Day One of the PGA Championship was a tale of two waves

The first round of the 2020 PGA Championship was a tale of two waves—and despite the proximity to the ocean of Harding Park, the San Francisco muni that is hosting this strange golf season’s first major, it wasn’t Pacific Ocean waves lapping at the shore that shaped today’s results, but the weather affecting the morning and afternoon starting waves, and who got to play when.

Australia’s Jason Day, though not much mentioned in the runup to this week’s PGA Championship, is co-leader after the first round, at 5-under 65. (Image © 2020 Darren Carroll/PGA of America)

Golf, being an outdoor game, is at the mercy of the elements, and never more so that when it is played near the ocean. In Northern California that can mean fog, overcast, blowing mist, or just plain wind, and while that famous line likening summer in San Francisco to a harsh winter was not actually written by Mark Twain, it has certainly persisted because there is so much truth in it.

The players in the field this week saw the accustomed mist and chilly weather; long sleeves, knit hats, and even rain gear (for warmth) were in evidence during practice rounds early in the week,  but players who went out in the morning wave on the first day of competitive rounds were greeted by high overcast, milder-than-expected temperatures, and virtually no wind. 

The friendly conditions for the morning rounds resulted in a spate of low scores, despite the lush rough and tightened fairways of the course’s championship setup. The absence of wind made it easier for players to hit those narrow fairways, and soft(ish), receptive greens meant that even fliers out of the sticky rough—a mixture of Poa annua, bermuda, and rye grass—stood a good chance of holding the putting surface.

Conditions changed for the afternoon wave, and though the later rounds were played under clear or only partially cloudy skies, the westerly winds that are usual in the afternoon on San Francisco’s west side made all the difference. Building steadily and gusting to 20+ mph by the late afternoon, the windy conditions made hitting greens a chancy proposition, as well as drying and firming up the putting surfaces.

The difference in conditions resulted in a scoring differential of nearly a full stroke from morning to afternoon, though the first-round co-leaders, Australia’s Jason Day, the 2015 PGA champion, and Brendon Todd, of Athens, Georgia, came from each group; Day playing in the morning and Todd in the afternoon wave. Day and Todd, each finishing with 5-under 65s, are followed by a group of nine players at 4-under—a group that includes defending PGA champion Brooks Koepka and 2010 PGA champ Martin Kaymer; and another eight who are two strokes back, at 3-under. Tiger Woods, who could tie Jack Nicklaus and Walter Hagen for the all-time PGA Championship victory record, at five, with a win this week, came in at 2-under.

With Friday’s forecast looking much the same as today’s, the tide will turn, and Thursday’s morning-wave players, though benefitting from a longer rest period and a chance to sleep in, will have their turn playing in the windy afternoon conditions. Today’s afternoon wave will be up at the crack of dawn on Friday, but if the golf gods smile upon them, they will get their chance to work the course in the mild, calm conditions that today’s early wave enjoyed.

However the conditions turn out, it is certain that golf fans, who have been spoiling for major-championship golf since April, will see another full day of exciting play on one of the Bay Area’s best-known and best-loved golf courses, highlighted by the beautiful views afforded by the broadcast’s camera-drones and the ubiquitous Goodyear blimp.

Who’s chasing history at the 2020 PGA Championship?

The circumstances under which the 2020 PGA Championship is being played—a global pandemic, no spectators on course, a timeframe reversal back to its usual August time slot, and a first-time appearance at an iconic San Francisco venue—are enough to afford the event a highlighted spot in the golf history books. Beyond those circumstances, though, there are three players in the field this week who are chasing history above and beyond a single major championship victory: Tiger Woods, Brooks Koepka and Jordan Spieth.

(Image © 2020 Christian Petersen/PGA of America)

Coming into the tournament Woods stands on the threshold of an all-time wins record with the possibility of breaking his tie with Sam Snead at 82 total victories, and maybe even more significant than that, a win in San Francisco this weekend would bring him one step closer to equaling Jack Nicklaus’ major victories record.

Woods tied Snead’s long-standing record of 82 PGA Tour victories in grand fashion in 2019 when he recorded his fifth Masters win after a 14-year drought in the event; the 2019 Masters chop also moved Woods one step closer to sharing the top step on the all-time major-victories podium with Jack Nicklaus, marking his 15th major victory—three less than Nicklaus, with 18; and four more than Walter Hagen, who with 11 majors is the only other member of the double-digit-wins club in professional majors. A win this week would also elevate Woods to the top step of the “PGA Championship wins” podium, which he would share with Nicklaus and Hagen.

Another player who will be spotlighted this week for the potential of an historic achievement is Brooks “Mr Majors” Koepka. With two consecutive PGA Championship victories in his pocket, Koepka is going for a hat trick this week, and while not a record, a win at Harding Park would make him only the second player, after Walter Hagen, to take the PGA Championship title three years running.

Hagen, by the way, was PGA champion four years running, 1924 – 1927, after having won it in 1921. The cup awarded to the winner, the Wanamaker Trophy, mysteriously disappeared after his 1927 victory at Cedar Crest Country Club, in Dallas; Hagen claimed that he gave it to a cabbie to deliver to his hotel. Leo Diegel, who won the PGA Championship in ’28 and ’29; and Tommy Armour, the 1930 champ, had to make do with a firm handshake and a smile from then-PGA president Alex Pirie.

The trophy resurfaced in the fall of 1930, a few months after that year’s event, when workers clearing a warehouse in Detroit found the massive silver cup in a trunk. The owner of the warehouse? The Walter Hagen Company. Hmmm…

Last but not least comes Jordan Spieth, who is chasing probably the most elusive of the potential records that are in the mix this week on the shores of Lake Merced—the Career Grand Slam.

Spieth jumpstarted his run at this career goal in 2015, his third year on the Tour, when he took home the Masters and the U.S. Open titles and served notice that the others were within his grasp with a T4 finish in the British Open at St Andrews, and solo second, three strokes back of Jason Day, in the PGA at Wisconsin’s Whistling Straits.

After a T2 finish in the 2016 Masters, the result of an infamous meltdown at the 12th hole, Spieth went into something of a tailspin where the majors were concerned; he didn’t crack the Top 10 again in any of the Big Four until the British in 2017, where he edged the majorless Matt Kuchar for the win at Royal Birkdale.

Since that time, however, Spieth has sputtered. His record in the majors in the interim ranges from a third-place finish in the 2018 Masters to a T65 at last year’s U.S. Open, just down the coast from Harding Park at Pebble Beach Golf Links, with only two other top-ten finishes in that time. He hasn’t won a regular PGA Tour event since the 2017 Travelers Championship, and is 12-for-49 for top-10 finishes since 2018.

Still—coming to the shores of Lake Merced for the first West Coast PGA Championship since Sahalee, in the Seattle area, in 1998; and the first in California since the 1977 event at Pebble Beach Golf Links; and with Masters, U.S. Open, and British Open titles to his credit, the 27-year-old Dallas native has his sights set on the tournament he needs to win to put that last notch in his tally stick.

“It’s probably the No. 1 goal in the game of golf for me right now…. I’d love to be able to hold all four trophies, and this is the one that comes in the way right now.”

– Jordan Spieth 

Spieth is already keeping company with some pretty big names, men who lack just one of the four majors in their CVs —

• Walter Hagen, Masters
• Lee Trevino, Masters
• Tommy Armour, Masters
• Sam Snead, U.S. Open
• Phil Mickelson, U.S. Open
• Byron Nelson, British Open
• Tom Watson, PGA Championship
• Arnold Palmer, PGA Championship

—and a win this week at Harding Park will vault him into even more illustrious company, that of the five men who have claimed each of golf’s major titles at least once: Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, and Gene Sarazen.