#PGA Championship: Jason Day, Martin Kaymer have strong first rounds

SAN FRANCISCO — You may have wondered where Jason Day and Martin Kaymer have been.

Two of the top international golfers of the past decade have seen their form dip in recent years and neither has spent a lot of time in the tournament spotlight.

That changed Thursday in the opening round of the PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park, where Day, from Australia, seized a share of the early lead with Brendon Todd with a 5-under-par 65 and Kaymer, from Germany, is one back with a 66, tied with eight other players at 4-under, including two-time defending champion Brooks Koepka and Justin Rose.

Tiger Woods, who entered the week having played only four tournament rounds since February, is also in good position after shooting a 2-under 68, his first opening round in the 60s in a major championship since 2014, when he began the British Open with a 69 at Royal Liverpool.

Kaymer, who won the 2010 PGA Championship and the 2014 U.S. Open, entered this week having played only one tournament in 2020 — last week’s Barracuda Championship, where he missed the cut.

Suffice it to say, Kaymer didn’t come to San Francisco with a lot of mojo.

That’s why he decided to try to create his own mojo Wednesday night.

“Expectations were very low, to be honest, because I didn’t really know where my game was at,’’ Kaymer said. “I knew I was playing OK, but on a golf course like this, OK play doesn’t really get you far. Knowing this going into this week, I needed something. So [Wednesday] night I was watching the U.S. Open actually from 2014, the back nine, trying to get some kind of positivity in my game because it hasn’t been much recently because of no play.

“Definitely that video … helped me to believe that my putting was good enough; that my ball-striking was good enough, even though it’s a few years back, but it’s always nice to remember those moments and feel the same that you felt that day.’’

How did this idea come about?

“I was going for some dinner and on the way home I didn’t feel that good,’’ he said. “I was not that happy for some reason. I don’t know, sometimes that happens. And then I thought I needed to lift my spirit a little bit. And I went on YouTube and I found that video, I think it’s an hour and 45 minutes or so, of us playing the back nine. I just watched it. I mean, there’s not much to do right now other than hanging out in your hotel room by yourself.’’

Asked when the last time he dialed up that video for motivation, Kaymer said it was “a long, long time … maybe four, five years.’’

“I like to go back to those moments,’’ he said. “I know you shouldn’t live in the past, but if the past can help you in the present moment, I’ll take it.’’

So he did.

Day, like Kaymer, is a former PGA champion, winning his at Whistling Straits in 2015. And he, too, has struggled with his form of late, partially because of ongoing back issues.

But Day’s form has come around in recent weeks, with a tie for seventh at the Workday event at Muirfield, a tie for fourth the following week at the Memorial and a tie for sixth last week in Memphis.

“I feel like the momentum that I’ve had over the last three starts has kind of seeped into this week,’’ Day said. “Every day I’m excited to go back to the golf course and play, whereas before I was struggling to get up and going, ‘Oh, do I want to kind of put myself through this again?’ To be honest, I’m excited to get out and play every week now.’’

Todd, too, should be excited to come out based on his hot play of late. He has two wins already this season and had chances to win a couple more that were ruined by poor final rounds.

Todd followed a Saturday 61 that gave him the lead entering the final round of the Travelers Championship and closed with a 75 to lose to Dustin Johnson. He, too, was in the mix last week in Memphis, where he shot another Sunday 75 with no birdies, just like at Travelers.