PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 17, 2026

Kurt Kitayama

Aronimink Golf Club

Flash Quotes

Q. Kurt, through the first three rounds here at Aronimink, there were no scores better than 65. You beat that by two. Ties the low final round score in PGA Championship history. My one big question for you, how?

KURT KITAYAMA: The putter God. I felt like I was holding 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.

Q. Is that the key out here? Obviously we've heard all week, well, you've gotta hit it long, but you have to be in the fairways, and you've gotta be precise with your irons, and if you miss, you've gotta hit wedges. Kind of explains golf. But make more putts than everybody else and your score is going to be better?

KURT KITAYAMA: Yeah, usually. I think the greens are so undulating and difficult to read. I think you're seeing most 3-putts in a lot of the majors.

I think the putter is really important out here. You can kind of get it up around the green sometimes, or, you know, if you're in the rough and you're handcuffed and you get on the green, you're probably left with a long putt. That's going to be really tricky. That's going to be the big thing.

Q. I know you might not want to help anybody out, but if one of these leaders comes up to you, you see them in the parking lot in a minute and they say, hey, give me some advice, what should I look for out there, what would you say?

KURT KITAYAMA: I'm not sure. It was kind of one of those rounds for me that the putter clicked. I was just rolling it. It was just lights out for me.

Q. There's the advice for the guys later. Make everything you look out, you'll be just like Kurt Kitayama. How does that sound?

KURT KITAYAMA: Sounds good.

Q. First question I have, do you have any part of you right now you're not gnarling at yourself about yesterday?

KURT KITAYAMA: Not really. It happened. It played tough. Kind of is what it is. It was just a hard fight yesterday that felt like I got bad breaks, and today I felt like I got all the good breaks. At the end of the day, I feel like it evens out. And it's just tough. It's tough out here, and so that round yesterday was, you know, happens easily.

Q. And the whole big picture, I don't know where you're going to finish because there's so many guys left. You've had a really good week. I mean, you played three really good rounds. Do you take a lot out of that?

KURT KITAYAMA: Yeah. Absolutely. First two days I felt like I grinded, and I was happy where I was with that 1-under, and thought I was going to be able to put myself in a good position coming into today, but it just didn't happen.

But to come out today, after yesterday's round and have a round like that feels great.

Q. How would you characterize the golf course today compared to the first three days? Is it about the same?

KURT KITAYAMA: For me, I felt like the first three days I was playing in such windy conditions, and it was so tough to get anything close. And today it was nice, wind was down. Just felt so much easier when the wind was down. And made it a little easier to score, because the first two days it was so windy, and where the pins were you had to play wind on your putts, and that makes it so difficult to play.

Today you could just kind of read it out they were and didn't have to worry about any wind affecting it.

Q. Knowing 6-under leads, having just played 18 holes, look into your crystal ball, what score wins this thing? Not hole. What score?

KURT KITAYAMA: 8-under, maybe. I think that would be -- that would be good.

Q. In connection with that, we started the week with some players saying this is going to be close to 20-under. Then everybody like really made a correction to that. And now we have somebody shooting 7-under. Is there a 7-under, 8-under out there today?

KURT KITAYAMA: 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. I think we'll see some more under-par scores maybe, overall. But, yeah.