Soft, rain soaked conditions at Baltusrol had many expecting lights-out, record breaking scoring to be the order of the day, a day which saw both the completion of the third and fourth rounds of the 98th PGA Championship. But the pundits’, including Phil Mickelson, were all proved wrong, as the lowest score posted by anyone in the field was a 65.
Dutchman Joost Luiten and the Dane Soren Kjeldsen both finished with 5 under rounds of 65 and ended tied 33rd at 3 under 277, eleven strokes off the pace of champ Jimmy Walker.
This championship will be remembered for the weather problems and the somewhat curious decisions of the PGA as much as for Walker’s gutsy bogey free one shot victory over World #1 Jason Day.
The Committee held to past major practice of twosome’s off the first tee on Saturday’s third round instead of groupings of three off split tees, which was the protocol in the first two rounds and is typical of all PGA Tour events, including the Masters’ and the U.S. Open. When the rains halted play shortly after 2:00 pm on Saturday, the PGA was left hoping most of two rounds could be squeezed into Sunday but prepared for a Monday, or even a Tuesday, finish.
With Sunday’s play, The PGA threw out tradition and opted for two decidedly un-major like accommodations.
First, they declared that preferred lies would be in effect for the fourth round. Next, that there would be no re-pairing after the third round.
Preferred lies in the fourth round should have led to low scores but mysteriously did not. It did, however, result in the curious display of golfer’s completing the third round playing the ball down at the same time as early starters in the fourth round were playing the same course with the ability to lift, clean and place.
One of the other unusual consequences of the PGA’s rulings was that the third round leaders were not paired together, going mano e mano down the stretch. Rather the third round leaders were spread out over the last several groupings, which was a throwback of sorts to decades past on Tour when that practice was common place.
In normal circumstances, Walker and Day would have been paired together in the last group. But then we would have missed the theatrics of Day’s reaction as he approached the 18th green and saw the scoreboard that had just posted Walker’s birdie result at the 17th. 
And we would have missed the expression of grit and determination on Walker’s face as he waited in the 18th fairway after Day nailed his eagle putt to ratchet up the pressure.
In the end, we got a great performance from a deserving champ who lead wire to wire; we got a rousing rush at the end from the best in the game, Jason Day; we got the last major finished on schedule; and we escaped without any major rules infractions intruding on the competition; and we had another first time major winner in this season of first.
Well done, Jimmy Walker!
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