{"id":243514,"date":"2026-05-15T05:30:52","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T05:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/15\/surprise-golfer-outshines-rory-mcilroy-bryson-dechambeau-and-other-stars-on-day-1-of-pga-championship\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T05:30:52","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T05:30:52","slug":"surprise-golfer-outshines-rory-mcilroy-bryson-dechambeau-and-other-stars-on-day-1-of-pga-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/15\/surprise-golfer-outshines-rory-mcilroy-bryson-dechambeau-and-other-stars-on-day-1-of-pga-championship\/","title":{"rendered":"Surprise golfer outshines Rory McIlroy, Bryson DeChambeau and other stars on Day 1 of PGA Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The 2026 PGA Championship at Aronimink <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/golf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Golf\u00a0<\/a>Club in Newtown Square, Pa., features many of the game&#8217;s biggest stars. South African Aldrich Potgieter outplayed them on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Unheralded Potgieter, 21, has won just one event in two seasons on the PGA Tour and thus wasn&#8217;t<span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/golf\/articles\/power_rankings_for_the_pga_championship\/s1_13132_43837886\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u00a0considered a favorite<\/a><\/span> to win the tournament. That should change after his terrific outing on the first day of the four-day event.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>Aldrich Potgieter surprised on the first day of PGA Championship\u00a0<\/h2>\n<p>Potgieter shot a 67 (3-under-par) on Thursday. It marks the seventh time he has shot a 67 or lower this season. He last did so during the first three rounds of the RBC Heritage in April.<\/p>\n<p>Attribute that to excellent putting, which isn&#8217;t normally his strong suit. The 2026 PGA Tour Driving Distance leader (326.9 feet per drive) made 16-of-16 putts inside 15 feet on Thursday.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script>\n    !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n    {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n    n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n    if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n    n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n    t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n    s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n    'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n    fbq('init', '1324276914788316');\n    fbq('track', 'PageView');\n  <\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/golf\/articles\/surprise_golfer_outshines_rory_mcilroy_bryson_dechambeau_and_other_stars_on_day_1_of_pga_championship\/s1_13132_43843675\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2026 PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf\u00a0Club in Newtown Square, Pa., features many of the game&#8217;s biggest stars. South African Aldrich Potgieter outplayed them on Thursday.\u00a0 Unheralded Potgieter, 21, has won just one event in two seasons on the PGA Tour and thus wasn&#8217;t\u00a0considered a favorite to win the tournament. That should change after his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":243515,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6806],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-243514","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gossip"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}