US PGA Championship 2022: final round – live!

The leader Mito Pereira tees off. Any sign of nerves? Nope! He splits the fairway. He’s going round in the final pairing with Matt Fitzpatrick. Can he become only the second Englishman to win the PGA, after Jim Barnes in 1916 and 1919? Well, it’s not an ideal start, because he pulls his drive into the gallery down the left, and might not have a route to the green, a couple of big trees possibly in his way. Let’s see.

Another birdie for Lucas Herbert, this time at 4. He rises to -3. An opening bogey for Abraham Ancer, the result of sending his approach wide left of the green. He slips to -3.

It wasn’t Will Zalatoris’s day yesterday. Certainly not on the front nine, when his driving went askew and his putting all but disintegrated. Perhaps it’s his day today, though? A big stroke of luck with his opening drive, which looks like heading for one of the bunkers down the left, but bounces in between them before kicking back towards the fairway. He’s out today with the big-hitting Cameron Young, who already has three second-place finishes on Tour this year, the latest at the Wells Fargo a couple of weeks ago. He sends his drive in a similar direction, but looks to have got over both bunkers. Just one pairing to go!

McIlroy nearly makes bounceback birdie from 40 feet on 7. His putt horseshoes out. So close. He’s throwing everything at this. He squats on his haunches in despair. He’s -3. Meanwhile, behind him, Tommy Fleetwood has started briskly. Birdies at 4 and 5 have whisked Southport’s finest to -2.

Another player comes this close to an ace. We’ve already seen Jordan Spieth nearly make albatross on 17. Now Cam Smith creams a fashionable 7-wood into the par-three 8th, his ball hitting the flagstick and stubbornly refusing to drop. The ball lips out to four feet, and lips out again on his birdie putt. “That’s not fair!” cries someone in the gallery. He’s got that damn straight. Poor Cam, who remains at level par. Spieth incidentally had no more luck on 17. His tee shot, an inch wide of dropping, then rolled off the back, and he couldn’t get up and down for his birdie. Par, and the career-slam-chasing Texan ends with a 69, at +4. Maybe he’ll complete the set next year at Oak Hill.

Yep, it was too good to last. McIlroy chunks his chip up from the side of 6, and he can’t make the lengthy par putt he leaves himself. He’s four over for this hole this week. The par-threes really have done a number on him. A large one. He slips back to -3.

More McIlroy magic! He crashes a 357-yard drive down the par-five 5th, then from the centre of the fairway finds a greenside bunker with his second. The mistake doesn’t cost him anything, though. He splashes out from 30 yards to four feet, and tidies up for his fourth birdie in a row. He’s doing it again, isn’t he? Chances of making it five on the spin look remote, though. He found water to the left of the par-three 6th yesterday, and, clearly not of a mind to do it again, sends his tee shot down the swale to the right of the green.

-9: Pereira
-6: Fitzpatrick, Zalatoris
-5: Young
-4: McIlroy (5), Ancer

Lucas Herbert opens with birdie. The 26-year-old Aussie has had a good week, and this promises to be his best finish in a major by some distance. A couple of 68s on Thursday and Saturday bookend a disappointing 73 on Friday, when, having briefly challenged the leaders, he carded four bogeys on the front nine. Other than that, he’s been consistently impressive and has announced himself this week as one to keep an eye on. He’s -2.

This is getting daft now. McIlroy rolls a 25-foot downhill left-to-right curler into the cup at 4, and that’s three birdies on the bounce. He’s -3. Speaking of good, wholesome, rollocking entertainment, up on the reachable par-four 17th, Jordan Spieth is this close to a hole-in-one albatross! His 3-wood lands on the front of the green, takes a couple of skips, then rolls about one inch wide right of the cup. His ball then topples off the back, which is simply not fair. That would have been the first albatross at the PGA since Joey Sindelar on the 5th at Medinah in 2006.

Back-to-back birdies for Rory McIlroy! This one comes at 3, and all of a sudden he’s -2. Those par-three meltdowns yesterday – double bogey at 6, triple at 11 – have really cost him. A couple of pars there and he’d be two off the lead. But here we are.

There have been seven previous majors at Southern Hills. The 1958, 1977 and 2001 US Opens, won by Tommy Bolt, Hubert Green and Retief Goosen; and the 1970, 1982, 1994 and 2007 PGA Championships, won by Dave Stockton, Ray Floyd, Nick Price and Tiger Woods. That’s a pretty high-calibre roll of honour, which may explain why all seven winners held or jointly held the 54-hole lead. Mito Pereira has a lot to live up to.

It’s been a disappointing week for Jon Rahm. One of the pre-tournament favourites, he never really got going, yesterday’s 76 the nadir of an uneven week. He’s finished with a 68, though, a little boost for the confidence as he starts thinking about his defence of the US Open next month at Brookline. He ends up at +6.

Is Rory McIlroy going to do his usual thing of charging up the leaderboard on Sunday having all but played himself out of contention? Perhaps! He rolls in a birdie putt on 2 to move into red figures at -1. He’ll need a stellar round today if he’s to slake that eight-year major thirst, and to be fair the conditions are conducive for low scoring. It’s warmer than yesterday, the wind is much less troublesome, and they’ve moved up a few tee boxes in the hope of fireworks. It shouldn’t be beyond someone in the chasing pack to post a score that will trouble the surprise leader Mito Pereira if he stumbles.

In case you missed the news last night, Tiger withdrew after that painful (in more than one sense of the word) 79. It was his third-worst round at a major championship – he shot 81 at Muirfield in the 2002 Open, and 80 when the US Open was staged on the whirling waltzer that is Chambers Bay – but that leg was really playing up, so it was no great surprise to see him limp off the stage. Hopefully he’ll be back in time for the Open at St Andrews in July; an appearance at Brookline next month for the US Open might be pushing it.

Preamble