Jimmy Walker leads first round of PGA Championship

Baltusrol is a big brute of a course and on Thursday it did its best to knock out some golf heavyweights.

At venerable Baltusrol Golf Club on Thursday, Walker enjoyed the fruits of his labors and the sight of birdie putts falling into the cup as he claimed the first-round lead at the PGA Championship. He won the Web.com Tour championship in 2015 and, 2 weeks later, won the Frys.com, which opened the current season.

“All in all it was a great day”, Walker said. “I felt like coming down the stretch on Sunday… I did a lot of things right”. Instead, only three tour players had a worse score among the morning wave.

In all, Johnson beat five players, three of them club pros, and pretty much played his way out of contention.

“I’ll try to spend as much as I can”, he said when asked how much work he would put in on his short game before teeing off at 6.45pm (BST) on Friday.

“It’s just the ebbs and flows of golf”, Walker said.

But Walker understands the opportunity this week and what’s at stake.

“Three first-time Major winners this year, I don’t think it’s coincidence or anything”, Walker said.

Phil Mickelson won the PGA Championship the last time it was at Baltusrol in 2005. “I’m driving the ball as well as I ever have”. McIlroy didn’t have a birdie on his way to a 74. The ball landed left of the pin and bounded over the green. He finished the round third in strokes gained off the tee, but without a birdie.

McIlroy ended up nine shots behind after the first round, and that doesn’t bode well. “To hit it where I wanted and execute like I did, really positive going into the next three days”.

Two holes into the final major of the year, Rory McIlroy was starting to lose patience. 17 and 18, Baltusrol can be an unusual test of patience.

Walker wound up with a one-shot lead over two-time major champion Martin Kaymer, Emiliano Grillo and Ross Fisher. He, too, credited Glen Abbey for giving him momentum.

Stenson, US Open victor Dustin Johnson of the United States and Masters victor Danny Willett – this year’s major winners – tee off in the afternoon feature group off the first tee, with only three final trios behind them. Among the crowd at 68 was defending champion Jason Day and Jhonattan Vegas, who didn’t qualify for this tournament until winning last week’s Canadian Open.

Despite the wind conditions, Spieth wasn’t really surprised with the way the course was set up. And landing it in the fairway helps.

“I had a couple of chances early on that I could not convert and then missed a couple of greens and did not get up and down and I was always chasing it from there”. How does one kill time in such a small Scottish town? She also birdied the par-3 13th on the Marquess Course, the forest layout that is a big change from the seaside links that dominate the tournament rotation. Eighteen players went birdie-birdie or better on the two holes with Lee Westwood going one shot better with a birdie on the 649-yard 17th and an eagle on the 554-yard 18th.

“I need to be more aggressive with my stroke, shoot something in the mid-60s and get into the weekend”, McIlroy said. “Let’s get going.’ He’s right”.

“I then altered my stance to play a different shot than what I would have played had it been on the original angle of my drops”. However, a number of other players found the hole hard and 18 players made a bogey. “Pleased to grind out even par”, Spieth said. Garcia and Watson shot matching one-over 71s.

Those watching on television heard the voice of Masters champion Mike Weir, who is at Baltusrol working with TNT this week.