PGA Championship 2015 Schedule: Saturday Preview, TV Info, Live Stream, More
Hiroshi Iwata staked his claim as a weekend player to watch after his record-tying score of 63 on Friday at the 2015 PGA Championship. His out-of-nowhere performance was an inspiring, exciting development, but it still wasn't enough to vault him to the top of the leaderboard.
Standing tall above the rest of the star-studded field at Whistling Straits golf course in Kohler, Wisconsin are Jason Day and Matt Jones at nine-under for the tournament. Neither player was able to finish his sterling second round on Friday, as rain and lightning forced play to a halt late in the day.
While the top of the leaderboard is rife with golfing talent, there were some heavy hitters mired deep in the standings after two days of play.
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Tiger Woods still has five holes left in his second round but is two strokes back of the projected cut line at four-over, per PGATour.com. Phil Mickelson and Rickie Fowler appear to have survived to the weekend but are hardly looking like contenders heading into the final two days. British Open champion Zach Johnson appears to have missed the cut, marking up his scorecard at three-over after two rounds.
Here's a look at the updated leaderboard ahead of Saturday.
Here's a rundown of the TV and live stream info for Saturday, followed by a preview of what's to come on moving day. According to USA Today, second-round tournament play will resume at 8 a.m. ET, with Round 3 estimated to begin at 10 a.m. ET.
PGA Championship 2015: Saturday Viewing Info
TV (ET): 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on TNT; 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. on CBS
Live Stream: PGA.com
Players to Watch on Saturday
Hiroshi Iwata
Iwata dazzled on Friday, quickly going from anonymous entrant to near-front-runner. Iwata notched three birdies and a bogey on the front nine, and then went absolutely berserk on the back nine.
He racked up an eagle and five birdies between hole No. 11 and 18 to finish with a two-round score of 140. Brilliant stuff, but that opening-round 77 is keeping him out of the top 10 heading into the weekend.
ESPN's Bob Harig noted Iwata was an unlikely entrant in this year's PGA Championship:
"Iwata was a special invitee to the PGA because he was inside the top 100 in the world rankings before slipping to 102nd this week. He has two career victories on the Japan Golf Tour, including this year's Sega Sammy Cup. His only previous experience in major championships came at the Open three times, and he missed the cut on each occasion, including last month at St. Andrews.
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Iwata's lack of pedigree going into his first PGA Championship and the disparity between his first two rounds makes him the wild card of the third round. It will be interesting to see if the attention garnered by his record round gets to him or if he is able to block out distractions and concentrate on what's working in his golf game.
David Lingmerth
Iwata wasn't the only relatively unheralded golfer pegged at the top of the standings after Friday. David Lingmerth is sitting pretty at seven-under, three strokes better off than Iwata and tied with Harris English and Tony Finau.
He's forced himself into the championship conversation in a bit more of an understated fashion, following up an opening-round 67 and a score of 70 on Friday. That said, Friday was a bit of a roller coaster for the Swedish golfer, per Karen Crouse of the New York Times:
"Lingmerth’s second round at Whistling Straits was stomach-dropping in its own way. He started at five under, surged to eight under by the end of the fifth hole, fell back to four under after a double bogey and two bogeys, moved to seven under and back to six under, and then made a long birdie at the 18th hole to finish his round with a 70, at seven under for the tournament.
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Despite the up-and-down round, Lingmerth may even end up being the official leader of the tournament once he gets back out on the course, as the three players ahead of him—Day, Jones and Justin Rose—could all falter as they look to complete their first 36 holes of golf early in the morning.
Aside from hiccups at the Travelers Championship and British Open, Lingmerth has been in excellent form since winning the Memorial Tournament in June.
| June 7 | Memorial Tournament | P1 | -15 |
| June 28 | Travelers Championship | T64 | -2 |
| July 5 | The Greenbrier Classic | T6 | -11 |
| July 19 | The Open Championship | T74 | E |
| August 2 | Quicken Loans National | 3 | -14 |
| August 9 | WGC-Bridgestone Invitational | T6 | -5 |
| August 16 | PGA Championship | T4* | -7 |
As a result, Lingmerth has rocketed up the world rankings, per ESPN Stats & Info:
Even though he's relatively new to the major tournaments—his best performance to date is tying for 17th at the 2013 U.S. Open—Lingmerth has plenty of PGA Tour experience to draw upon to finish strongly this weekend.
Jordan Spieth
Were you really going to keep an eye on anybody else? Spieth is very much in the running for his third major of the year at the young age of 22 after scoring five-under on Friday.
At this point, there doesn't seem to be much of anything that can throw Spieth off his considerable game. Wind, weather, the unrelenting pressure of the moment—they're all rendered moot by his skillful golf. Here he is holing out from the bunker at the fifth, via PGA Tour:
Shots such as that are hard to come by, even at the top level of golf. And yet somehow, it's apparently still not enough for the young Texan.
"I'm still not pleased with the way I'm driving the ball at all," said Spieth, via Harig. "I'm hitting some quick draws when I'm playing a normal shot, which is weird. I haven't had that really this whole year. So I was kind of just trying to guide the ball off the tee."
Taking Spieth at his word, if he had really been comfortable with his driving, he might've holed more than the six birdies he racked up on Friday. Spieth is on the verge of creating even more history in 2015. There isn't a better player to track this weekend.
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