The 2016 PGA Championship at Baltusrol has everything going for it besides Tiger Woods. It’s a short drive from the media mecca of Manhattan. With the Olympics imminent, it has virtually no competition from other big sports (excepting the marathon called Major League Baseball). And this 2016 PGA is widely believed — via the data crunching that attends modern sports — to exhibit the most talented field of golfers ever assembled. 49 of the top 50 in the FedEx Cup standings are playing, and 98 out of the world’s top 100.
But as Thursday drew to a close, the leaderboard was full of names like Jimmie Walker, Emiliano Grillo, Ross Fisher, Andy Sullivan, James Hahn and Harris English. These are amazing golfers, but hardly household names. (There’s also Martin Kaymer, a former World No. 1 and two-time major winner from Germany.) Even among these lesser known names Emiliano Grillo stands out. The 23-year-old Argentine with just 9K Twitter followers is playing in his fifth major, and he has shown he has the tools to win them. Currently FedEx No. 30, last October Grillo won his very first start as a member of the PGA Tour. He shot a 66 on Thursday at Baltusrol, one off Jimmie Walker’s pace.
