Kurt Kitayama becomes 2nd player with a Sunday 63 in PGA Championship history

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. (AP) — Kurt Kitayama tied the lowest final round in major championship history with a 7-under 63 on Sunday at the PGA Championship.

Kitayama, in the fourth group off in the morning, charged up the leaderboard with the lowest score of this championship at the par-70 Aronimink Golf Club midway through the final round. He became the ninth player with a 63 in the final round, and second in PGA Championship history.

The record for majors is 62 done five times, most recently by Shane Lowry and Xander Schauffele in the 2024 PGA Championship at Valhalla.

The 5-foot-7 Kitayama, an accomplished basketball player from California who led Chico High School to a pair of section titles and earned the nickname “Quadzilla” for his large legs, averaged 313 yards off the tee in the championship. But, it was his work on the greens that helped him challenge the major records.

He credited the “putter God” for his bogey-free round in which he used 28 swings with the flat stick to make more than 141 feet of putts.

“I felt like I was holding the world out there,” said Kitayama, whose two PGA Tour titles incl...