A 62 isn’t what it used to be, but it has Shane Lowry in the hunt at the PGA

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – In an era when mankind has started treating perfectly proud major golf courses to routine instances of slaughter, another 62 was thrown on the pile Saturday at Valhalla Golf Club. Shane Lowry got it, which is proof that decent things can happen to decent people.

As Lowry bolted through the sunshine from a tie for 29th at 4 under par to a tie for fourth at 13 under, two shots behind PGA Championship leaders Collin Morikawa and Xander Schauffele, he watched his nine birdies plunk into cups during a time when big bubbas such as Valhalla get mauled and 62s, while still sterling, shine less brightly than before. If somebody in the pub starts crowing about a 62 nowadays, listeners might even manufacture reasons for rapid exits.

Evolution proceeds apace. “The standard of golf is so good now; the youngsters are playing so well,” said 2013 U.S. Open champion Justin Rose, who is tied for seventh at 12 under and has reached age 43 so long after saying a loud hello at the British Open at Royal Birkdale at 18 in 1998.

This already became the major tournament with the most players under par after the cut, its 78 whipping the 71 at the 2006 British Open at Royal Liverpool. Among the 15 players within five shots of the lead going into Sunday, Rose would be the lone contestant older than 40, with 13 of them younger than 35. Oddly, none of the 15 is Scottie Scheffler, who fell to a tie for 24th with maybe a dissolution of adrenaline, his 73 on Saturday coming one day after a 66 for which he got in some stretching in a jail cell after an early-morning arrest.

Time was, Phil Mickelson had a 16-foot putt at Royal Troon for a 62 on the Thursday of the 2016 British Open, and when that thing made a near-circumnavigation of the lip before settling behind the cup and clearly giggling, Mickelson became that rare soul with both 63 and woe. “I want to cry,” he said then. By now Lowry, the 2019 British Open winner from Clara, County Offaly, Republic of Ireland, lines up a 12-footer on No. 18 seeking the first 61 in major history. “I just knew I really wanted to hole it,” he said. “Probably too much.”

It lacked sufficient mustard and sighed off to the left, meaning his 62 would join four other 62s in the teeming puppy pen of 62s. Through the first 442 golf majors from 1860 into 2017, the 63 of Johnny Miller to close the 1973 U.S. Open at Oakmont near Pittsburgh served as the most celestial, even though a batch of lesser 63s joined it before Henrik Stenson’s winning 63 to close that 2016 British Open. Then, on a benign Saturday at the 2017 British Open at Birkdale, Branden Grace of South Africa arrived at No. 18 unaware of his wow of a juncture. He made a workmanlike par and reveled in his unprecedented 62.

“The putter was hot,” he said among other comments.

Here in the 2020s, the 62s have begun to gush: two on the Thursday at the 2023 U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club and two here, including Schauffele’s 62 on Thursday. They aren’t quite like refrigerator magnets, but they’re getting there. Schauffele has two of the 62s. Rose, who played alongside Rickie Fowler’s 62 in Los Angeles, has witnessed two of them up close. Maybe Rose’s lovely disposition calms and inspires those nearby.

The Englishman dueled with the Irishman near the bourbon lands for a while Saturday, with both 5 under through eight holes. Eventually, Lowry surged ahead, and by the time of his 37-footer on No. 13 and his 32-footer on No. 14, he had entered the good-grief range. With all of it heading toward one closing groan, he knocked in his par from 4 inches on No. 18 and made off to the cheers and the kinds of evaluations that make golf so delightfully weird.

“I feel like, tee to green, I’ve been as good as I’ve ever been this year. And then I come out the first two days, it was probably the worst I’ve played in a long time, but my putter kept me going and kept me in the tournament,” he said. “Then I went to the range with my coach (Friday) afternoon and sort of – it was just an alignment issue. I was set up too far left, and all sorts of bad things happen for me when I do that. Yeah, fixed that, and went out there today, played with a little bit of freedom and managed to do that score.”

What a peculiar sport, but what a put-upon course, spending its fourth PGA Championship after three donnybrooks as a rain-softened lamb. “It’s a demanding golf course,” Rose reassured, “but the way the conditions are, it’s favorable. … The ball is not running a long way, and this is a long golf course, but I think we are getting the maximum out of the ball in the air, just given the conditions.”

The latest 62 showed that happiness can abound in a sport designed to wreak misery. “So there’s blood in the water,” Schauffele said of the burgeoning crowds just behind him and his 15 under as he hunts his first major title after 12 top-10 finishes and has gone 62-68-68. He noted how “Shane Lowry almost shot 61 today” and how he imagines “someone in that threshold now that it’s been done twice (this week) is going to shoot something low and post a number early.” Morikawa, who has won two majors already at 27, shot a 67, tied Schauffele and described it like this: “Steady.”

Former Pepperdine prodigy Sahith Theegala, 26, shot a pedestrian 67 to arrive at 14 under and, as they say in horse racing, menacing. The Norwegian of outrageous promise, Viktor Hovland, turned up near the top at 13 under alongside Lowry and said, “I think just the greens being soft and having zoysia around the greens, you can – it’s hard to separate yourself.” Bryson DeChambeau turned up alongside Lowry and Hovland, telling of runaway exhilaration at his closing eagle, a 32-footer. “The only time I felt like it,” he said, “was when I shot 58 at Greenbrier.”

Well, at least Greenbrier wasn’t a major.