For comments: [email protected]

Good Thursday morning, golf fans, as day one of the PGA Championship gets underway.

1. Discipline will be vital at PGA

Jim Slater for the AFP…”A field of 156 players, 16 of them from the Saudi-backed LIV Golf League, chase the Wanamaker Trophy at Oak Hill, where discipline and patience will be as vital as any club.”

• “Discipline is going to be a huge factor this week,” McIlroy said. “You’ve got to keep it out of those fairway bunkers.

• “If someone can keep their discipline and not start firing at those pins and know that middles of the greens is a pretty good leave on most holes, I think that’s (key).”

• “Oak Hill offers tricky pin locations with thick rough and shifting tee box areas to make every challenge unique.”

• “Discipline is a really good way to describe what one needs this week,” Rahm said. “It’s challenging, but it’s one of those where if you hit the shots you’re supposed to hit — put it in the fairway, go to the center of the green — nothing crazy should be happening.”

2. Rahm or Scheffler the favorite?

Golf Channel’s Ryan Lavner…”With McIlroy skidding, these two have separated themselves by more than just their world ranking. They’ve been so ruthlessly efficient and relentlessly consistent that it’d be a genuine surprise if one didn’t play well this week at a place that’s going to protect par. That sort of challenge is a perfect match for their respective skill sets and mindsets; Rahm won the 2021 U.S. Open while Scheffler has been in the top 7 in each of the last two editions of golf’s toughest test. They’re always up for it.”

• “Winning more majors is at the forefront of Jon Rahm’s mind, but he’s not necessarily selecting which ones he wants to win.”

• “A four-time winner this season, including the Masters, Rahm took two weeks off after a valiant title defense in Mexico. In recent years, only Tiger Woods in 1999 has enjoyed a better start to a Tour season.”

• “Scheffler shot 20 under last week in Dallas and has failed to break par in just four rounds all year. The Players champ hasn’t placed worse than 12th since last October.”

3. Tree removal revolt: avoided

Shane Ryan for Golf Digest…”Oak Hill of the past is a classic example of how things can go wrong. When the club tried to convert the greens on the East Course, hosting its seventh men’s major this week, to bentgrass, the prevalence of large, mature trees made the conversion incredibly difficult, and they ended up being describe in an article for Golf Course Industry as a “mix stand of annual biotype Poa annua and bentgrass” that hurt the greens. A former superintendent named Kevin Green showed how “calculated tree removal” could help the bentgrass thrive on the rebuilt greens on 13 and 15, and serious clearing of trees actually started after the 2013 PGA Championship.”

• “One-word answers show Rory McIlroy is changing his approach in battle against LIV Golf. In 2016, Andrew Green, at that time a little known architect specializing in restoring old courses, came on board to oversee the new changes, and the official restoration—based in some cases on original drawings by Donald Ross—began in 2019. By that point, the tree removal was well underway. That was far from the only change Green oversaw (he rebuilt bunkers, removed a pond on the 15th hole, built the new fifth and sixth holes from scratch, and more), but the trees were always going to be the biggest sticking point with members. They are a form of life, after all, and people develop attachments to trees that are emotional in nature. And yet, they managed to earn the approval of more than two-thirds of club members.”

4. Rory got swing advice from Tiger?

Our Jason Daniels…”Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods share more than friendly rivalry on the golf course.”

• “They have both been figure-heads of the PGA Tour’s efforts to keep their members from jumping ship to LIV Golf, with the 15-time major champion often paying credit to his younger friend as “our ambassador Rory.”

• “The Northern Irishman has followed Tiger as brand ambassador for Nike Golf, and the two recently co-founded TMRW Sports, an organization set to bring sports and technology into the 2020s with a new high-tech attitude to the sport via their TGL Golf League.”

• “Now, according to a tweet from golf media guru Brendan Porath, the stricken 47-year-old is helping Rory with his golf, a game that seems to have awry with missed-cuts at The Players and the Masters preceding a poor finish at the Wells Fargo Championship, when just inside the top-50.”

5. Koepka on Masters

Andrew Wright for Golf Monthly…”Asked on the ‘Pardon My Take’ podcast if he felt he choked on Masters Sunday, Koepka was brutal in his self-assessment.”

• “Yeah, I’d characterise that as a choke,” he said, admittedly with a smile on his face. “It was pretty bad. I mean, come on you’ve got a four-shot lead, all you’ve got to do… I was playing good, I just choked it away. But it’s alright, I’ll figure it out.”

• The four-time Major champion was also asked to comment on the controversial pace of play, adding: “It was brutal, it was really bad. I think we waited every shot.”

6. No PGA practice rounds for Day

Golf Channel’s Rex Hoggard…”Day, who won last week’s AT&T Byron Nelson for his first PGA Tour triumph in five years, opted for no practice rounds this week.”

• “I just want to make sure that I’m mentally prepared and mentally ready for tomorrow. No matter how well I prepare, even if I go out and play a practice round, if I come in tomorrow tired and exhausted, it won’t do me any favors, so I’m just going to try and take it easy,” Day said. “It’s not the first time I’ve come into the major championship not playing a practice round.”

7. Finau as ready as he’s ever been

Jay Drew for the Desert News…”Finau told reporters in New York on Tuesday after getting in a practice round Monday on the par-70 East Course layout that will play to around 7,394 yards that he is as confident as he’s ever been heading into a major championship.”

• “Yeah, I don’t think the recipe changes too much for me, with the type of golf I have been playing lately,” he said. “My game is better than it has ever been and my confidence level is as high as it has ever been leading up to the majors season, so that is the exciting part for me. I look forward to this week.”

8. Spieth ready to roll

Rex Hoggard for Golf Monthly…”Given where he was a week ago, Jordan Spieth was cautiously upbeat following his final preparations for this week’s PGA Championship.”

• “Spieth’s status for the year’s second major had been in doubt since he withdrew from last week’s AT&T Byron Nelson with a left wrist injury. But he said Wednesday, following a nine-hole practice round, that he was pleased with the injury’s improvement.”

• “It’s not fun if you don’t think you’ve got a chance to win,” Speith said. “[But] if I felt like I was limited in a way that would affect my chances then there’d be no reason for me to feel like playing, because then I could further damage it and that’s not worth it.

• “But since last Wednesday afternoon I feel like I can get into every position with the speed that I want and produce the scores that I want. I’m just a little rusty on the reps.”

• With his left wrist and forearm taped, Spieth played the front nine on a blustery day at Oak Hill with few limitations.

9. Photos from the PGA

• Check out our galleries from this week’s Major Championship!