Day: June 10, 2021

Jonathan Byrd finds old form at Palmetto Championship at CongareeJonathan Byrd finds old form at Palmetto Championship at Congaree

Nothing. Everything. Somewhere in between. He lost his father, Jim, to brain cancer in 2009, and his caddie, Chuck Hoersch, to pancreatic cancer in 2012. He’s 840th in the world ranking. But Byrd, 43, has kept at it, even dropping down a level if needed, as when he won the 2017 Korn Ferry Tour Championship. His status as a past champion who finished out of the FedExCup top 150 last season means he never knows where he’s going to get in. “You play one week, wait four weeks, play one week, wait two weeks,” he said after carding a 3-under 68 in the first round of the Palmetto Championship at Congaree on Thursday, which had him in the top 10 after the morning wave. “It’s just kind of hard to get in a rhythm. “Then when you finally get to the summer,” he continued, “the pressure starts building because you’ve got to do something. I’ve been here before.” It’s been a great PGA TOUR season for the super-veterans, what with Stewart Cink, 48, winning twice and Phil Mickelson, nearly 51, capturing the PGA Championship. But Byrd is not a super-veteran. He’s closer in age to Sergio Garcia, who also won earlier this season. A five-time TOUR winner, most recently at the 2011 Sentry Tournament of Champions, Byrd plays out of Sea Island, Georgia, where he regularly tests his game against pros like Josh Teater and Greyson Sigg. He stays young with matches against his 14-year-old son, Jackson, no strokes given. They made the two-hour drive from St. Simons to Congaree two weeks ago, played in three hours. The course was dry, brown and fiery, and despite being regularly outdriven by 20 yards, Dad won. He may not be able to do so for much longer. “I don’t want to talk him up too much because it adds too much pressure, but he’s way better than I was at 14,” he said of Jackson, who has won multiple times on the Southeastern Junior Golf Tour. “It’s not even close. He’s as good as I was when I was 20.” Jonathan, though, has the wily skills of a TOUR veteran, and the pedigree of a winner. His walk-off ace in a playoff at the 2010 Shriners Hospitals for Children Open remains one of the most unforgettable shots on TOUR in the last two decades. On Thursday, he made 125 feet of putts on the relatively unknown greens at Congaree – including a 60-footer for birdie at the eighth hole. “I wasn’t that sharp today; I hit a couple poor tee shots and got a couple good breaks,” he said. He knows what his A game looks like. He just doesn’t always know where he’ll get to play. He says he’s in the field for the John Deere Classic, Barbasol Championship, and Barracuda Championship, and is hopeful he’ll get into the Rocket Mortgage Classic and 3M Open. “That would give me like six events,” he said, “which would be great.” As for the rest of the summer, who knows? He’s trying to be less technical and let the bad shots slide by without finding every fault with each one of them. He’s had fun watching the success of his fellow 40-somethings, even Padraig Harrington, 49, finishing T4 at the PGA Championship. He continues to keep tabs on Jackson’s game and monitor the golf team at Clemson, his alma mater and where his older brother, Jordan, will soon move from assistant to head coach. With maturity comes the realization that not everything is about him. At the same time golf demands a slavish dedication to craft, and hours spent toiling alone and in anonymity. And so Byrd keeps working at it, ever hopeful that the results will come the way they did for Cink and Mickelson, even as they remain hidden like a spring bulb. His results so far this season: 10 starts, five made cuts, the best a T28 at the Corales Punta Cana Resort & Club Championship last fall. That was also the site of his last top-10 finish, a fourth in 2019. “We’re still here,” Byrd said. He’ll give it another shot Friday.

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Dustin Johnson starts fast with 65 at Palmetto Championship at CongareeDustin Johnson starts fast with 65 at Palmetto Championship at Congaree

RIDGELAND, S.C. – Dustin Johnson appears to be heating up just in time for summer. After missing the cut in two of his last four starts, including the PGA Championship at Kiawah Island, and failing to register a top-10 finish since The Genesis Invitational in February, world No. 1 Johnson quickly established himself on the leaderboard at the Palmetto Championship at Congaree. Despite failing to birdie any of the course’s three par-5s, Johnson made six birdies – the last a chip-in from 81 feet at the ninth hole – and no bogeys for an opening-round 65. He was tied at the top with Doc Redman amongst the morning wave of finishers. Jhonattan Vegas (66) bogeyed his last hole and was one back. “Yeah, I mean, you know, I’m playing well,” Johnson said of his recent form, which has seen him fall to 19th in the FedExCup. “I feel like I’ve been playing pretty good all year, just, like I said, I haven’t putted well, short game’s been a little off, but today I missed it in the right spots when I did miss it, but hit a lot of real quality iron shots and gave myself a lot of looks.” Johnson, a 24-time winner on the PGA TOUR but never in his home state of South Carolina, took some time away from the game – “Clearing my head,” he said – after missing the cut at the PGA. But he got right back to work last week. He came to Congaree ranked 106th in Strokes Gained: Putting but took just 23 putts in the steamy opening round. It was progress, even if that stat was slightly deceiving; several of his approaches trickled just onto the collar around the greens, and he was 7-for-7 in scrambling. Although pleased with the round, Johnson walked away thinking about the birdies that got away, like his putt from just 4 1/2 feet that missed the hole at the par-3 fifth hole. Still, he wasn’t complaining. And the coast-to-coast birdie to close things out on nine was a nice way to end it. He admitted he would’ve been happy just to get up and down; instead, he jarred his third shot from well left of the green for his final birdie. The last time he competed the week before a major was back in November, when he finished T2 at the Vivint Houston Open before flying to Georgia and winning the Masters. “I felt like I’ve been swinging well for a while now,” he said, “just haven’t really seen the results or seen the scores. Made a few putts, but, yeah, I mean just playing solid – finally put a round together. … Hopefully I can keep it rolling for the rest of this week.”

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Live leaderboard: Palmetto ChampionshipLive leaderboard: Palmetto Championship

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