By Steve Keating
ROCHESTER, New York (Reuters) – Golfers were preparing for a long, wet slog as third-round play got underway at the PGA Championships on Saturday and torrential rains rolled across Oak Hill Country Club.
But there could also be a few fireworks among the dark clouds with LIV Golf standard bearers Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau, once famously embroiled in one of golf’s most lively spats, paired together.
Mark Hubbard and Japan’s Rikuya Hoshino were first off at 8:10am ET (1210 GMT) in deplorable conditions that even co-leaders world number two Scottie Scheffler, Norway’s Viktor Hovland and Canadian Corey Conners are not going to escape when they tee off nearly seven hours later.
Scheffler and Conners, who along with Hovland sit atop the leaderboard at five under, are scheduled to go off at 2:50 pm (1850 GMT) just ahead of the world number 11 Norwegian and his partner Justin Suh.
Right behind Hovland and Suh are Koepka and DeChambeau.
Once bitter foes the pair are now LIV Golf team mates united in the Saudi-bankrolled venture’s feud with the PGA Tour, which they left to sign on with the big money rebel circuit.
The two major winners say they have settled their differences that began in 2021 when Koepka, annoyed at DeChambeau’s slow play, was caught on camera rolling his eyes in disgust.
The bickering, which consumed golf for several months, moved to social media and tournament media centres with the two taking veiled shots at each other before coming to an apparent truce during the 2021 Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits where they were on the winning U.S. side.
(Reporting by Steve Keating, Editing by Ed Osmond)
