Motivated by champions-dinner slight, Martin Kaymer shares early PGA lead

NEWTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA - MAY 14: Martin Kaymer of Germany watches his shot from the sixth tee during the first round of the PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club on May 14, 2026 in Newtown, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Emilee Chinn/Getty Images)

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Martin Kaymer was asked by a PGA of America official during Tuesday night’s PGA champions dinner if he still played golf, to which Kaymer, mildly offended, responded, “I'm not flying from Europe to here to have a New York strip with you guys. Of course I’m playing.”

“That really motivated me,” Kaymer said Thursday at Aronimink Golf Club, where the 41-year-old LIV Golf member turned back the clock to the days, over a decade ago now, when he was winning two majors and the Players Championship.

Kaymer was one of several players to card a leading 3-under 67 around a difficult layout bolstered by tricky, sticky rough and challenging green complexes, plus cool, gusty conditions.

But as surprising as it is to see names such as Aldrich Potgieter, Ryo Hisatsune and Stephan Jaeger atop this leaderboard – I’ll give you Min Woo Lee – none of them entered this week with a recent resumé like Kaymer’s.

Since accompanying the first exodus of signings to LIV in June 2022, Kaymer has played just four majors, including two PGAs, where he’s gone T-73 and MC the last two years. Go back further and Kaymer has missed five of his past six PGA cuts.

He’s currently ranked No. 1,160 in the world rankings, which he topped for eight weeks back in 2011, a year after his 2010 PGA triumph.

And on LIV this season, Kaymer has played seven events with a low finish of T-25. Three times he’s finished outside the top 50 or withdrawn – LIV fields boast 57 players.

“I've been struggling since 2021,” Kaymer said. “And obviously, I had a couple surgeries then and other issues came with it the years after. And it was quite disappointing for me that playing out there on the LIV Golf league, I could never really perform, because I could never really practice, because I was always hurt. … So, I always came into tournaments never prepared. The other guys were ready to play. They were playing great. To be honest, it really pissed me off.”

Kaymer, who has battled left wrist and most recently left elbow issues, says he’s been pain-free for the last four to five weeks, which has allowed him not only ample time to practice but also rediscover his passion for the game. He called Monday-Wednesday of this week some of the most fun he’s had on the course.

“Playing those tough golf courses and doing well executing the golf shots the right way, that is really fun,” Kaymer said.

Kaymer ignited Thursday’s round by throwing a dart into the par-4 11th to set up his first birdie and then canning a 44-foot birdie bomb on the par-4 12th. He added a birdie at No. 2, then bogeyed No. 7 before nearly walking off with the solo lead. From 295 yards out and in the fairway at the par-5 ninth, Kaymer went driver off the deck and hit it to 15 feet.

“I said to my caddie, ‘Do you think 3-wood can get to the front of the green?’ And he said, ‘There's no chance,’” Kaymer recalled. “I practice a lot driver from the fairway. It was a lovely lie on the fairway. The grass grows with you, so you know you're not going to hit it fat. That's usually the mistake that you do. And again, I practice it a lot and there's no reason, if you can do it in practice, why shouldn't you be able to do it in the tournament. So, and it was a nice one.”

Kaymer missed the putt, but the tap-in birdie still earned him a share of the first-round lead.

That’s steak-worthy, if he wants another.