CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Jhonattan Vegas played the best golf hardly anyone saw Thursday in the PGA Championship.
Brilliant sunshine after three days of rain leading up to the tournament brought out a full house of spectators expecting a great show in the first round of the year’s second major, and the one with the deepest field. They just didn’t get it from who they came to see — the star-studded grouping of top-ranked Scottie Scheffler, Masters champion Rory McIlroy and reigning tournament champion Xander Schauffele — and most of those fans were long gone when Vegas worked his magic in the late afternoon.
Two good par saves. Two short birdies. Another par save. And then three birdies at the end for a 7-under-par 64 at Quail Hollow Club, giving the 40-year-old from Venezuela his best score in 45 rounds at the majors and a two-shot lead on an opening day full of surprises.
“Incredible,” Vegas said when asked to summarize his round. “Any chance you get to shoot 64 at a major championship is always great.”
Equally incredible is that for the first time in at least 30 years, none of the top 10 players in the Official World Golf Ranking — 98 of the top 100 are in the 156-player field — could be found on the top 10 of the leaderboard after 18 holes at a major.