There's been some discussion of taking the PGA Championship to international venues, especially with golf now in the Olympics and interfering with the schedule. The biggest rumor had been that the PGA might move to earlier in the year and go to Australia and one of their historic courses. This year, however, the Aussies came to Wisconsin and have taken over the PGA of America's leaderboard after 36 holes. Matt Jones became the first Aussie to hold the lead at the 36-hole mark of this event and he'll play with his countryman Jason Day in the final pairing late Saturday afternoon at Whistling Straits.
The weather may have had an influence on the second round and pushed the cut to Saturday morning, but that should be the last major schedule disruption of the championship. This will not be the British Open, where Saturday was spent sitting around just hoping to get through 36 holes and make the cut before Sunday. Friday's storm was nasty, wrecking scoreboards and taking down temporary structures all over the course. But that should be it for the weekend.
There were 57 players still on the course finishing up the second round on Saturday morning. That housecleaning lasted less than two hours and the PGA of America will take a 30-minute break before sending them back out again for the third round. With the forecast clear, the plan was always to send the players out in the usual twosomes all off No. 1 tee. There's no need for threesomes off split tees. The Friday night estimate was tee times from about 10:15 a.m. ET through 4 p.m. and that's about what we got.
The Aussie duo will anchor the tee sheet and they're surrounded by world-class talent. Justin Rose's worst result in his last three starts was a T6 at the British Open, so he's a former major winner in top form chasing the lead. He plays in the second-to-last group with Friday morning leader David Lingmerth. Jordan Spieth, who got into the clubhouse hours before the storm on Friday and has been sitting around waiting for a third-round date, will go out with Scott Piercy in the fourth-to-last group at 3:39 p.m. ET.
We should get a finish right around 8:30 p.m. ET on CBS. Here's the full tee sheet for Saturday's third round (All time ET):
Tee Times | Players | |
10:15 a.m. | Morgan Hoffmann | |
10:24 a.m. | Carl Pettersson | Keegan Bradley |
10:33 a.m. | Victor Dubuisson | Nick Taylor |
10:42 a.m. | Jason Dufner | Nick Watney |
10:51 a.m. | Koumei Oda | J.J. Henry |
11:00 a.m. | Tyrrell Hatton | Marc Warren |
11:09 a.m. | Danny Lee | Mikko Ilonen |
11:18 a.m. | Boo Weekley | Bill Haas |
11:27 a.m. | Phil Mickelson | Jason Bohn |
11:36 a.m. | Francesco Molinari | Lee Westwood |
11:45 a.m. | Thomas Bjorn | Vijay Singh |
11:54 a.m. | Chesson Hadley | Brian Gaffney |
12:03 p.m. | Danny Willett | Troy Merritt |
12:12 p.m. | Patrick Reed | Kevin Streelman |
12:21 p.m. | Rickie Fowler | Kiradech Aphibarnrat |
12:30 p.m. | Bubba Watson | Jim Furyk |
12:39 p.m. | Ryan Moore | Louis Oosthuizen |
12:48 p.m. | James Morrison | Sergio Garcia |
12:57 p.m. | Robert Streb | Sangmoon Bae |
1:06 p.m. | Steve Stricker | Brendon de Jonge |
1:15 p.m. | Sean O'Hair | Emiliano Grillo |
1:24 p.m. | Ernie Els | Charl Schwartzel |
1:33 p.m. | Brooks Koepka | Rory McIlroy |
1:42 p.m. | Henrik Stenson | Luke Donald |
1:51 p.m. | Cameron Smith | Webb Simpson |
2:00 p.m. | Justin Thomas | Y.E. Yang |
2:09 p.m. | Kevin Chappell | Brandt Snedeker |
2:27 p.m. | Martin Kaymer | Branden Grace |
2:36 p.m. | Paul Casey | Hunter Mahan |
2:45 p.m. | Matt Kuchar | Charles Howell III |
2:54 p.m. | Marcel Siem | Hideki Matsuyama |
3:03 p.m. | Hiroshi Iwata | Billy Horschel |
3:13 p.m. | J.B. Holmes | Dustin Johnson |
3:21 p.m. | Russell Henley | Harris English |
3:30 p.m. | George Coetzee | Brendan Steele |
3:39 p.m. | Jordan Spieth | Scott Piercy |
3:48 p.m. | Tony Finau | Anirban Lahiri |
3:57 p.m. | David Lingmerth | Justin Rose |
4:06 p.m. | Jason Day | Matt Jones |
SB Nation video archives: Urban golfing with a U.S. Open champ (2012)