{"id":73617,"date":"2026-05-16T18:55:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T23:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/16\/smalley-takes-two-shot-lead-into-final-round-of-us-pga-championship-but-big-names-lurk\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T18:55:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T23:55:10","slug":"smalley-takes-two-shot-lead-into-final-round-of-us-pga-championship-but-big-names-lurk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/16\/smalley-takes-two-shot-lead-into-final-round-of-us-pga-championship-but-big-names-lurk\/","title":{"rendered":"Smalley takes two-shot lead into final round of US PGA Championship but big names lurk"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>\n<p>Home hope surges to six under thanks to round of 68<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Rahm among five on four under; McIlroy is three under<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The leaderboard was spinning like a tombola at Aronimink on Saturday, where at one point or another just about every player in the field had a birdie putt to take a share of the lead and then a bogey putt to let go of it again. When the drum finally stopped turning, Alex Smalley, a 29-year-old from North Carolina who has never won a professional golf tournament, was top of the leaderboard on six under, two shots clear of a five-way tie for second. No disrespect to Smalley, the world No 78, but the field are queued up like bowling balls on the rack waiting to take a run at him on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Philadelphia loves an underdog, but it\u2019s probably best if the trumpeter waits another day before he strikes up the opening notes of the Rocky theme.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2026\/may\/17\/alex-smalley-two-shot-lead-us-pga-championship-third-round-golf\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Home hope surges to six under thanks to round of 68 Rahm among five on four under; McIlroy is three under The leaderboard was spinning like a tombola at Aronimink on Saturday, where at one point or another just about every player in the field had a birdie putt to take a share of the &#8230; <a title=\"Smalley takes two-shot lead into final round of US PGA Championship but big names lurk\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/16\/smalley-takes-two-shot-lead-into-final-round-of-us-pga-championship-but-big-names-lurk\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Smalley takes two-shot lead into final round of US PGA Championship but big names lurk\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73617\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}