Kurt Kitayama becomes 2nd player with a Sunday 63 in PGA Championship history

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. (AP) — Kurt Kitayama tied the lowest final round in major championship history with a 7-under 63 on Sunday at the PGA Championship.

Kitayama, in the fourth group off in the morning, charged up the leaderboard with the lowest score of this championship at the par-70 Aronimink Golf Club midway through the final round. He became the ninth player with a 63 in the final round, and second in PGA Championship history.

The record for majors is 62 done five times, most recently by Shane Lowry and Xander Schauffele in the 2024 PGA Championship at Valhalla.

The 5-foot-7 Kitayama, an accomplished basketball player from California who led Chico High School to a pair of section titles and earned the nickname “Quadzilla” for his large legs, averaged 313 yards off the tee in the championship. But, it was his work on the greens that helped him challenge the major records.

The 33-year-old credited the “putter God” for his bogey-free round in which he used 28 swings with the flat stick to make more than 141 feet of putts.

“I felt like I was holding the world out there,” said Kitayama, whose two PGA Tour titles include the Arnold Palmer Invitational. “What my eye saw that’s what the ball was doing. And that’s a good feeling.”

The 33-year-old Californian started quickly with a 5-under 30 on the front nine, opening with three straight birdies and adding two more at the sixth and par-5 ninth.

He made three straight pars on the inward nine before getting up and down from a bunker on the reachable par-4 13th, rolling in a 13-foot birdie putt.

He failed to capitalize at No. 16, the only par 5 on the back, which has played as the second-easiest hole this week. Kitayama drove into the right rough, played out to just over 90 yards to the green, hit wedge to 37 feet and two-putted for par.

His hopes for a record-tying 62 ended with a two-putt par from 40 feet on the par-3 17th. But he finished a great day in style by making birdie on the 18th from just outside 12 feet.

Brad Faxon had the only other 63 on Sunday in the PGA, in 1995 at Riviera that earned him a spot on the Ryder Cup team.

Johnny Miller was the first with 63 on Sunday in a major, and perhaps the most famous, at Oakmont in 1973 to win the U.S. Open. Henrik Stenson shot 63 at Royal Troon in 2016 when he won his famous duel with Phil Mickelson.

Tommy Fleetwood has shot 63 on Sunday in the U.S. Open twice, in 2018 at Shinnecock Hills and in 2023 at Los Angeles Country Club.

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