PITTSFORD — Turns out our neighbors up north are very comfortable in Western New York.
Through two grinding rounds of the 2023 PGA Championship at Oak Hill Country Club, a trio of Canadians have found early success, sitting in the top 10 entering the final two rounds.
Corey Conners — Canada’s top dog and 29th in the Official World Golf Rankings — has been the surprise of the tournament, tied with Scottie Scheffler (No. 2) and Victor Hovland (No. 11) atop the leaderboard at 5-under following Friday’s second round.
Adam Svensson (No. 58) and Taylor Pendrith (No. 121), the 2013 Porter Cup champion, hung tough. Pendrith sits tied for eighth at 1-under while Svensson is tied for 10th at even par.
Conners is one of four players to clear par both Thursday and Friday. He played a mostly clean second round, bogeying only the seventh while birdying Nos. 2, 13 and 15.
“It’s pretty exciting,” Conners said of the maple-flavored leaderboard. “(I’m) really close with both Taylor and Adam. It’s fun to be part of the group of Canadian golfers right now.
“I think whether it’s myself or one of them or the others, someone is making some noise every week.”
Pendrith used his putter to avoid major hiccups, breaking par despite hitting just three fairways on the day. He credited his familiarity with playing from thick rough, a feature this week on Oak Hill’s East Course, as a key to avoiding the bogeys that plagued the majority of the field.
“It’s really difficult to hit fairways for everybody here, but if you are in the rough, you just gouge, swing as hard as you can and try to get it just short of the green and go from there,” he said. … “I’ve just kind of managed my game well so far.”
It certainly helps to have a hot putter. Through most of his round, Pendrith was first in the field in strokes gained on the greens.
“I mean, I needed it today,” he said. “If I had an average or bad putting day, it could have been ugly.”
Svensson headed to the locker room with an ugly taste in his mouth, bogeying both 17 and 18 to fall back to even par for a second consecutive round.
Brooks Koepka, always a threat in majors, shot Friday’s lowest round, a 4-under 66. He’s tied for sixth at 2-under.
Bryson DeChambeau, a LIV golfer along with Koepka, is tied for fourth with Justin Suh at 3-under.
The cut fell at 5-over, allowing world No. 1 Jon Rahm to play into the weekend. The big Spaniard shot 2-under Friday and sits 4-over for the tournament.