Once again, 17 provides best theater at Kiawah

KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. – It was just after lunch as Bubba Watson, Danny Willett and Henrik Stenson all missed left at the difficult par-3 17 hole. That’s when fans were treated to the best save of the day at the 103rd PGA Championship at the breezy Ocean Course at Kiawah.

Uniformed members of the Kiawah Island Community Association plucked a distressed anhinga bird off the wooden pilings so a naturalist could clip away some string wrapped around its beak. Fans whooped and cheered, capturing the moment with their phones as the bird was treated and released back to the edge of the water hazard. It was great theater.

With only Talor Gooch (71) having made a 2 on Kiawah’s most famous hole, which played into a stiff wind, it was also just the second birdie anyone had netted there all day.

There is no more entertaining hole than Kiawah’s 17th, even when the tees are up, as they were Thursday. It is 223 yards on the scorecard but played to 214 in the first round, which presumably transformed it from unplayable to just really hard. There was a long wait on the tee, which didn’t help. Most players tried to keep a 4-iron under the wind. Tyrrell Hatton (71) hit 7-wood.

There were rulings. Rescues. Regrets.

Two bunkers – separated by a strip of grass from which Bubba Watson (72) saved par – caught balls that missed left of the green. Right misses sank to the bottom of a gator-filled water hazard.

Not surprisingly, players quickly identified the lesser of two evils.

“I was trying to hit it in the bunker, the second bunker on the left,” said Martin Laird (70).

Wait. Aiming for the bunker on a par 3? How often do you hear a PGA TOUR pro say that?

Alas, Laird missed his target, his ball shooting left and into the spectators on the dunes above the bunkers. He failed to get up and down for par, but at least he’d avoided a total catastrophe.

Louis Oosthuizen (71) hit it in the drink and made double bogey. Kevin Na (79) watched anxiously as his tee shot caromed off the bulkhead and into the water. Another double. As of 5:36 p.m., there were 12 double bogeys, 35 bogeys, 72 pars, and six water balls on 17.

And still just the one birdie, by Gooch, from just outside seven feet.

If the anhinga bird was the best save of the day, Harris English made the second-best save. His tee shot flew so far left as to necessitate a “Fore!” chorus from the tee, but his second shot, from the dunes left of the sand traps, nearly went in the hole for a rare birdie. He tapped in for par.

Aiming left, alas, was not foolproof. Matt Jones, who won The Honda Classic in March and at one point was 4 under par Thursday, missed left but doubled 17 without even getting wet.

His unfortunate finish – bogey, bogey, double, bogey – recalled the 1991 Ryder Cup, when Mark Calcavecchia lost a 4-up lead with four to play, halved his match with Colin Montgomerie and staggered off to the beach to try and collect himself. The most damning shot: Calcavecchia hitting it into the water on 17 immediately after Montgomerie had done the same thing.

“Of course, 17 is a brutal one,” said Henrik Stenson, who also tasted the lead Thursday but stumbled over the toughest two holes on the course – bogey on 17 (left miss), double on 18.

True, there is no gut-check like 17 when it’s playing into the wind, and as ever, it was left to Kiawah’s penultimate hole to confirm or deny, in the bluntest possible terms, who really had his A game.

Keegan Bradley (69) hit a laser to just over 13 1/2 feet and made par.

“I hit the ball about as good as I can hit it,” said Bradley, the 2012 PGA champion.

Brooks Koepka, the 2018 and ’19 PGA champion who has been recuperating from right knee surgery, hit the green on 17 and also two-putted for par.

“I love it when it's difficult,” Koepka said. “I think that's why I do so well in the majors. I just know mentally I can grind it out. Like when it's windy like this, it's not so much putting, it's more about ball striking, and I felt like I struck it really well today.”

Defending champion Collin Morikawa (70, par on 17) thought he’d fanned his tee shot into the water on 17, but wound up hitting the green and also making par.

“I hope it does stay windy,” he said, “because it really tests your ability to hit quality shots.”

Nowhere is that test more consequential than 17, which is projected to play downwind Sunday. If so, the tees could be back, stretching the hole to its full glory: 223 yards, over water. Buckle up.