I shot a 63 at Colonial,” he said. “I shot a 65 to make the cut at Hilton Head; a 63 at Travelers, a couple of good scores last week in Memphis. So the good stuff is in there. I was just saying earlier, it’s just the sharpness and being efficient with my scoring. “Turning the 73s that I’ve shot into 70s,” he added. “That’s the sort of stuff that I think when you’re sharp and you’re playing a bit and you’re sort of in your groove you’re able to do that a little better, and that’s the stuff that I haven’t been able to do since coming back out here.”

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