Whistling Straits, Kohler, Wisconsin

7,514 yards, par 72

Defending PGA Champion: Rory (Valhalla Golf Club, Louisville, Ky)

Weather:

Thursday: Partly Cloudy, high 88 , 20% rain, wind, WSW 16 MPH

Friday: PM T-storms (40%), high 86, wind, WNW 9 MPH

Saturday: Sunny, 0% rain, high 82, wind, SE 8 MPH

Sunday: Partly cloudy, high 86, 10% rain, wind, SW 14 MPH

TV:

Thursday-Friday: TNT: 2-8 PM ET/1-7 PM CT

Saturday-Sunday: TNT: 11 AM-2 PM ET/10 AM-1 PM CT; CBS 2-7 PM ET/1-6 PM CT.

Featured tee times Thursday (all times Central)

7:45 AM: Bubba, Paul Casey, Jim Furyk. Pretty bullish on Bubba, not Casey, and Furyk usually finds a way to gag.

8:05 AM: Jason Day, Dustin, Rickie Fowler. Possible guys here, though Dustin will find a way to lose like Furyk. The other two are possible. They’ve been close a lot.

8:15 AM: Eldrick, Martin Kaymer, Keegan Bradley. I’m kind of bullish on Kaymer, too, the champion here in 2010, though it took a bogey in the third playoff hole to win as Bubba doubled to hand Kaymer the Wanamaker Trophy on a silver platter. Not seeing Eldrick. His game is not good enough. I don’t know if it will ever be any more. Not Bradley either.

1 PM: Luke Donald, Graeme McDowell and Patrick Reed. I like Reed in this group. The other two not much.

1:10 PM: Adam Scott, Henrik Stenson, Brooks Koepka. Koepka might get in the hunt, Scott may do something, as may Henrik, but I don’t think anybody in this group will win.

1:20 PM: Rory, Spieth, Zach Johnson: Powerhouse group here. Rory just back from a torn ligament in his ankle. Don’t see it. Spieth definitely right there. I like Zach pretty well, too. Finished one shot out of a playoff in 2010.

1:30 PM: Duf, Phil, Padraig. Kind of an interesting group, but I don’t see a winner here. Phil the only possibility.

Crunch time holes

No. 16:  569 yards, Par 5

A good birdie opportunity. Can put you in the lead or right in the thick of things on Sunday. Possible eagle, though with the pressure on Sunday, it’s tough. Longer hitters, Dustin, Bubba, and Kaymer, will reach this in two. I guess most of them can, but not all of them. So there is a shot at eagle. Just didn’t see any on the 2010 broadcast for the guys who were in the hunt. Birdie still a great score. Always is.

No. 17: 223 yards, Par 3

Tough hole here where there is a lot of sand and trouble to the left and a deep slope to the left that will really challenge the players’ up and down ability if they hook it too much off the tee, or slice it for the leftys. Saw some players hit it long when the winds were hitting 25 MPH in 2010. The wind will be 15-20 MPH this Sunday, so that will be a factor with club selection. Par is a very good score here on Sunday. Birdie is a bonus.

No. 18: 520 yards, Par 4

There were no birdies here on Sunday in 2010. It’s a tough one. This is famous for the Dustin Johnson debacle, which I will get into in a second. Kaymer rolled in a clutch 14 footer for par to tie Bubba at -11 in regulation in 2010, and they waited out Rory and Dustin. Rory missed a 12 footer for birdie on 18 which would have gotten him into a playoff. Dustin pulled a Dustin. Kaymer tied Bubba on the second hole of the playoff, the Par 3 17th, with a birdie from 7 feet, and survived with a bogey on 18 with Bubba knocking it in the creek on his second shot, but almost sinking his fifth shot from the sand trap to force an extra hole. Kaymer, the German, captured the first of his two majors at age 25. He also won the 2014 U.S. Open at Pinehurst.

Comments

There are 1,012 bunkers on the Pete Dye layout that was built in 1998. After the Dustin Johnson fiasco in 2010, signs have been posted all over the locker room this year that every area of sand is a trap and you cannot ground your club in any sand or it will be a two shot penalty. They even have it posted in the restroom. So the players surely can’t forget this time. Recounting that 2010 situation, Johnson drove his ball in a sandy area that had been trampled down by a lot of spectators in the gallery. Jim Nantz and David Feherty both said it was in the sand. I listened to their 2010 broadcast this morning, and that’s exactly what they said.

Johnson, who had the lead at -12 and just needed par to capture his first major at age 26, grounded his club in the sand, hit his shot into the rough to the left of the green, serious rough, and then hit it five feet, but missed the putt and came out with what he thought was bogey and a three way playoff with Bubba and Kaymer. But a PGA official met him and playing competitor Nick Watney on the green afterwards and started discussing something. The official pointed out to Johnson that he had grounded his club and was assessed a two shot penalty. So instead of a bogey, he finished with a triple bogey and finished -9, tied for fifth.  Co-Chairman of the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits, Mark Wilson, explained it this way: “The local rules are that all areas that the course designer built as bunkers would be played as bunkers, whether or not it’s inside or outside the ropes. We went over the rules with the players before the tournament started and told them this.”

In other words, Dustin, should have known that rule and if there was any doubt, he needed to just ask the marshall walking with him and Watney. If a major means that much to you, seems like you would want to make sure. It was clearly sand on television, and while it may have been trampled on some, he was hitting out of sand and by rule that was a sand trap and he couldn’t touch the sand with his club before he hit the ball his club or it was a two shot penalty. That’s tough luck for Johnson, but he should have known the rules better.

This year’s contenders

Martin Kaymer

He hasn’t played overly well this year, but the 30 year old from Dusseldorf, Germany, should be in the hunt. He’s kind of boring, but he’s a really good grinder. Hits it a ton and putts well. Length is definitely an advantage here. Of course, length means nothing if you’re not accurate, too. Kaymer is good at both. He should be right there on Sunday.

Patrick Reed

Still bullish on this 25 year old from San Antonio, Texas by way of the University of Georgia and Augusta State. Does everything well. While he started fast this year winning at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions in Hawaii and getting in an epic sudden death playoff with Spieth and Sean O’Hair at the Valspar Championship in Tampa in March, he’s kind of fallen off a little bit.  He played terrific, clutch  golf at the Valspar only to be trumped by more terrific, clutch  golf by Spieth which included a 25 footer for birdie by Spieth for the win in the third playoff hole. He finished tied 15th last week at the WGC Bridgestone Invitational in Akron, Ohio, and shot a 68 on Sunday, so he’s back. Long off the tee and a clutch player. Johnny Miller commented last year during the Ryder Cup when the U.S. team  was getting shellacked by the Euros, that when Reed and Spieth were playing together, they weren’t even thinking about losing. “They aren’t used to losing,” Miller said. Reed plays to win. I like that.

Zach Johnson

I didn’t know if Zach would ever win another major after the 2007 Masters, but the 39 year old from Iowa City, Iowa pulled it off with a clutch performance at St. Andrews in July to win the 144th Open Championship and his second major championship. He finished tied third here with Rory in 2010. So I like him as a contender. He’s gained a ton of confidence from St. Andrews and this is another links course, so I like Zach’s chances.

Bubba Watson

I really like Bubba here. As I wrote earlier, he finished second here in 2010 losing in a playoff to Kaymer. He hits it 315 on average, second only to Dustin Johnson in distance, he’s a really good putter when he’s on, and can work a ball better than anybody on the tour. And that helps here with the trouble you can face with sand and water all ove the place and the premium that is required for shaping the ball to get it close to the flagstick. I almost want to go with Bubba, but I don’t see the two time Masters winner– who won at Augusta in 2012 and 2014–getting it done at the end. He’ll get too anxious, some spectators will bug him in the crowd, and he’ll make a couple of mistakes that will cost him the tournament. I like him to be right there, but not to win it. The 36 year old  Gerry Lester “Bubba” Watson will be close, but I don’t like him to close the deal.

Winner

I like this guy to get the job done here for his third major of the season, tying Ben Hogan  and Eldrick  as the only three players to win three majors in a single season. Hogan won the Masters, the U.S. Open and the British in 1953, and Eldrick won the U.S. Open, the Open Championship and the PGA in 2000. Bobby Jones is the only player to win the Grand Slam. He did it in 1930 by winning the Open Championship, the U.S. Open, the U.S. Amateur, and that British Amateur, which were considered the four majors back then.

This just turned 22 year old can chip and putt better than anybody in the game. He’s won four times on tour this season, at the Valspar, the Masters, the U.S. Open and the John Deere Classic. He also won the Hero World Challenge last December, as well as the Australian Open in November of 2014. And he barely missed out on winning three majors in a row at St. Andrews in July when he bogeyed 17 and failed to birdie 18. If he had parred 17–he missed a putt from seven feet–he would have been in the drivers seat at 18 needing a birdie to win it. But the bogey on 17 was deflating and he couldn’t get it up and in on the short par 4 18th at St. Andrews to get into a playoff with Zach Johnson, Louis Oosthuizen and Marc Leishman. The pressure got to him that day.

Howeve, he finished T-10 last week at Firestone Country Club at the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational in Akron, shooting a final round 66, so I like where his game is again. If he wins and Rory finishes tied for second or worse, he’ll take over the number one ranking in the world. If he wins and Rory finishes solo second, Rory will still be number one. If he finishes second and Rory finishes out of the top 10, he takes over the number one ranking. If he finishes solo third and Rory misses the cut, he’ll be number one. But I don’t think he’s nearly as concerned about the ranking, though he speaks of how important it is, as he is of winning his third major. He’d take number two in the world to Rory if he has three majors, one shy of Rory’s four. And this is definitely a rivalry. He has time to catch Rory in the world rankings, but majors are where it’s at for every golfer. I like the Dallas, Texas native to capture major number three for him.

Jordan Spieth

Your comments and prediction are welcome in my comments section.