PGA Championship Leaderboard: Tiger Woods and Other Day 1 Letdowns

I suppose 90% of the sports world (and 100% of CBS and TNT television executives) was sad to see Tiger Woods crumble today in the first round of the PGA Championship. But Tiger was not the only big-time disappointment today. For every surprising leader like Jerry Kelly and John Senden there was a Tour pro out there who really fell flat.

No one put up a worse fight against the Atlanta Athletic Club's Highlands course than Ryo Ishikawa, but since he finished 15-over-par for the day—and he's played fairly well all year long, especially at the season's first two Majors—we'd be kicking a man while he's down, so lets move on. 

Paul Casey has suffered through a pretty poor 2011 season; cut from the US Open, failing to crack the top 35 at Augusta and Royal St. Georges, missing four cuts in a five-start span, not finishing higher than 12th once this year on the PGA Tour, but because he closed with a 67 last week at Firestone, there was some hope of a late-season surge.  A two-over-72 isn't horrible, but he had to be hoping for a better start. 

But at least Casey was able to balance out a few of his bogeys with some nice shots and the resulting three birdies; Webb Simpson couldn't even record one.

Simpson isn't yet in that class of Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, Rickie Fowler and the other 20-somethings who've burst on the scene, but he's had some really big moments in 2011.  He reached a playoff at the the Zurich Classic, took seventh at the Memorial and had a pair of outstanding debuts at the US and British Opens, taking 14th at Congressional and 16th at Royal St. Georges. Since June he has three top 10s and six top 20s in six starts. But today, he shot a five-over-75 with five bogeys and no birdies. Making the cut is not going to be easy.  

Still, the greatest disappearing act (not performed by the Amazing Tiger) came from Bubba Watson.

In a moment of deja vu, Watson put together four straight early birdies—just like he did at the first round of the US Open—only to give them all back with a handful of bogeys...just like he did at the first round of the US Open. In fact the six bogeys and one double bogey he made on his final 10 holes was far worse than his close at Congressional and, as weird as this sounds, very Tiger-like.