2024 PGA Championship leaderboard: Collin Morikawa, Xander Schauffele top loaded list of contenders

Moving Day lived up to its name Saturday at the 106th PGA Championship

Through 54 holes, the 2024 PGA Championship remains anyone's for the taking. A congested leaderboard filled with about as much star power as one could ask to see enters Sunday's final round at Valhalla Golf Club with some of the top golfers in the game jockeying for positioning attempting to win the second major championship of the season.

Leading the pack are a pair of American thoroughbreds; Collin Morikawa and Xander Schauffele are tied atop the leaderboard at 15 under. The two battled back and forth for most of Saturday's third round only to ultimately settle on the same score with matching birdies on the par-5 18th.

Schauffele will sleep on at least a share of the lead for the third straight night, mirroring his effort from Quail Hollow just a week ago. The Olympic gold medalist was unable to convert his edge into a trophy at the Wells Fargo Championship, but he will hope to have learned from his mistakes to fend off a worthy chasing pack as he seeks his first career major.

That pack obviously includes co-leader Morikawa, who has a chance to join rarified air with another major title. A victory Sunday would represent Morikawa's third career major triumph in just 18 such appearances; that would pull him past the likes of Justin Thomas, Jon Rahm and Scottie Scheffler, moving him alongside Jordan Spieth in terms of majors won.

Immediately behind the two men is the ever-electric Sahith Theegala at 14 under; he played alongside the two leaders in Saturday's final trio. After an uneasy start, Theegala scratched and clawed his way back into the mix thanks to six birdies across his final 10 holes.

The party doesn't stop there, though, as Shane Lowry joined the 62 club on Saturday with a record-tying performance to catapult his name into this championship at 13 under. He stands just two adrift alongside some of the heaviest hitters in the game: Viktor Hovland and Bryson DeChambeau.

Despite the low scores and despite the lack of traditional major championship conditions, Valhalla Golf Club has once again produced a high-quality major championship leaderboard. It's filled with full-time hitters only, and whoever emerges to claim the Wanamaker Trophy will undoubtedly be a deserving champion.

2024 PGA Championship leaderboard, Round 3

T1. Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa (-15): Both were rock steady for much of the afternoon until a late blink from Schauffele. After making an unlikely birdie on the par-3 14th, Schauffele grabbed a two-stroke lead and quickly made the biggest blunder of his tournament. Pulling his approach into 15 long and left, he ended up making six while Morikawa knocked in his 5-foot birdie bid to take the solo lead. 

To Schauffele's credit, he punched back with birdies on the 17th and 18th to climb back into a share of the lead. Perhaps taking an early punch on Saturday (rather than Sunday) will prove to be beneficial as he will have his work cut out for him against Morikawa and the rest of the leaderboard. Morikawa, after an early bogey, played his final 16 holes in 5 under.

3. Sahith Theegala (-14): It did not look good early as Theegala made some poor mistakes with wedges in hand. He short-sided himself on No. 5 with a lob wedge leading to bogey and dropped another soon after. Unable to take advantage of the par-5 7th, Theegala's place in this championship was in jeopardy, but he roared back with vengeance. A back-nine 31 was highlighted by a chip-in on 15 when Schauffele slipped up.

T4. Bryson DeChambeau, Shane Lowry, Viktor Hovland (-13): Wow. What a bunch we have here! Lowry tied the major championship scoring record with his 62 by making just about everything on the greens. Hovland played a ho-hum bogey-free 66 and looks like the player that ran through the FedEx Cup Playoffs last year. Meanwhile, DeChambeau treaded water for most of the day and was buoyed by a chip-in eagle on the par-5 18th to get to 13 under and jump inside the top five. DeChambeau and Lowry have a chance to grab their second majors, while Hovland can make amends for last year's heartbreak where he went toe-to-toe with Brooks Koepka up until a double bogey on the 70th hole of the championship.

"I've got a good chance," DeChambeau said. "I'm not executing to the level that I know I can but playing well enough to give myself a chance, obviously. Got to keep strategizing around this golf course and putting the golf ball in the right areas and miss it in the right place and hit a bunch of greens out here. It's iron play. The key is iron play this week, and [I] haven't done my best but got up-and-down nicely. Man, I made a couple of clutch shots when I needed to."

T7. Justin Rose, Robert MacIntyre (-12)
9. Dean Burmester (-11)

T10. Justin Thomas, Tony Finau, Lee Hodges, Harris English, Austin Eckroat (-10): Thomas was seven off the pace at the 54-hole mark when he won his second PGA two years ago, but the mountain will be inherently steeper this time around given the names ahead of him. Thomas carded his second straight 67 thanks to some short-game heroics, and he enters the final round with an outside chance to claim his third Wanamaker Trophy just down the road from where he grew up. He ranks first in strokes gained tee to green and outside the top 65 in strokes gained putting.

"This week has exceeded all my expectations. It's been better. It's been more fun," Thomas said. "It's been more enjoyable than anything I really thought or could have imagined. I mean, I'm very, very excited for tomorrow, and it should be a lot of fun. But I'm pretty bummed that the week is almost over. Just enjoy tomorrow as much as I can and see what happens."

T15. Lucas Herbert, Keegan Bradley, Taylor Moore, Thomas Detry (-9)

T19. Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Hideki Matsuyama, Tom Kim, Russell Henley (-8): An opening bogey put McIlroy behind the eight ball (literally, he was eight strokes back), but then, he caught fire in the middle portion of his round. Four birdies in a row from Nos. 7-10 catapulted the four-time major champion's name inside the top 10. This streak could have easily been extended with an 11-foot birdie look on No. 11, an 8-foot birdie look on No. 12 and another great chance on No. 13 ... but all three ultimately fell by the wayside. A bogey on the long 14th halted any momentum McIlroy had garnered and made it almost certain his decade-long major drought will leak into next month's U.S. Open.

T24. Scottie Scheffler, Matt Wallace, Ryo Hisatsune, Mark Hubbard (-7): There's a chance the adrenaline that carried Scheffler to his Friday 66 drained his fuel tank down to empty for Saturday's 73. A double bogey on No. 2 was the result of poor shots, but the next three dropped shots were all due to poor club choices and course management. He misjudged the par-3 3rd by about a club leading to a 3-putt bogey and he made the peculiar decision to try to carve a driver into the short par-4 4th -- when his counterparts were hitting fairway woods – and paid the price with another bogey. The world No. 1 clawed back but by then the damage was done.

[May 18, 2024 at 6:34 pm ET · Patrick McDonald]

BANG!

Bryson DeChambeau chips in for eagle on the 18th hole to get himself within one of the lead! It wasn't a pretty iron performance from DeChambeau today, but he will head into tomorrow with a real chance at claiming major No. 2. In the same group, Viktor Hovland two putts for birdie to finish at 13 under as well. This leaderboard is something.

[May 18, 2024 at 6:07 pm ET · Patrick McDonald]

WOW, what a swing on 15

Coming to the hole with a two-stroke lead, Xander Schauffele walks off the green now one behind. He makes a brutal double bogey from the middle of the fairway after his second found the long stuff. Before missing his putt for 5, Schauffele saw Sahith Theegala chip in for birdie to get to 13 under (where Schauffele stands). Oh, and by the way, we now have a new leader in Collin Morikawa who makes birdie to get to 14 under.

[May 18, 2024 at 5:47 pm ET · Patrick McDonald]

Justin Thomas posts 10 under

Man, he had a chance to get one more, but that is Justin Thomas's second straight 67. The local lad is five off the pace at the moment and will have to wait and see what the 54-hole deficit is as Xander Schauffele just rolled in a rare birdie on 14 to get to 15 under.