Germany’s Martin Kaymer turned back the clock on Thursday.
The 2010 PGA Champion, who also won the U.S. Open in 2014, hasn’t had a top 10 in a major since a T7 at the 2016 PGA Championship.
He looked like the Kaymer of old in the first round of the 108th PGA Championship at Aronimink and his birdie on the 609-yard, par-5 ninth – his last of the day – was the exclamation point on a 3-under 67, which was good for a share of the clubhouse lead with Aldrich Potgieter, Stephan Jaeger, Min Woo Lee and Ryo Hisatsune.
Kaymer’s drive found the middle of the fairway. With a perfect lie from 298 yards out, Kaymer hit driver off the deck. It reached the green and settled just 16 feet from the hole. He missed the eagle by one inch and tapped in for the closing birdie.
“I hit a lovely drive onto the middle of the fairway,” he said. “And then I think I had 300 yards to the flag, uphill, and I said to my caddie, did he, do you think 3-wood can get to the front of the green? And he said, There's no chance. So, and I practice a lot driver from the fairway. It was a lovely lie on the fairway. The grass grows with you, so you know you're not going to hit it fat. That's usually the mistake that you do. And again, I practice it a lot and there's no reason, if you can do it in practice, why shouldn't you be able to do it in the tournament. So, and it was a nice one.”
Along with the birdie on his closing hole, Kaymer had three other birdies on the day. His lone bogey was at the par-4 seventh, caused by a drive into the right rough that forced him to lay up.
“Didn't make many mistakes,” Kaymer explained. “Stayed out of trouble. Avoided those 5-, 6-, 7-footers for par that can be quite stressful. It can be a quite intimidating golf course, especially with that wind, cold wind we had today. So, the goal was to hit fairways and greens and try to hit a lot of those lag putts. And I did well of that. Again, I avoided the big numbers. I made one poor tee shot and the rest of it was very consistent.”
Kaymer, who joined the LIV Tour in June 2022, said he’s been struggling with some health issues since 2021, but things have been coming around.
He pointed to his last three starts on LIV, saying that while the results weren’t great (T31, T25 and T39, respectively) he was playing well.
Combine that with a course like Aronimink that fits his eye and that’s why Kaymer is in the position he’s in.
