2014 PGA Championship scores: Rory McIlroy holds off Phil Mickelson, Rickie Fowler for Valhalla lead

Saturday afternoon at the PGA Championship provided the best stretch of major championship golf all year. Rory McIlroy came to the course with a 36-hole lead, many expecting another runaway win based on how dialed-in he’s been for over a month now. And while he kept his lead by a shot with a birdie at the last hole, he is going to have hold off an absolutely loaded set of chasers coming for him on Sunday. And it will be on a course that’s yielding birdies everywhere for some of the fastest-paced tournament play all year.

Over the past month, Rory has put on one of the best driving displays in the history of golf. At 5’9, he’s hammering the ball and putting it in the center of the fairway every time. He led the field in driving distance at the British Open, and he’s right back near the top again this week. But that wasn’t sustainable and McIlroy hit some loose ones off the tee on Saturday, yanking a hook on the front nine and bombing it through the fairway a couple more times on the back. While everyone around him was rolling in birdies on a gettable and soft Valhalla setup, McIlroy went just 1-under on the front.

Rory started his back nine by getting a birdie at the 10th, one of Valhalla’s par-5s that are almost must-make birdies if you want to post a low number. At No. 12, a loose tee shot off the fairway left him a flier lie, and he airmailed his approach from it over the green. On the back of the green with a short-sided pin, McIlroy got a little too cute and left himself another chip.

He got up-and-down from there to save bogey, but that dropped him temporarily back into a co-share of the lead with four others at 10-under.

That was Rory’s last dropped shot of the day. The 2012 PGA Champion turned it on down the stretch, with all the big names around him posting birdies and trying to put a scare in him. He canned a lengthy birdie putt at the 15th to match Bernd Wiesberger for the lead, and then annihilated the 16th hole, a par-4 508-yard hole. McIlroy hit one so far that he only needed a 9-iron into the pin, which amazed even his colleagues and former No. 1 in the world Luke Donald.

As David Feherty noted, it was a pristine patch of fairway that no on else’s drive had come close to all day. And Rory stuck that 9-iron on top of the pin for a tap-in birdie and the latest example of how he’s playing a different game than everyone else right now.

After missing the green in two at the 18th, McIlroy got up-and-down from the front bunker for one more birdie and sole possession of the lead. It was at that hole on Friday where he canned an eagle to take his first lead of the week, but the birdie out of the bunker on Saturday was just as huge.

Rory will play on Sunday with Wiesberger, an Austrian who made the cut at a major for just the second time in his career. Wiesberger has played good golf on the Euro Tour all season, but this is clearly a new setting for him.

He hit the shot of the day at the 17th, coming just inches away from holing out from the fairway for eagle. (GIF via Adam Sarson).

He’d tap in for the second of his three straight birdies on his last three holes to close out his round at 12-under. He was one of the lesser names, but his approach shots were a key part to this crazy 25-minute stretch of birdies and leaderboard shuffling.

With Wiesberger’s lack of experience, the top two contenders to chase and pass Rory on Sunday will be Rickie Fowler and Phil Mickelson. Fowler is trying to join Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods as the only players ever to finish inside the top 5 at all four majors in one season. He’s obviously playing the best golf of his career, and has been right there on Sunday all season. But he’s up against the same guy who kept him at arm’s length three weeks ago at Royal Liverpool. Fowler probably won’t give McIlroy much room -- he played the third round without a bogey, and his irons were on top of the flagstick all day. His eagle putt at the 18th somehow stayed out on the left side, the robbery leaving him two back instead of just one after another perfect major championship round (GIF via Adam Sarson).

And then there’s Mickelson, the five-time major winner who has had one of the worst seasons of his career. But Phil turned something around last Sunday at Firestone, shooting his lowest round of the year and rolling in birdies for that 62. The putter was on fire on Saturday, and Phil elicited the loudest cheers of the afternoon from the Louisville crowd.

After back-to-back bogeys on Nos. 11 and 12 knocked him down the leaderboard, Mickelson played his last five holes in 4-under to put himself in position to challenge for another PGA title on Sunday. An approach shot to about two feet at the 16th drove the crowd nuts, Phil tapping in for birdie to put him just a shot off the lead at the time. He nearly rolled in an eagle at the 18th for the second straight day, his putt burning the right edge and leaving Mickelson, just like Fowler, incredulous.

He tapped in for birdie and will start Sunday with his best shot to win a tournament all season. It’s an amazing turnaround in just one week, and Mickelson’s presence as a contender will make Sunday that much more dramatic.

Fowler and Mickelson are obviously the bigger names right behind Rory, but the board is much more stacked than just those two. Jason Day, after spending the second hole wading through a river and hitting barefoot, managed to get into the clubhouse with a 2-under 69 to stay inside the top five. Day was one of the five who held a co-share of the lead on the back nine, and he’s someone, along with Fowler, who will push Rory for the next 20 years at these majors. Even with the thumb injury that’s bothered him all season and still prevents him from being 100 percent, Day continues to grind out top-five finishes at majors with regularity.

After the best afternoon of major golf this year, things are set up for an incredible Sunday to cap off the major championship season. Here’s where things stand heading into the final round: