Receptive greens at Valhalla Golf Club led to multiple PGA Championship scoring records falling Thursday.
Among them, the first round of 62 in the Championship’s history, shot by two-time major championship runner-up Xander Schauffele. Is this the week the talented American breaks through?
Here are the top numbers and notes to know from Round 1 of the 106th PGA Championship.
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1. Schauffele carded an opening round 62, the lowest score in the history of the PGA Championship. There are four rounds of 62 in the men’s game in majors — Schauffele has two of them, both opening up majors in the last 11 months. Last summer at Los Angeles CC, both Schauffele and Rickie Fowler started the week with 62s. Branden Grace was the first to pull off the feat, doing so in the third round of the 2017 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale.
Schauffele was excellent through the bag Thursday. He is the only man in the last three seasons of major championship golf to gain five or more strokes from tee-to-green and four or more strokes putting in the same round. Schauffele beat the field average Thursday by 9.28 strokes, the fifth-highest total in any round at this championship since 1980.
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2. Schauffele’s three-shot lead ties the largest after one round in PGA Championship history. Each of the previous three instances of players leading by three came at least a generation ago: Dick Hart in 1963 (finished tied for 17th), Bobby Nichols in 1964 (won) and Raymond Floyd in 1982 (won). While Schauffele has been a pervasive presence on the game’s biggest leaderboards for most of the past decade, this is the first time he has held the outright lead following any major round.
With an Olympic gold medal, two U.S. Ryder Cup appearances, more than 200 weeks in the world top 10 and seven official PGA Tour victories, there are few players in the game today who are as accomplished as Schauffele without a major championship victory. For his career, Schauffele has averaged 1.83 strokes gained total per round in the majors — the most of anybody the last 20 years without a win (minimum 40 rounds played). He has 12 top-10 finishes in majors since the beginning of 2017. In that span, only Rory McIlroy (16) and Brooks Koepka (14) have more.
In his major career, Schauffele has a scoring average of 69.5 in the opening round. It’s nearly a stroke and a half higher (70.9) for Rounds 2 through 4.
Xander Schauffele is on 🔥🔥🔥
And it's a tap in for the 3-shot lead!pic.twitter.com/gvivxfLwS7
— PGA Championship (@PGAChampionship) May 16, 2024
3. Sitting outside the top 40 in the FedExCup standings and without a top-10 finish in a major in his last 11 attempts, Tony Finau arrived in Valhalla under the radar compared to majors past. After his first career bogey-free round at the PGA Championship, he’s in clear view. Finau shot 65 in Round 1, missing just two greens in regulation. He also gained more than three strokes on the field putting, a sore spot on his stat sheet in 2024 (160th on the PGA Tour).
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Sahith Theegala also shot 65, making birdie on each of his last three holes to match Finau. Theegala gained a season-high 4.06 strokes on the greens to fuel his lowest career round in a major. Mark Hubbard’s 65 was so much of a surprise that it concluded after the domestic broadcast had switched to the NBA playoff pregame show. Hubbard’s 65 is the first time in 10 career major championship rounds he has broken par.
4. Despite his greatest weapon betraying him Thursday, Rory McIlroy opened with 66. McIlroy lost more than a stroke to the field on shots off the tee in Round 1, ranking 134th of 156 players in the field. Last week’s winner at Quail Hollow was brilliant around the greens though, going 7-of-8 scrambling and gaining a field-best 2.63 shots around the green.
When McIlroy won the PGA Championship at Valhalla 10 years ago, he shot a first-round 66 and sat in a tie for fourth place entering Round 2. He’s tied for fifth this year. This was the 19th time McIlroy has shot 66 or lower in a major championship, second-most of any player over the last 30 years (Tiger Woods, 28 times).
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5. Scottie Scheffler (67, 4-under-par) got off to an explosive start, making eagle on his first hole. The last player to make eagle to begin a major championship was Wyndham Clark last summer at the U.S. Open, a championship he went on to win. Scheffler was his usual excellent self from tee-to-green, gaining a field-best 5.32 strokes. It’s the sixth time in the last three years that Scheffler has gained five or more strokes tee-to-green in a major round — no other player has more than three such rounds in that stretch.
Scheffler is 4-under despite not putting well: He ranked 111th in the field Thursday in strokes gained on the greens. Scheffler still does not have a round over par on the PGA Tour since August 2023.
6. A whopping 64 players shot under par Thursday, the most in an opening round in PGA Championship history. There were 11 rounds of 66 or lower — only three times in the last 40 years have there been more in a single day at the PGA.
To say the greens at Valhalla are receptive this week is an understatement. In Round 1, the field had an average proximity to the hole of 38 feet, 6 inches — four inches easier than the PGA Tour average this season (38-10). This even though the average approach shot Thursday (177.4 yards) was more than five yards longer than the tour mean in 2024 (172.3).
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7. Tom Kim posted one of the best scores of the afternoon wave with a 66. Kim, who ranks well outside the top 100 this season in strokes gained putting, was scorching hot on the greens (four made of 10 feet or longer). At 21, he is the youngest player to begin a PGA Championship with a round of 66 or lower since 1999, when 19-year-old Sergio Garcia took the opening round lead at Medinah with a 66.
Collin Morikawa, one of the primary characters at last month’s Masters, birdied four of his last seven holes Thursday to shoot 66, his lowest-ever opening round in a major. The two-time major champ did not make bogey on any of his last 13 holes after a rocky start — 2-over through five holes. Can Morikawa keep the momentum going? He ranks in the top five on Tour this season in first-round scoring average but is outside the top 100 in Rounds 2, 3 and 4.
8. Brooks Koepka flashed his excellent iron play in Round 1, hitting all but four greens in regulation and gaining 2.71 strokes with his approaches. He’s 4-under despite losing strokes to the field on the greens, an ominous statistic for the field heading into Round 2.
Koepka has shot 67 or lower a staggering 29 times in major championships dating back to 2014. That’s four more such rounds than any other player in that span. He is closer to the lead (five strokes) than he was after Round 1 a year ago (six), when he came back to win at Oak Hill.
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9. This is the eighth time Jordan Spieth has teed it up at the PGA seeking the final leg of the career grand slam. In the seven previous opening rounds, Spieth had a scoring average just under 72 and lost 0.62 strokes to the field putting per round. He was significantly better Thursday, gaining more than 1.3 strokes putting during an opening 69. Four men have won the PGA from seven shots back or more after Round 1, the last being Keegan Bradley in 2011 (eight back).
10. Since 2000, 91 percent of major championship winners in the men’s game have been within five shots of the lead after the opening round. Thirty-three of the last 34 winners of the PGA Championship have been within six entering Round 2.
Over the last fifty years, just 15 percent of men’s major winners have held the lead or co-lead after the first round.
(Top photo of Xander Schauffele: Patrick Smith / Getty Images)