with Bryan Angus

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Monday, August 10, 2020

Morikawa and the young guns steal the spotlight at the PGA Championship... final scoreboard

PGA Championship final scoreboard https://www.pgatour.com/competition/2020/pga-championship/leaderboard.html

A small group of officials, media  assembled beside the 18th green, to politely applaud young Californian, Collin Morikawa hoist then bobble the PGA Championship,  Wanamaker Trophy, almost as big as he is, after his stunning round of -6 64, on top of his stunning round of -5 65 on Saturday for a weekend 129 strokes and -13 total took the spotlight away from the big boys, in particular Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson of whom reams had been written, countless hours had been opined without the pay off most predicted.

DJ didn't disgrace himself at all, T2 69 67 65 68 -11, he was just beaten by the wirey little 23 year old kid who was in school just over a year ago and was in just his 2nd major. So it goes in golf now. Young guys from all over the world have many more places to play than even veteran 43 year old Paul Casey T2 (68 67 68 66 -11) did, not just in America, but in Europe, Asia, India, Korea, Japan, China and down under in Australia and New Zealand. There, can play competitive golf, unlike just 25 years ago.

A word of praise for Paul Casey, who was tied for the lead standing on the 17th tee, until he watched Morikawa's shot of the day as he drove the 294 yard 16th and made the eagle to clinch the title. It was his best shot of winning a major, the quiet Englishman, now like so many living in Florida, is as nice a guy as you could meet.

Koepka, who chose to play in Europe after college to hone his game and in his words "grow up" before returning to the PGA Tour had a bad front nine with 4 bogey's 39 to fall out of the race, finally T29 with a 74, and is taking some heat from scribes for prodding DJ on Saturday with "I've got 4 he's got 1" which is golf's version of trash talking.

There was Morikawa's southern California college rival,  Matthew Wolff with the funky swing, right behind him T4 69 68 68 65 -10, surely these two and Jon Rahm T13,  Haotong Li T17 -6 and Scottie Scheffler T4 -10 and all the other young stars, Si Woo Kim, T13, Daniel Berger T13, Cameron Champ T10,  Xander Schauffele T10, Byeong Hun An T22 just to name a few will make it difficult for any one player to dominate the way Jack and Arnie and Lee did, or Norman, or Faldo, or of course Tiger.

In the eerie quiet of Harding Park, it was an exciting Sunday afternoon, 10 players shared the lead at some point. It's hard to get excited about golf, or any other sports really, who's only spectators are cardboard cut outs, however as I said yesterday, there were so many storylines on Sunday, and like a good mystery movie we didn't know the outcome until the end.

Mac Hughes and  Adam Hadwin ended up T58 at +2.

Bryan Angus


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