American world No 1 among those shooting 3-under 67s
Rory McIlroy finishes on four-over after four straight bogeys
It was gridlock on the opening day of the US PGA, where the leaderboard was backed up like Philly traffic. By the time it was all over, seven men were tied in the lead on three-under par, and another 42 were within three shots of them. Altogether a third of the field was within easy reach of the lead. It was record for a major championship, and they have been playing them since 1860. There are 16 major winners spread among them, including, ominously for everyone else, that man Scottie Scheffler. All the talk before the tournament was that it would be a turkey shoot, but it turned out to be one long tailback. The only thing missing was the traffic police.
Actually they had one of them, too, or something near enough. A rules official on the first tee gave the 27-year-old South African Garrick Higgo a two-shot penalty for arriving 30 seconds late from the practice green. He still shot a 69. The really odd thing was that in a field where even a man who dropped two shots because he missed his tee time managed to end the day in contention, a couple of the biggest names in the game wound up all but out of it.
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