When it’s your week, it’s your week.
Jhonattan Vegas stepped on the tee box at Quail Hollow Club’s par-3 17th hole on Friday at 10 under, four shots clear of the PGA Championship field. He then proceeded to hit one of his worst shots of the day. Ball out to the right, some 30 yards off target, and not drawing. One-handed follow-through. Slumped shoulders.
But then the luckiest of breaks: Vegas’ ball barely avoided the front-right greenside bunker before landing on the bunker’s rake and ricocheting left toward the hole.
The guy with the MLB logo on his chest was literally raking.
Not to mention the lucky surname.
When it settled, the ball was credited with traveling 196 yards, a little long of and right on the line with the flag, just 33 feet to go.
Vegas could only laugh.
That’s just classic Vegas luck 🍀#PGAChamp pic.twitter.com/vELza3YfZ3
— PGA Championship (@PGAChampionship) May 16, 2025
“Once I saw that it hit something, I didn’t know how hard it hit it and where it was going,” Vegas said. “I know that it was rolling through the green, but I didn’t know immediately if it was going to be too hard and run maybe possibly into the water. Obviously a big shocker in that sense. ... It was one of those things that happens in this sport. Sometimes you hit a sprinkler head that goes out of bounds, or the cart path that goes out of bounds, or sometimes you hit a rake that goes on the green. It’s just part of the game, and you’ve just got to enjoy it all.”
Vegas followed the easy two-putt par with a double bogey at the par-4 18th, which was playing nearly three-fourths of a shot over par, easily the toughest hole on the golf course. He caught his third shot from another greenside bunker a little heavy and had the false front carry his ball back off the green. He then missed a 3-footer for bogey, cutting his four-shot advantage in half.
Still, after a 1-under 70 on what felt like three hours of sleep Thursday night, Vegas maintains at least some cushion on the field.
“Every chance you get to lead a major and play with the lead is never easy,” Vegas said. “So I feel proud of a solid round today.”