Blazing a trail at the head of it were Tiger Woods, seeking his 12th major championship, and, rather more surprisingly, Luke Donald of England, who is seeking his first. Donald, you might have heard, is no daredevil, a plodder in fact, if Woods is to be believed, but he has certainly upped the pace at Medinah. He negotiated this montrous layout in 66 and is tied for the lead with the world No 1. Both men are 14 under par, Woods after equalling the course record of 65, and will go out together in the last group today. Incredibly, Donald hasn’t dropped a stroke since the 16th hole on Thursday.
In third place, on 12 under, is the Canadian Mike Weir, who also shot a 65, spoilt by a dropped shot at the final hole, while the US Open champion Geoff Ogilvy is a shot further back. Sergio Garcia and the 2003 PGA champion Shaun Micheel share fifth place, on 10 under overall, while defending champion Phil Mickelson is eight under after a 68.
Donald has refused to surrender his English accent, and he still doesn’t refer to football as soccer, but he feels like he belongs in these parts. If he is not exactly striding around Medinah to the strains of “Sweet Home Chicago”, the player who was educated at Northwestern University, and has a home on the shores of Lake Michigan, has had no trouble settling into this year’s championship.
He started the day on eight under par with Billy Andrade, Henrik Stenson and Tim Herron, but they didn’t have the advantage of their own bed to crawl from yesterday morning. Donald, whose apartment is just 40 minutes from the course, has foregone the dubious pleasure of a hotel this week, and has enjoyed the galleries’ support at what is one of the game’s most famous venues, located 29 miles from downtown Chicago.
Every now and then, “Go Wildcats” will be yelled from behind the ropes, a reference to the institution at which he studied art, and more to the point, broke Woods’s college scoring record. Now aged 29, Donald talks of challenging the world No 1, of believing that he has what it takes to be the best golfer on the planet. It is a lot to ask, but when the tournament favourite, and everybody else for that matter, went on the attack yesterday, the Englishman responded in kind.
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From eight feet on the second, and 20ft on the third, he picked up valuable birdies, before securing two more at the fifth and sixth. By the time he had chipped in from the fringe on the par-four ninth, he was out in 31, having needed only 11 putts. The back nine, though, is more difficult than the front at Medinah, and as Donald began to tread water, Woods took advantage. And to think that the game’s pre-eminent player had described his first two rounds as nothing special. He seems to reserve his best for those occasions when a setback looms, such as on the first hole yesterday, when he zig-zagged from the left rough to the right, and then holed a par putt from 30ft. While others would laugh at so preposterous an escape, there was venom in the air as he punched it in celebration.
Almost inevitably, he then sought out the flag at the par-three second, drained his birdie putt, and picked up three more shots in an outward half of 32. On the 15th hole, where he thrashed his ball from a divot with his nine iron, he secured his seventh birdie of the day, and his third in succession.
Donald, though, has made himself at home these past few days, on the course as well as off it. The way in which Medinah rewards accuracy with the longer irons plays into his hands. And this championship, reduced to an exhibition of target golf, resembles nothing so much as a big event on the PGA Tour where he makes his living. By merely putting himself into contention, Donald can claim to have made progress.
Despite his successes elsewhere, he has come up short in the events that matter most. The more he has tried to rectify that, the more difficult it has become, but he is looking forward to playing with Woods today. “Playing with Tiger in the final round of a major will be a whole new experience for me but I intend to enjoy myself,” he said. Playing at Medinah has helped him. “I know this course and for me it’s almost like playing at home. I have been determined to have a little more fun out there, and dismiss the bad shots. It doesn’t really matter after all. Although I am still trying my hardest, there are more important things than golf. Certain things, like Heather Clarke passing away, put things in perspective.”
The loss of Darren Clarke’s wife, after her long battle with cancer, has cast a shadow over the championship, but if the Northern Irish player does not accept the wild card he is expected to receive for the Ryder Cup, his teammates will cope without him. Although Stenson dropped like a stone from the leaderboard here, Spain’s Sergio Garcia carded a 67, and Ian Poulter threatened to make a charge. Four under at the halfway stage, the colourful Englishman picked up three strokes on the front nine, only to lose his momentum.
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He signed for a 68, and eight under overall.
The season’s fourth major is everything the third wasn’t. Where Hoylake was a short, hard-running challenge, Medinah is soft and very, very long, but they have in common an opportunity to go low. In an age when technology offers players an answer to everything, the 7,561 yards to which this layout has been extended means nothing, thanks largely to its accommodating greens. Already more receptive than is decent for a major championship, torrential overnight rain made cushions of them yesterday, as every flown approach dug a chunk from its target.
Even the long, low shot could be slung at the flag with conviction. Jeff Maggert opened with a two at the 434-yard, par-four first, and Joey Sindelar picked up three strokes with one blow. Had the 48-year-old from Horseheads found one in his bed, he would not have had a bigger fright than he did on the 537-yard, par-five fifth, where his three wood from 241 yards dived into the hole for only the third albatross in the history of the US PGA Championship.
On a muggy, hazy day when spectators squelched between the fairways, and the wet rough offered new resistance, the key was to keep on the straight and narrow. Chris Di Marco did just that as he set off in the company of Lee Westwood, and played the front nine in 31 strokes. On the first, second and fourth, his ball gouged dents in the putting surface three feet from the pin, from where he picked up a shot on each occasion. After the obligatory birdie on the par-five fifth, and another secured from 18ft on the ninth, the American who started the day three under had surged into a share of the lead. That was the end of his heroics, and a bogey at the last resulted in a 67.
Donald stands on the cusp of a historic victory. Paul Lawrie was the last British player to win a major when he took The Open at Carnoustie in 1999 thanks to Frenchman Jean Van De Velde’s infamous meltdown on the 72nd hole, Nick Faldo was the last to win in America when claiming The Masters in 1996, courtesy of Greg Norman’s final-round collapse. But it is 1930 since a British, or indeed European, player won the PGA Championship — and Tommy Armour, though born in Scotland, was an American citizen.