When the week started, Friday at Baltusrol looked like a mess. The forecast was ominous, setting up a full day of stop-and-start golf at the PGA Championship.
Fortunately for the PGA of America, and everyone trying to keep up during this manic golf summer, we finished up Friday night on schedule and will have a normal Saturday start. The rains did come, dumping buckets on the North Jersey course overnight and into the morning. But all we got was a 50-minute delay early on in the morning that had them squeegee a few fairways and greens off while the players stayed in place. That left plenty of cushion for the full 156 players to get in before darkness and for a cut to be made, with a normal tee sheet set out for Saturday.
The PGA has a pretty generous cut rule. The top 70 and ties get through to the weekend, and this year it delivered an enormous 86-player field for the final 36 holes. We thought the 81 players at The Open seemed too large. With such a big group through, they will start them at 7:35 a.m. ET on Saturday. The leaders, however, will still go at the regularly scheduled time of 2:55 p.m. There was some debate about whether the PGA would try and bump that up with a few spot storms in the forecast, but the plan holds, and if there are no delays we should finish just after 7 p.m.
A relatively unknown twosome, at least for casual fans, will anchor the tee sheet for the third round. Jimmy Walker and Robert Streb are tied at 9-under at the midpoint and will go out as the last pairing just before 3 p.m. Streb matched the major championship scoring record of 63 on Friday, getting hot and rocketing up the leaderboard. This is now the 30th time that a player has posted 63, and the third time this month -- the first two coming at The Open with Phil Mickelson's first round and Henrik Stenson's final round.
It seems no one will ever break that 63 threshold and become the first to post 62. Streb was an unlikely candidate to be here -- he had not placed inside the top 10 in his last 27 starts. It's been a rough year for Walker too, a five-time Tour winner whose stats look pretty bleak across the board in 2016. But here they are with the pressure on and playing in the last group on the weekend of a major. They will have the world No. 1 and defending PGA champion Jason Day out in front of them, so the crowds will be loud and deep all around them.
Here's your full third-round tee sheet for Saturday at Baltusrol:
7:35 a.m.: Matt Jones, Roberto Castro
7:45 a.m.: Ernie Els, Rafa Cabrera-Bello
7:55 a.m.: Freddie Jacobson, Jason Kokrak
8:05 a.m.: Joost Luiten, Patton Kizzire
8:15 a.m.: Justin Rose, Charl Schwartzel
8:25 a.m.: Kiradech Aphibarnrat, Thongchai Jaidee
8:35 a.m.: Matthew Fitzpatrick, Jason Dufner
8:45 a.m.: Ryan Palmer, Billy Horschel
8:55 a.m.: Phil Mickelson, Colt Knost
9:05 a.m.: Justin Thomas, Keegan Bradley
9:15 a.m.: Danny Willett, Padraig Harrington
9:25 a.m.: Jim Furyk, Thomas Pieters
9:35 a.m.: Rich Beem, Francesco Molinari
9:45 a.m.: James Hahn, Bill Haas
9:55 a.m.: Aaron Baddeley, Kevin Kisner
10:05 a.m.: Brian Stuard, Daniel Berger
10:15 a.m.: Kyle Reifers, Bradley Dredge
10:25 a.m.: Bubba Watson, Cameron Tringale
10:35 a.m.: Marc Leishman, Russell Knox
10:45 a.m.: Jhonattan Vegas, Russell Henley
10:55 a.m.: George Coetzee, Ross Fisher
11:15 a.m.: Vaughn Taylor, Kevin Na
11:25 a.m.: Lee Westwood, Soren Kjeldsen
11:35 a.m.: Marcus Fraser, Brandt Snedeker
11:45 a.m.: Young-han Song, Tyrrell Hatton
11:55 a.m.: Steve Stricker, Danny Lee
12:05 p.m.: Andy Sullivan, Andrew Johnston
12:15 p.m.: Paul Casey, Scott Hend
12:25 p.m.: David Lingmerth, Branden Grace
12:35 p.m.: Jon Curran, K.J. Choi
12:45 p.m.: Louis Oosthuizen, Ryan Moore
12:55 p.m.: Alex Noren, Webb Simpson
1:05 p.m.: Hideto Tanihara, John Senden
1:15 p.m.: Adam Scott, Gregory Bourdy
1:25 p.m.: Zach Johnson, Billy Hurley III
1:45 p.m.: William McGirt, Daniel Summerhays
1:55 p.m.: Yuta Ikeda, Jordan Spieth
2:05 p.m.: Rickie Fowler, Jamie Donaldson
2:15 p.m.: Hideki Matsuyama, Harris English
2:25 p.m.: Patrick Reed, Brooks Koepka
2:35 p.m.: Henrik Stenson, Martin Kaymer
2:45 p.m.: Emiliano Grillo, Jason Day
2:55 p.m.: Jimmy Walker, Robert Streb