Streb, Walker tied for lead at PGA Championship
SPRINGFIELD, N.J. If you checked out the 2016 records of contestants in the field at the 98th PGA Championship, Robert Streb would have been considered quite a longshot to tie the lowest 18-hole round ever shot in a major.
SPRINGFIELD, N.J. If you checked out the 2016 records of contestants in the field at the 98th PGA Championship, Robert Streb would have been considered quite a longshot to tie the lowest 18-hole round ever shot in a major.
But anything can happen in golf, and it happened for Streb on a pleasant Friday at Baltusrol Golf Club. He birdied three of his last four holes - including an 18-footer on the par-3 ninth, his final hole - to shoot 63 and become a part of history while tying for the 36-hole lead.
Streb, 29, a native Oklahoman who now lives in New Smyrna Beach, Fla., became the 14th player to shoot a 63 in the PGA and the 28th to do it in a major. The feat has been achieved 30 times.
"I was just trying to give it a chance," he said of the last putt. "If it went in, great. If not, it was still a good round. Happy to join the club that seems to be ever-growing."
Streb's 63 gave him a 36-hole score of 9-under-par 131, tied for the lead with Jimmy Walker. Walker, the first-round leader with a 65, posted a 66. Streb's 131 tied the lowest 36-hole score in PGA history, marking the eighth time it's been done in the championship.
While Streb was playing the second half of his round in relative anonymity on Baltusrol's front nine, Jason Day was providing fireworks for the masses on the back nine. The defending champion, Day put together a stretch of seven birdies over eight holes en route to a 65 that left him two shots back.
Day's two-round score of 133 left him tied with 23-year-old Emiliano Grillo of Argentina, who fired a 67. British Open champion Henrik Stenson carded his second straight 67 for 134.
Streb tied for 10th last year in his first-ever PGA but has been struggling with his game and, he admitted, his expectations, since then. He has missed nine cuts in 23 events on the tour this year while standing well down at No. 119 on the money list.
However, coming into this week, Streb said he tweaked his golf swing to where "it kind of feels normal again." After getting off to a promising start on Thursday with a 68, Streb blistered a Baltusrol course that had been softened by more than an inch of rain overnight and Friday morning.
Starting on the back nine, he was 2-under for his round after eight holes before he exploded for five birdies on his last 10. He said 63 crossed his mind after a birdie at No. 7. After what he called a "fairly pathetic effort" with his birdie putt on 8, he put himself in good position at 9 and finished the deal.
"I was pretty excited about it," he said. "I was waiting on it to break, waiting on it to break, and it finally turned there at the end," he said.
Walker, 37, played solidly for the second straight day and had it to 10-under after finishing a run of three straight birdies at the 14th hole. All he needed was a par at the par-5 18th, which played as the easiest hole of the day statistically, to own the 36-hole record by himself but his tee shot bounced into the water.
Walker made the green with his third shot but 3-putted, missing a 5-footer for par.
He said his drive "had a nice, tight little draw and I thought it was actually going to catch the first cut or the fairway. But it just kind of kept going, landed and kicked left into the lake."
Day double-bogeyed the seventh hole to go 2-over for his round but then entered a zone most golfers can only dream about after he "kind of gave myself a little bit of a kick in the bum," he said.
"I just said, 'Let's get it down the fairway, try to get it on the green, birdie the hole,'" he said. "Once I birdied eight, the momentum started picking up and it picked up pretty quick. I felt good on the green."
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