Kurt Kitayama shoots 63, ties major record at PGA Championship

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. – Kurt Kitayama sank a 13-foot birdie putt at 18 to shoot 7-under 63 at Aronomink Golf Club on Sunday and post the low round of the 108^th PGA Championship by two strokes. How did he do it?

"The putter God," Kitayama said. "I felt like I was holing the world out there. What my eye saw that's what the ball was doing. And that's a good feeling. I think just the putter kind of carried me today."

It carried Kitayama, 33, to matching the major championship record for the lowest score in a final round. He is the ninth player to do so since Johnny Miller at the 1973 U.S. Open and just the second player to do it in the PGA Championship, joining Brad Faxon in 1995.

Kitayama went out early in the fourth pairing on Sunday after skying to 75 in the third round. He got off to a fast start, sinking a 32-foot birdie putt at the first en route to birdies at the first three holes. He made a 15-footer at No. 6 and wedged to 4 feet at 9 to tour the front in 30. Both of his back-nine birdies – at Nos. 13 and 18 – were from 13 feet. In all, he holed 141 feet, 5 inches of putts.

"It was kind of one of those rounds for me that the putter clicked. I was just rolling it," he said. "It was just lights out for me."

Kitayama finished with a 72-hole total of 3-under 277. He was T-7 when he finished his round. Asked whether he thought that there might be another low round out there, Kitayama said, "I think if the weather stays like this, the wind is pretty light, there might be another one. But I don't know, final rounds are tough. I'm one of the first few groups. Less pressure, for sure."

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Kurt Kitayama ties PGA Championship record with final-round 63