Kiwi golfers Ryan Fox and Daniel Hillier will both have early starts and have been grouped with PGA professionals when the PGA Championship major tees off at Aronimink, west of Philadelphia this week.
Fox, who is playing his eighth PGA Championship, tees off at 12.35am (all times NZT) after missingthe cut at the Masters last month. He has been grouped with Ryan Lenahan, a 41-year-old American who is PGA director of instruction at the Walnut Creek Country Club, and Japan’s Kazuki Higa, who recently played at the New Zealand Open and the Japan-Australasia Championship at Royal Auckland & Grange Golf Club.
Hillier tees off at 12.41am from the 10th tee in the group behind Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth and Jon Rahm. Playing in his maiden PGA Championship, Hillier has been grouped with Americans Max McGreevy and Ryan Vermeer, the PGA director of instruction at the Happy Hollow Club.
Top-ranked defending American champion Scottie Scheffler will tee off alongside England’s Justin Rose and Matt Fitzpatrick at 6.05am.
The grouping means Fitzpatrick, a three-time PGA Tour winner this season, will not be joined by younger brother Alex Fitzpatrick, who is off to a hot PGA Tour start since sharing a pairs win with Matt in April at New Orleans.
Alex Fitzpatrick tees off at the first hole in the first group of the event at 10.45pm on Thursday alongside Americans Ben Griffin and Braden Shattuck.
McIlroy, coming off his sixth major triumph last month at the Masters, will start at 12.40am off the 10th tee alongside Spain’s Rahm and American Spieth over the 6761m, par-70 layout.
The world No 2 from Northern Ireland will try to become the first player since Jack Nicklaus in 1975 to win the Masters and PGA Championship in the same year.
Spieth would complete a career Grand Slam with a victory while Rahm would become the first Spaniard to capture the PGA Championship.
World No 3 Cameron Young will be joined Thursday at 5.54am on the first tee by fellow Americans Keegan Bradley, the 2011 PGA Championship winner, and Justin Thomas, who took the PGA Championship in 2017 and 2022.
Xander Schauffele, the 2024 PGA Championship and British Open winner, will tee off on the 10th hole at 12.29am alongside fellow American Brooks Koepka, a five-time major winner, and England’s Tyrrell Hatton.
