Branden Grace led the South African challenge on a tough opening day of the PGA Championship at a windy Ocean Course on Kiawah Island.
Grace’s opening two-under-par 70 made him one of only 15 players to shoot 70 or better on day one, and it puts him three strokes off the lead of Canadian Corey Connors.
On the longest golf course in Major championship history, even the big-hitting Bryson DeChambeau had to concede defeat as the wind dominated the field.
“Yeah, it was not easy out there…Mentally you have to show a lot of resolve…Getting to 4-over is really nothing out here…It’s diabolical. This is the most difficult golf course that I’ve played on Tour, and that is a straight-up fact for me,†he said after his first round of level-par 72.
Fellow South Africans Louis Oosthuizen and Christiaan Bezuidenhout finished the day one shot behind Grace with rounds of 71.
Erik van Rooyen opened with a level-par 72, while Dylan Frittelli and Garrick Higgo, playing in his first Major, signed for rounds of 73. Dean Burmester began his challenge with a round of two-over 74.
The other South Africans in the field will have their work cut out for them in Friday’s second round as they look to make it through to the weekend.
George Coetzee and Daniel van Tonder will start the second day on three over after their rounds of 75, while Charl Schwartzel will be looking to fight his way back from an opening 76, and Brandon Stone will be doing the same after a 78.
