Moving day is producing a delicious leaderboard late in the third round at the PGA Championship. There’s a five-way tie at the top featuring Rory McIlroy, Rickie Fowler, Jason Day, Bernd Wiesberger, and Ryan Palmer. Oh, and Phil Mickelson is making his move down the stretch and has pulled within a shot of the lead.
PGA Championship leaderboard: Rickie Fowler, Phil Mickelson charging at Rory McIlroy
The PGA Championship is bonkers right now, as a loaded leaderboard with the game’s biggest stars clusters at the top.
Andy Lyons
PGA Championship Update
With Tiger Woods already home after missing the cut, this is about as loaded a leaderboard as you could want. There’s McIlroy, the No. 1 player in the world right now and the heavy favorite at the midpoint of the tournament. McIlroy’s form through the first 36 holes made it seem like this would be another runaway win. He’s been so dialed in, and was on the way to his third consecutive win and second straight major.
But there have definitely been some leaky shots for Rory. The driving display he’s put on for a month now was not sustainable, and he’s missed some fairways on Saturday and paid the price. At the 12th, he pulled his drive left in the rough and caught a flier lie on his approach shot, airmailing it over the green and short-siding himself. McIlroy then tried to get too cute from the short side and left himself another chip shot.
He’d get up-and-down on that second shot to make bogey, but he dropped back to 10-under and brought a slew of players into a share of the lead or one shot off.
Day, who started the round with that adventure playing in barefeet, striped his tee shot at the par-3 13th and converted his first birdie of the back nine to join the battle at 10-under. Day is a world-class player but has battled some injury problems with his thumb all summer. He’s hanging even with McIlroy, however, and they could be re-paired again on Sunday. Both have tons of major championship experience, it’s just that McIlroy has closed three of them while Day has an extensive list of top 10s.
Fowler is also right there again, trying to join Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods as the only players to finish in the top 5 at all four majors in a single season. Fowler’s been perfect with his irons, avoiding bogey for the day and pouring in three birdies to keep pace with the leaders. Between he and Day, McIlroy will have two of his top contemporaries for the next 20 years making a run at him for the rest of the weekend.
And then there’s the veteran Mickelson, who has had such an awful year but managed to find something last Sunday in that final round 62 at Firestone. He’s stuffing his approach shots as well, but the putter is what’s really started working for Phil. After back-to-back bogeys at the 11th and 12th, Mickelson posted three straight red numbers on holes 14 through 16. The approach shot into the 16th green landed and stuck just a couple feet from the hole, igniting the Louisville crowd for one of the loudest roars of the day.
Here’s your leaderboard as the final groups hit the closing stretch at Valhalla:
| Place | Player | Score | Today | Thru |
| T1 | Rickie Fowler | -10 | -3 | 15 |
| T1 | Ryan Palmer | -10 | -3 | 15 |
| T1 | Rory McIlroy | -10 | -1 | 14 |
| T1 | Jason Day | -10 | -2 | 14 |
| T1 | Bernd Wiesberger | -10 | -4 | 16 |
| T6 | Louis Oosthuizen | -9 | -4 | F |
| T6 | Mikko Ilonen | -9 | -2 | 15 |
| T6 | Jim Furyk | -9 | -1 | 14 |
| T6 | Phil Mickelson | -9 | -3 | 16 |
| T10 | Jamie Donaldson | -8 | -5 | F |
| T10 | Henrik Stenson | -8 | -3 | 17 |
| T10 | Graham DeLaet | -8 | -3 | 16 |
| T13 | Hunter Mahan | -7 | -6 | F |
| T13 | Adam Scott | -7 | -5 | F |
| T13 | Kevin Chappell | -7 | -4 | F |
| T13 | Joost Luiten | -7 | -2 | 17 |
| T13 | Steve Stricker | -7 | -2 | 16 |
| T18 | Brandt Snedeker | -6 | -5 | F |
| T18 | Danny Willett | -6 | -5 | F |
| T18 | Bill Haas | -6 | -3 | F |
| T18 | Lee Westwood | -6 | -1 | 17 |
| T22 | Marc Warren | -5 | -5 | F |
| T22 | Brooks Koepka | -5 | -5 | F |
| T22 | Sergio Garcia | -5 | -5 | F |
| T22 | Ryan Moore | -5 | -4 | F |
| T22 | Jimmy Walker | -5 | -3 | F |
| T22 | Ernie Els | -5 | -3 | F |
| T22 | Alexander Levy | -5 | -3 | F |
| T22 | Billy Horschel | -5 | -2 | F |
| T22 | Nick Watney | -5 | -1 | F |
| T22 | Victor Dubuisson | -5 | E | 17 |
| T32 | Justin Rose | -4 | -4 | F |
| T32 | Jonas Blixt | -4 | -3 | F |
| T32 | Charl Schwartzel | -4 | -2 | F |
| T32 | Brian Harman | -4 | -2 | F |
| T32 | J.B. Holmes | -4 | -2 | F |
| T32 | Chris Wood | -4 | -1 | F |
| T38 | Daniel Summerhays | -3 | -3 | F |
| T38 | Luke Donald | -3 | -3 | F |
| T38 | Kenny Perry | -3 | -2 | F |
| T38 | Edoardo Molinari | -3 | E | F |
| T42 | Branden Grace | -2 | -3 | F |
| T42 | Patrick Reed | -2 | -1 | F |
| T42 | Jerry Kelly | -2 | -1 | F |
| T42 | Scott Brown | -2 | -1 | F |
| T42 | Geoff Ogilvy | -2 | E | F |
| T42 | Cameron Tringale | -2 | E | F |
| T42 | Matt Jones | -2 | 1 | F |
| T42 | Richard Sterne | -2 | 1 | F |
| T50 | Zach Johnson | -1 | -1 | F |
| T50 | Thorbjorn Olesen | -1 | -1 | F |
| T50 | Ian Poulter | -1 | E | F |
| T50 | Fabrizio Zanotti | -1 | E | F |
| T50 | Brendon de Jonge | -1 | 1 | F |
| T50 | Vijay Singh | -1 | 2 | F |
| T56 | Hideki Matsuyama | E | -1 | F |
| T56 | Pat Perez | E | E | F |
| T56 | Koumei Oda | E | E | F |
| T56 | Jason Bohn | E | E | F |
| T56 | Francesco Molinari | E | E | F |
| T56 | Kevin Stadler | E | 1 | F |
| T56 | Gonzalo Fdez-Castano | E | 1 | F |
| T63 | Graeme McDowell | 1 | E | F |
| T63 | Marc Leishman | 1 | 1 | F |
| T63 | Colin Montgomerie | 1 | 1 | F |
| T63 | Brendan Steele | 1 | 2 | F |
| T63 | Freddie Jacobson | 1 | 2 | F |
| T63 | Rafael Cabrera Bello | 1 | 3 | F |
| T63 | Robert Karlsson | 1 | 3 | F |
| T70 | Shawn Stefani | 2 | 1 | F |
| T70 | Bubba Watson | 2 | 2 | F |
| T72 | Chris Stroud | 3 | 2 | F |
| T72 | Shane Lowry | 3 | 3 | F |
| 74 | Brendon Todd | 5 | 4 | F |
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