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The post Here’s Colin Montgomerie’s major-heartbreak advice for Mito Pereira appeared first on Golf.

When Mito Pereira watched his PGA Championship title hopes drown in a creek to the right of the 18th fairway at Southern Hills, golf observers — as often happens in such cruel, indelible moments — looked for historical comps, or other instances of 72nd-hole major heartbreak. Dustin Johnson at Whistling Straits (grounded club). Van de Velde at Carnoustie (rolled-up pants). Mickelson at Winged Foot (fore left!).  

Often forgotten in that last example is the fact that Mickelson wasn’t the only player to kick away a golden opportunity at Winged Foot. Colin Montgomerie, who famously never nabbed a major title in 75 career starts, also had an excellent chance to win.

After jarring a 75-footer for birdie on 17 that tied him for the lead and splitting the fairway with his tee shot on 18 that left him 172 yards from the stick, Montgomerie seemed destined for, at worst, a playoff. But then he hit his approach shot short and right into a gnarly, clumpy lie, from where he couldn’t chip the ball close. Three putts later, he had closed with an ugly double bogey, and at six over for the week, one stroke shy of eventual winner Geoff Ogilvy’s total.

Tournaments

Montgomerie is back in the field at another major this week — the KitchenAid Senior PGA, at Harbor Shores, in Michigan — and on Wednesday he was asked if he had any advice for Pereira, in terms of how the Chilean might get over his dispiriting finish at Southern Hills.

Montgomerie did. In short, he said, it was one swing. One hole. One tournament. Pereira has many other big moments ahead of him. He is 27. At Winged Foot, Monty was 42.

“A young player, younger than I was and that was one of my last opportunities,” Montgomerie said Wednesday. “It won’t be his.

“All I’ve got to say to him is be patient, and I say that to anybody coming through. Be patient. It’s a hell of a long career and just be patient with it, and take — if you can — take as many positives as possible. I know that’s a bit cliche, you take the positives and everything.

“After 71 holes, he was ahead and that’s a hell of an effort. After 72, he wasn’t, but after the first [71] holes to be ahead is a bloody good effort and he should try and take as much positives as possible.”

To his credit, Pereria already seemed to have at least some of that perspective. “I finished third on my first major this year,” he said that evening. “I think I have to really just hold [on] to that.”

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How long Pereria might also feel the sting of not winning is another matter. Montgomerie was asked how long it took him to recover from Winged Foot.

“I’m not over that,” he said. “Never will be. Sleepless nights. Get up five times thinking about it every night.”

He was joking, but he wasn’t. In Monty’s autobiography, he described that week as “the major near-miss which can still wake me up in the middle of the night.” He added on Wednesday, “If somebody said to me, one shot left, if you want one shot again, obviously it’s that one.”

But on the flip side, Montgomerie said: “I’ve had a hell of a career. I’m very, very fortunate. I’d take nothing back. People say would you trade your money lists for a major? No. … I’ve had a great time at this, and I wouldn’t trade anything for anything. So that went pretty quickly to be honest. I got on with the next one.”

Pereria no doubt will aim to do the same, beginning this week at the Charles Schwab Challenge. He has a 12:45 p.m. starting time Thursday alongside Tom Hoge and Viktor Hovland. Back to work.

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The post After stunning miscue, Mito Pereira was left to explain the unexplainable appeared first on Golf.

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As Mito Pereira, lead in hand, was playing the back nine Sunday at the PGA Championship, his close Tour buddy and fellow Chilean Joaquin Niemann was reflecting on what a Pereira win would mean to their homeland.

“It is going to be something huge,” Niemann said. “You look back, three, four years ago, nobody talked about golf, and now the whole country is watching TV right now seeing Mito leading the PGA Championship.”

You couldn’t blame Niemann for getting ahead of himself. Pereira wasn’t playing his best golf of the week, but, really, none of the most serious contenders were, either. With just a handful of holes remaining, the 104th PGA Championship was Pereira’s to lose.  

“I cannot imagine him not winning,” Niemann said.

Pereira couldn’t, either — at least not when he stepped onto the tee on the 72nd hole with a one-stroke lead. Pereira had played the nearly 500-yard closer beautifully all week, splitting the fairway and hitting the green in each of his first three visits. He parred the hole on Thursday and Friday and jarred a 27-footer for birdie on Saturday. One-under in three trips. One more par and he was a major champion.

“I thought I was going to win,” Pereira said later.  

As he addressed his tee ball, Pereira was trying to replicate the same shot he had hit a day earlier: a low straight bullet. “I’m really confident with that one,” he said. Moments after impact, though, it was clear he had not executed his plan. His awkward, sawed-off, holding-on-for-dear-life follow-through looked less like something you’d see from a world-class golfer in a major championship and more like a move you might see at your local muni. “Look at that follow-through,” Jim Nantz said from the booth. Nantz, like the rest of us, was incredulous.

You can’t miss right on 18 at Southern Hills — the fairway in the landing zone pitches hard in that direction toward a ball-gobbling creek — but that’s exactly what Pereira did. Just like that: Gurgle, gurgle. Game over. A drowning on national television.

Sam Snead knew the feeling. With a 72nd hole lead at the 1939 U.S. Open, he knocked his tee shot into a bunker. His next swing was even worse, a topped fairway wood that trundled into a ditch. He made triple bogey and finished fifth. Jean van de Velde knows the feeling. His lead-blowing triple on Carnoustie’s closer at the 1999 British Open is lodged in our collective memories like a horrifying car crash we just can’t shake. Phil Mickelson knows the feeling. His blocked tee shot at Winged Foot in 2006 and the subsequent messiness? He summed up the implosion in two words: “a nightmare.”

Perhaps it’s unfair to lump in Pereira’s miscue with those episodes; after all, he made just one loose swing, not a series of blunders. Still, though, it’s a tough gaffe to sugar-coat: Pereira couldn’t miss right, and he missed right. Then came the really hard part: trying to explain it. The swing will no doubt take weeks for Pereira to process, maybe months, maybe years. Maybe he will never fully get his head around it. But in the seven-figure-pay-check tier of professional golf, you don’t enjoy the luxury of digesting on-course horrors on your own schedule. The world wants answers immediately.

And so there was Pereira on Sunday evening at Southern Hills, a lone microphone on a stand in front of him and a group of reporters waiting to peer into his soul.

What happened?

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Nerves seemed an obvious explanation, and Pereira didn’t shy away from admitting he felt them. First on Thursday. Then a bit more on Friday. Then more still on Saturday. “The fourth day was terrible,” he said, speaking of Sunday, when he held the 54-hole lead by three. “I mean, this morning was tough.” Pereira didn’t articulate what his nerves felt like before that fateful swing, but presumably they were jumping. He did say, “You’re in such a stressful situation that everything can change.”

Your composure. Your clear-headedness. Yes, even your swing. When the vise starts to squeeze on major Sundays, mechanics can be one of the first things to go. Pereira needed just one more solid tee shot. Like Snead and van de Velde and Mickelson before him, he couldn’t summon it.

He also couldn’t explain it. “I don’t know what happened,” he said.

After taking a drop and tugging his third shot left of his mark, Pereira began the uphill march to the 18th green, where just minutes earlier he had envisioned the throngs greeting him there as a victor. Pereira said he felt a strange cocktail of emotions in that moment: pride, because he had put himself in a position to win, but also shame, because he had kicked away a chance to slam the door.

The player who went on to win Sunday knows what that feels like.

“I have had times in my career when I feel like I’ve let a tournament get away,” Justin Thomas said after he’d dispatched Will Zalatoris in a three-hole playoff. “It’s brutal. It’s not fun.”

Pereira’s fourth-round playing partner also knows what it’s feels like.

“It is tough to take,” Matt Fitzpatrick said of the unfortunateness he had witnessed on the 72nd hole. “You hope it’s not you.”

On Sunday, the disappointment and regret were Pereira’s burden to carry. Soon enough, it will be another player’s turn.

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Justin Thomas capped a stunning come-from-behind victory at the 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills with a quiet fist pump, a hug with his caddie, Jim “Bones” Mackay, and what appeared to be a moment of disbelief and relief as he waited for his father, mother and fiancee, Jillian, to embrace him on the 18th green.

It was a fitting celebration for what turned out to be a dramatic final hour on the course. Check out the 13 photos below to relive Thomas’ celebration of his second career major championship.

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This week, we’re bringing InsideGOLF members exclusive insights and observations from the grounds at Southern Hills. Check your inbox each evening for the latest report from our team of tapped-in writers. Here’s what they saw and heard on Sunday.

What’s next for Mito?

By Sean Zak

A year ago, Mito Pereira and I were on the same golf course, a long way from Tulsa, Okla., and a long way from the PGA Tour. We were in Evanston, Ill., at the Evans Scholars Invitational, on the Korn Ferry Tour. Periera was grinding on his game; I was working on an ice cream sandwich in the gallery. 
 
I watched Pereira play a couple of holes that day en route to a Sunday 71. The next time I thought seriously about Pereira was last week at the PGA Championship, the site of both his greatest performance and the costliest shot of his career. 
 
The winner that week in Evanston was Cameron Young, a stout player with a slow backswing, a brief pause at the top and a wickedly powerful downswing. Perhaps you recognize the name — yes, Young was one of the few players pushing Pereira in the final round at Southern Hills. I caught Young last year during his peak, on the back end of consecutive wins, carding four rounds of 68 or better to win by five. He had my attention. 
 
Pro golf can be a lot like that — pros hitting their peaks, grabbing our attention for a minute and seeing how long they can hold it. Even the most ardent golf fans know, after seeing hundreds of swings and hundreds of names, there are only so many players you can keep top of mind. In Evanston that day, Mito came and went. Young made an impression. 
 
The lesson here is that whenever an event concludes, even with a brand-name pro prevailing — as it did Sunday with the No. 7 player in the world lifting the trophy — it’s hard to tell whether these guys are coming to stay, or coming and going. It’s easy to doubt the dudes who falter on Sunday, confident that we know exactly what we’re looking at as it’s happening. 

It would feel natural to do that with Pereira. Just know that a year ago, he left Evanston and blitzed the next two Korn Ferry tournaments he played in, earning his Tour card the best way possible: by winning.

The path less taken

By Alan Bastable

There were two shots that defined this PGA Championship: Justin Thomas’ glorious tee shot on the second playoff hole — a 302-yard par-4 — a high, gently fading 3-wood that bounced once in front of the green and rolled to 35 feet from the hole.

And Mito Pereira’s stunning block into the creek on the 72nd hole, a swing that ultimately cost him a chance at his first major title.

But there was at least one other shot that deserves reexamination: Will Zalatoris’ cart-path chip.

Perhaps you missed it, as it came early in the final round, when Zalatoris was playing the par-3 6th hole. After nuking a 5-iron into the shrubs behind the green, Zalatoris found himself in a PhD-grade rules discussion with the official in his group. When the particulars about where he should drop were finally sorted, Zalatoris faced a chip not only off the cart path behind the green but from a seam that connected two slabs of the path. This is not a shot you practice because it’s not a shot you could ever imagine encountering.

Will Z. could have easily caught it fat. He didn’t. He could have just as easily caught it thin. He didn’t. Instead, he caught it perfectly: a soft spinny chip that landed just short of the green and trundled onto the surface before stopping 12 feet right of the hole. The ensuing putt wasn’t easy, either — a nervy left-edger — but Zalatoris holed it. Some bogeys are better than others. This was an all-worlder.

On Sunday evening, Zalatoris called it “the best up-and-down I’ve ever had.” 

The importance of owning losses

By Luke Kerr-Dineen

Perhaps the worst part being of a professional athlete is having to rehash the bad days in public. It’s not a particularly pleasant task, and we can all empathize. We all have bad days at work. The last thing we want to do when we get at home is to talk about it more.
 
This week, we saw multiple high-profile players opt for that route. Jordan Spieth didn’t speak to the media after any of his tournament rounds. Nor did Jon Rahm. Rory McIlroy skipped the task after his third and fourth rounds, as did world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler after his second-round 75.
 
While I can’t muster much indignation for grown adults making their own choices, I couldn’t help but admire Mito Pereira, answering questions from the media on Sunday after what was undoubtedly the most devastating loss of his career. Or think about Tiger Woods who, in pain and disappointed with his play, spoke with reporters after each of his three rounds
 
It’s an easy, more expedient choice to skulk away under the radar on the bad days. But I don’t think it’s the better choice.
 
The beauty and the burden of golf is that those who play get to own it all. The good shots and the bad shots. The impressive rounds and the embarrassing ones. When players — whatever level they play — divorce themselves from that reality, they’re simply selling themselves short. They’re cultivating an attitude where their successes become excesses, and their mistakes go unaccounted for and overlooked. It’s a mindset ripe for complacency, and one that breeds excuses. 
 
Standing tall and looking at those losses in the mirror, even when you least want to, is essential to growing into more than you already are. It sharpens the mind and toughens the spirit. It makes you stronger and smarter and more disciplined.

And it makes the good times, when they do come, all the more delightful.

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Though 27-year-old Chilean Mito Periera started the final round with a three-shot lead, the leaderboard tightened down the stretch, with a number of players in the mix to claim the Wanamaker Trophy at Southern Hills.

But how is the PGA Championship winner determined if there is a tie at the end of regulation play?

Each of the four major championships employ different rules when it comes to ties, and at the PGA Championship, ties are decided via a three-hole aggregate playoff.

That means, whoever is tied at the end of regulation play will play three pre-determined holes, and the player with the lowest score will be the winner. If players are still tied after the aggregate holes, the format moves to sudden death until someone wins.

At Southern Hills, the aggregate playoff holes are Nos. 13, 17 and 18, which should provide ample drama. In the event sudden death is needed, the players will play 18 again, then 13, 17 and 18 again if needed, and repeat the cycle until someone emerges victorious.

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The post PGA Championship 2022: Here’s how much money every player made at Southern Hills appeared first on Golf.

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The 2022 PGA Championship purse increased significantly since last year, rising from a total of $12 million in 2021 to a whopping $15 million this year, bringing it on par with the Masters to share the highest purse total of all four major championships. (The Players Championship still owns the largest payout in golf for now, with a purse of $20 million this year.)

This year’s PGA champion will surpass the payout received by 2021 champion Phil Mickelson, who pocketed $2.16 million for his win at Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course, by an impressive $540,000, with a $2.7 million payday. The runner-up will receive a cool $1.62 million, and third place will clear seven figures too, with a payout of $1.02 million.

Even the players who missed the cut (of which there were 77) receive a payout of $4,000 each. So how much did the rest of the players in the field come away with this year? You can find a complete list of the 2022 PGA Championship payout for each player below.

How much money every player made at the PGA Championship

1. Justin Thomas, $2,700,000 

2. Will Zalatoris, $1,620,000 

T3. Cameron Young
Mito Pereira ($870,000 each)

T5. Tommy Fleetwood
Chris Kirk
Matt Fitzpatrick ($530,417 each)

8. Rory McIlroy, $436,60

T9. Abraham Ancer
Seamus Power
Brendan Steele
Tom Hoge ($357,813 each)

T13. Tyrrell Hatton
Lucas Herbert
Max Homa
Davis Riley
Justin Rose
Cameron Smith
Xander Schauffele ($253,750 each)

T20. Talor Gooch
Webb Simpson
Sam Burns ($191,250 each)

T23. Joaquin Niemann
Stewart Cink
Rickie Fowler
Lucas Glover
Shane Lowry
Kevin Na
Aaron Wise ($129,768 each)

T30. Adri Arnaus
Tony Finau
Bubba Watson
Bernd Wiesberger ($83,750 each)

T34. Matt Kuchar
Marc Leishman
Brian Harman
Keith Mitchell
Patrick Reed
Gary Woodland
Jordan Spieth ($61,607 each)

T41. Cameron Tringale
Viktor Hovland
K.H. Lee
Luke List
Troy Merritt
Adam Schenk
Kevin Streelman ($43,839 each)

T48. Laurie Canter
Cameron Davis
Denny McCarthy
Jon Rahm
Harold Varner III
Keegan Bradley ($32,146 each)

54. Ryan Fox, $29,250

T55. Francesco Molinari
Jason Day
Brooks Koepka
Collin Morikawa
Sebastian Munoz ($27,925 each)

T60. Lanto Griffin
Russell Henley
Rikuya Hoshino
Si Woo Kim
Jason Kokrak
Hideki Matsuyama
Louis Oosthuizen
Charl Schwartzel ($26,125 each)

68. Billy Horschel, $25,000

T69. Kramer Hickok
Beau Hossler ($24,625 each)

T71. Adam Hadwin
Justin Harding
Shaun Norris
Thomas Pieters ($24,250 each)

T75. Patton Kizzire
Maverick McNealy ($23,950 each)

77. Robert MacIntyre, $23,800

78. Sepp Straka $23,700

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TULSA, Okla. — Southern Hills’ closing stretch is a meat grinder.

The long par-4 16th is playing .3 strokes over par for the week, making it the third-hardest hole on property, and the par-4 18th is even more daunting. Playing to an average of nearly .4 strokes over par, the behemoth of a hole has yielded almost as many double bogeys (12) as it has birdies (14) over the first three days.

Whoever leaves Tulsa with the Wanamaker Trophy in tow will have earned it.

But while Southern Hills’ finishing three-hole stretch is bookended by a pair of titans, there is a sliver of opportunity sandwiched in between. Enter the short, drivable par-4 17th.

The 17th represents a reprieve. Long-bombing tee shots aren’t a requirement at the penultimate hole. Rather, precision and touch will be the name of the game.

The scorecard lists 371 yards of turf between the tee and the putting surface at 17, but the actual yardage for the final round will be much lower. In Round 3, the PGA of America utilized a forward tee box, and that box is in play once again on Sunday.

The forward box at chops some 70 yards off the yardage, and with it adds the possibility for some late-round fireworks.

Take what we saw in Round 3, for example.

The forward box, plus a favorable northern wind, meant every player in the field could make a run at the green off the tee on Saturday. But the short yardage didn’t make hitting the green with a tee ball a sure bet — far from it, in fact. Of the 78 players who made a run at the green, just seven of them actually found the putting surface, and just three converted for eagle.

One of the men who carded eagle finds himself in the top five heading into Sunday. Cameron Young, a PGA Championship rookie, began to fall off the pace during his back nine in Round 3. And coming off a bogey at the 16th, he knew he needed something special to keep the leaders in sight. He pulled 4 wood on the 17th tee and took dead aim at the green. His ball came to rest 24 feet from the cup, and moments later, he rolled in his putt for eagle.

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“The eagle came at a really nice time,” Young said. “Just to hit a solid shot there on 17 and kind of give yourself what should be a pretty easy birdie was momentum enough, and for that putt to go in is a huge bonus.”

Young is four back of Mito Pereira’s lead heading into the final round.

Like any good risk-reward hole, though, there is plenty of trouble lurking. Short of the green some 30 yards sits a meandering creek ready to gobble up any wayward drives. Beyond that, a trio of bunkers surround the kidney-bean shaped putting surface.

“You could see some very difficult recovery shots around this green,” said GOLF Top 100 Courses panelist Adam Messix.

On Sunday, players will be once again be faced with the decision to either lay up or go for the green. And the execution could very well decide the championship.

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The post Mito’s moment, Rory’s two sides, West Texas pride | Seen & Heard at Southern Hills on Saturday appeared first on Golf.

This week, we’re bringing InsideGOLF members exclusive insights and observations from the grounds at Southern Hills. Check your inbox each evening for the latest report from our team of tapped-in writers. Here’s what they saw and heard on Saturday.

Mito’s moment of truth

By Darren Riehl

In the opening two rounds of the PGA Championship, players dealt with 80-degree days. The heat had balls popping off the clubface. Sunscreen was a must. The greens were firm. The course was dry. Pants were a poor decision; shorts were the play.
 
On Moving Day, things changed. The temperature dropped 25 degrees. Quarter-zips and even some beanies made appearances. The cold shortened shots. A morning rain softened the course. The formally firm greens turned grippy. Pants weren’t enough; you needed a hoodie and handwarmers.
 
What course knowledge the players had amassed at Southern Hills earlier in the week proved useless on Saturday. The wind flipped. The players looked at the tops of the trees to try to figure out the club selection; they stepped off more shots Saturday than in the first two rounds combined. 
 
All of this was expected. Changing conditions were in the forecast. Also forecasted by many: that the stage would prove too big for Mito Pereira, who has never played on a major championship weekend let alone in the final pairing. That prediction was wrong, or at least it was on Saturday. Pereira shot 69 and handled the stage like he had been there before. 
 
At his post-round press conference, Pereira said that, going into Sunday, he is going to “keep it simple”. As I followed him the last three holes, it seemed like that plan was already in motion. On the drivable 17th, Pereira and his caddie talked over the options and eventually settled on a fairway-finding iron. Pereira took his time on that stretch of holes. He walked slowly with his head down, ignoring the crowd. On the 18th green, where the crowds were the biggest, Pereira adjusted his line at the last second before burying a birdie putt to stretch his lead to three.  
 
Sunday major pressure is different. It means more when a Wanamaker is on the line. So, what’s the Sunday forecast in Tulsa? Partly cloudy, a high of 70 and perhaps a life-changing win for Mito Pereira. 

The two sides of Rory McIlroy

By Luke Kerr-Dineen

It was the kind of round we’ve become accustomed to seeing from Rory McIlroy. With the PGA Championship in the balance, he played the middle part of his third round in six over, ensuring his week would end without a trophy.
 
Then, pressure off, he turned on the gas. He missed a short birdie putt on 12, then birdied his next two. After a par on 15, he had a tricky 25-footer for birdie on the third-hardest hole on the course. It was a tough putt, one that any player would be pleased to two-putt. But Rory being Rory, he sent his ball rolling up, down and along the slope, and into the heart of the cup.
 
The crowd roared. McIlroy gave a quick acknowledgement then marched to his bag, dropped his putter and shook his head.
 
“F—!” he said firmly under his breath.
 
McIlroy’s evolution into golf’s honest and freethinking statesmen has been admirable. He’s become a father, and an establishment vanguard who says all the right things. You have to wonder, though, if he doesn’t get into his own head on the course.  
 
Earlier this week, he spoke of playing safe golf, of not shooting himself out of it too early, of clubbing up and swinging easy. It was that strategy, on his yanked tee shot at the par-3 11th hole, that led to a triple bogey. It was only after that scorecard-wrecker, just as was the case on Sunday at Augusta, that he came alive.

He harnessed a more primal version of himself. When he was playing angry, swinging for the fences, and playing on instinct without care for much else, he was at his very best.

The pride of Lubbock, Texas

By Zephyr Melton

Mito Pereira and I don’t share a whole lot in common. He’s a bilingual ball-striking machine, while I’m a monolingual 4-handicap in desperate search of more distance for my own game. 
 
But there is one thing that links the long-bombing Chilean and myself: our connection to the Hub City on the South Plains — Lubbock, Texas. 
 
Pereira played only one season of collegiate golf, but he did so at Texas Tech University. I was born and raised in Lubbock, and played high school golf on the same course the Red Raider’s call home. 
 
With that West Texas synergy in mind, I fired off a long-shot email to Texas Tech golf coach Greg Sands with hopes that he’d have a few minutes to chat about his old player. 
 
This was on Saturday afternoon. Within minutes, he replied. 
 
“Call me anytime. Wreck ‘Em. Greg Sands.”
 
Hell yeah. 
 
I called up my fellow West Texan and we chatted for 15 minutes about Pereira and his unlikely link to Lubbock. Sands was hesitant to claim any credit for Pereira’s success, but he did say he’d be glued to the TV rooting on his former star — that is, until Sands has to hit the road tomorrow. He’s off to Fort Worth for the Ben Hogan Award ceremony, for which current Texas Tech star Ludvig Aberg is a finalist.
 
“I might take a few peeks at the stream on my phone,” Sands said.

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There’s only one round remaining at the 2022 PGA Championship, and given young stud Mito Pereira’s three-shot lead — and the dearth of experienced players within striking distance — it seems likely that a first-time winner will be crowned in Tulsa on Sunday.

But who will be it be? There’s plenty of drama left to witness at golf’s second major championship of the year. Here are five things to know for Sunday’s final round at Southern Hills.

Can Mito Pereira hang on?

Who is Mito Pereira? It seems as though everyone in the golf world is getting to know the 27-year-old Chilean at the same time.

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But Pereira has been a talented player for a while now. With a handful of wins on the PGA Tour Latinoamerica and as one of the very few players to exercise an immediate three-win promotion to the PGA Tour based on his Korn Ferry Tour prowess, it’s clear Pereira is the real deal. Though he has yet to win on the PGA Tour, he’s notched one top 10 and five top-25 finishes this season alone.

Matt Fitzpatrick’s big chance

If you’re big on the idea that “experience wins,” your best bet is probably to back Matt Fitzpatrick on Sunday, Pereira’s closest chaser.

Fitzpatrick is three shots back, but has posted three consistently excellent rounds under par (68-69-67), despite the tough conditions. He’s a former U.S. Amateur champ and has seven DP World Tour wins on his resume. Fitzpatrick definitely knows how to close on a big stage, but can he make up three shots to do it?

Experienced veterans

In addition to Fitzpatrick, Will Zalatoris, Abraham Ancer, Cameron Young and Seamus Power, there are four major champions in the top 10 heading into Sunday’s final round: Justin Thomas, Stewart Cink, Bubba Watson and Webb Simpson.

Generally, you’d be bullish about the chances players with that kind of experience have when it comes to making a move on a major-championship Sunday. But with so much ground to make up (seven shots for JT, Cink and Bubba, and eight for Webb), it may be an insurmountable tally to overcome.

But hey, this is golf! Stranger things have happened, and a crazy-low round could equate to a comfortable early clubhouse lead, putting the pressure back on Pereira to bring it home.

The money at stake

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Regardless of which player takes home the title on Sunday, anyone who finishes near the top of the leaderboard is sure to be happy with his payday. The PGA Championship purse was elevated by an influx of an additional $3 million this year, bringing the total disbursement to $15 million — the largest amount in the tournament’s history.

That means a cool $2.7 million to the winner, and a seven-figure payday for both second and third. Not a bad haul for four days of good golf!

The forecast

Saturday’s relatively little wind provided a bit of a reprieve from Friday’s gusts, but according to Weather.com, Sunday will dawn a bit on the chilly side, 50 degrees, rising to a high temperature of 67 degrees by mid-afternoon.

Luckily, the wind isn’t expected to blow harder than 13 mph, so depending on your threshold for cold, Sunday could be downright comfortable.

Ready for the PGA Championship’s grand finale? Check out the final-round tee times here.

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Stewart Cink didn’t realize it at the time, but 21 years ago at Southern Hills a mere 18 inches stood between him and what coulda-shoulda been a spot in a U.S. Open playoff.

Cink, believing the putt was inconsequential given his playing partner Retief Goosen needed only to two-putt from 12 feet for the title, rushed his stroke and missed the tap-in. It didn’t seem like a big deal until Goosen himself three-putted, setting up a playoff between him and Mark Brooks. So, yeah, the miss was, in fact, a huge deal.

This week, Cink is back at Southern Hills — this time for the 104th PGA Championship — and though much more than 18 inches stand between him and a shot at the title, he has once again put himself in position to contend on Sunday. After a third-round 71, Cink is at two under for the tournament, seven back of 54-hole leader Mito Pereira.

Things, of course, are much different for Cink this time around.

For one, the golf course, care of a recent Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner restoration, is longer and airier than it was at that U.S. Open, with more slopes and runoffs around the greens. “It’s completely different,” Cink said Saturday evening. “I have one memory [from 2001] — that’s missing a short putt on the last hole that cost me from getting into a playoff. It took me a while to get over, and it’s 20 years down the road almost. It’s a distant memory now.”

Cink himself is different, too. Different hairline, different clubs, different game. He can still knock it out there; he’s averaging 301 yards in driving distance this season on the PGA Tour. He can still win; he picked up two PGA Tour titles in the 2020-21 season. But he relies more on smarts and guile than he did two decades ago. He has a different caddie, too — his son, Reagan. “He’s part me,” Cink said of their bond. “Literally he thinks about golf the same way I think about it.”

At least one other thing is different, too: the notion that a player Cink’s age can win a major championship.

Phil Mickelson, of course, proved it a year ago at this very tournament, when, one month shy of his 51st birthday, he held off Brooks Koepka and Louis Oosthuizen on the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island to become the oldest major winner in history. Don’t think his peers weren’t paying attention.

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“It blows the ceiling off what we thought was impossible before,” Cink said Saturday. “Phil is his own guy for sure and he’s one of the best the game has ever seen but the fact that at his age he could not only just compete but finish it off and win, coupled with the fact I know I’ve got recent wins on the PGA Tour, it really gives me a load of belief that I can go out there and compete in a tournament like this, and maybe tomorrow, you know, if I have a couple of those things that didn’t go my way today, maybe they go my way — four or five under par, you just never know. I’ve got that going for me and surely I was inspired by seeing what Phil did and that he hung in there and that he was himself and just made it happen.”

If you didn’t see Cink coming this week, you’re forgiven. Which isn’t to say he hasn’t been trending up. In March, he tied for 7th at the Valspar. He missed the cut at the Masters and then finished 68th at Harbour Town but bounced back with a T9 at the Wells Fargo, his most recent start before the PGA. This week, he has posted a cool 69-68-71 thanks in part to his superior driving; he’s third overall in SG: Off the Tee, picking up nearly two full stokes on the field in the chilly third round. “I’m wearing both the pullovers that I brought with me,” he said of his Saturday outfit. “I have nothing left in my suitcase. I saw a couple short sleeves out there, but I need to conserve heat at my age.”

Cink’s Sunday plan will be no different from his Thursday-Friday-Saturday approach. “Stay in the present and keep on what we like to call ‘bludgeoning,’ and that means just working everything down to a common denominator and executing that shot and going to find the ball,” he said. “It’s really simple, [but] it’s really hard to do when your emotions are just like going like the Indy 500 out there.

“That’s going to be the key for me tomorrow. Keep doing what I’ve been doing. I’ve been striking the ball great and just clawing and fighting, and I’m going to keep doing that. If it turns into a 64 or 65 tomorrow, who knows.”

Who knows, indeed — perhaps we’ll get another win for the ages.

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