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USPGA Championship preview, picks & analysis

By: Golf Shake | Mon 10 Aug 2015


Post by Sports Writer, Derek Clements 


IT SEEMS certain that Rory McIlroy will make a surprise return to action at Whistling Straits this week to defend his US PGA title. Having played 18 holes at the course on Saturday, he said that he felt in good shape.

McIlroy ruptured ankle ligaments while playing football with some friends. It cost him his chance to defend The Open, and ruled him out of the Scottish Open and WGC Bridgestone Invitational. McIlroy has an extra incentive for making it to Whistling Straits, where the season's final major will be played.


Rory McIlroy's year has not been a great one, but he will draw on memeories of a fabulous 2014:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeQ11npY54s


He is the defending champion, and won't want to miss out on another major. And he is in imminent danger of losing his top ranking to Jordan Spieth - this is something McIlroy will want to avoid at all costs. There is pride at stake, of course, but there are also substantial bonuses associated with being the world's top-ranked golfer.

As good as McIlroy is, it would be a huge surprise if he were to be a factor at Whistling Straits. Even if he doesn't figure in the mix, the US PGA Championship should provide a thrilling climax to this season's majors.

Spieth, the Masters and US Open champion, came up agonisingly short in his bid for the third leg of an unprecedented calendar grand slam at The Open, missing out on a playoff at St Andrews by a single shot.

However, the 22-year-old, who has set or equalled plenty of records already this year, can earn more space in the record books by becoming only the third player - after Ben Hogan in 1953 and Tiger Woods in 2000 - to win three majors in a season.


Spieth will be looking to capture his 3rd major of 2015

Jordan Spieth


‘‘I don’t know how many guys have done three majors in a year. I’m sure there have only been a few,’‘ Spieth said. “‘So that would be the next goal as far as the history goes. Sights set on the PGA Championship.” It is a certainty that Spieth, who is a keen student of the history of the game, knows exactly where another major victory in 2015 would rank him.

He was just 17 when Whistling Straits hosted the US PGA in 2010, a tournament eventually won by Martin Kaymer but best remembered for the demise of Dustin Johnson.

Johnson, who held a three-shot lead after 54 holes of the US Open earlier the same year before collapsing to a final round of 82, was one ahead with one to play and thought when he missed a six-foot par putt that he had nevertheless made it into a playoff with Kaymer and Bubba Watson. However, he was penalised two strokes after grounding his club in a fairway bunker before hitting his second shot.

The spectacular course on the banks of Lake Michigan has more than 1,000 bunkers, but many of them are not easily defined so the rules of play for the week had been that ‘‘all areas designed and built as sand bunkers will be played as bunkers (hazards), whether or not they have been raked.’‘

Spectators had been trampling all over the “bunker” on the 18th and Johnson admitted: ‘‘It never crossed my mind I was in a sand trap. The only worse thing that could have happened was if I made that putt (to ‘win’). I just thought I was on a piece of dirt the crowd had trampled down. Obviously I know the rules - you can’t ground the club in a bunker - but I guess it’s one situation where I should have looked at a rule sheet.

‘‘The official said the whole course is a bunker. It’s up to them. If it was up to me I would not have thought I was in a bunker.’‘

Kaymer went on to defeat Watson in a three-hole play-off to lift his first major title and, having claimed his second thanks to a brilliant wire-to-wire triumph in the US Open last year, the German will be among the favourites to end American major dominance in 2015.

McIlroy finished a shot outside of the play-off in 2010, won by eight shots at Kiawah Island two years later and claimed his fourth major title in near-darkness 12 months ago at Valhalla.

It would be fitting for Johnson - who three-putted the 72nd hole of the US Open at Chambers Bay to finish a shot behind Spieth - to enjoy a spot of redemption. He has certainly done his time in the majors, coming up short on five occasions when he had good chances to win.

Justin Rose and Sergio Garcia should also be in the mix again, with the former's consistency and determination giving him a big advantage over many of his rivals, and the latter's flakey putting probably being the thing that will let him down. Rose has had an outstanding season. He finished second in The Masters, won the Zurich Classic, finished second at the Memorial, was sixth at The Open and fourth at the Quicken Loans National. And he played brilliantly at the WGC Bridgestone Invitational last week before finishing third.

Hideki Matsuyama is another who is making a habit of contending in majors and he is able to perform at his best regardless of the type of course he is playing. If he keeps knocking at the door he will eventually land his first major, and Whistling Straits may just offer him a great chance to do so.

But my fancy is Jason Day. Like Johnson, he has come close many times, and has had a great deal of misfortune in his young life. There would be no more popular winner, other than Tiger Woods, McIlroy or Spieth, and this could finally be his time.

USPGA Championship Betting Picks

To win: Jason Day 14/1 His luck has to change sometime

Each way: Justin Rose 20/1  In the form of his life

Each way: Hideki Matsuyama 50/1 Beautiful ball striker

USPGA Champinship Fantasy picks

Jason Day. Deserves a first major

Justin Rose. ready for his second major

Hideski Matsuyama. Japan's first major champion - it's just a matter of when

Jordan Spieth. Don't be surprised to see him win again

Dustin Johnson. Feels the course owes him something

Sergio Garcia. He couldn't, could he?

Rory McIlroy. I don't think he will win, but a top 10 finish is a possibility

Shane Lowry. Loves tough golf courses

Jim Furyk. Narrow fairways will suit Furyk

Marc Warren. On the rise


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