Henrik Stenson’s 20-under-par total at The Open equalled the record low total at a major. His next stop will be the 98th PGA Championship, where world number one Jason Day set the low benchmark last year. This season the Olympic Golf Tournament caused a reshuffle, which has brought the last major forward to July.
The attention of the golfing world, while recovering from what they witnessed on the Scottish Coast, will shift to New Jersey’s Baltusrol Golf Club in a fortnight, where the ‘Iceman’ will take on the world number one in the final major of the year.
Day’s victory at Whistling Straits last year included a final-round 67 to beat Jordan Spieth by three strokes. Stenson’s duel with Phil Mickelson was more intense, but a run of three birdies in a row on the back nine did afford him some comfort down the 17th and 18th holes.
Day has not played Baltusrol in a major championship, while Stenson was there the last time the course hosted the PGA Championship in 2005. The Swede ended in a tie for 47th place, a distant 11 shots behind winner Mickelson.
This year Day went tied-eighth at the Masters, tied-10th at the US Open and shared 22nd at The Open, so he’ll be looking to push on to better. He has not yet been a genuine threat for the win.
Stenson’s title at the 145th Open Championship means he will likely take more confidence into the event compared to Day, even though he performed worse than the Australian at the Masters before withdrawing at the US Open.
Day won last year and has two further top-10 finishes at the PGA Championship, but Stenson’s record is also respectable. The 40-year-old has four top-10 results, which came at Oakland Hills Country Club in 2008 and 2013, Hazeltine National Golf Club in 2009, and Valhalla Golf Club in 2014.
The PGA Tour will host the RBC Canadian Open this week, where Day defends his title. Stenson will next be on course at Baltusrol, where the two record holders will battle for the season’s final major.
