Brendon Todd broke his left big toe the other day. He dropped a 45-pound weight on it while working out back home in Athens, Georgia, but while it hurt - he limped through an opening-round 77 at THE CJ CUP @ SHADOW CREEK two weeks ago - he's got no complaints. Since he completed one of the most audacious comebacks in recent history with back-to-back victories at the Bermuda Championship (he'll defend his title this week) and Mayakoba Golf Classic last season, Todd has been putting distance between himself and his famous slump, all while living the good life. Tiger and Phil told him great playing. So did Jason Day. In Southern California for the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP @ SHERWOOD last week, Todd took his oldest son to get a lesson from in-demand instructor George Gankas, Matthew Wolff's swing coach. "It was a blast," Todd says. "I've definitely felt like a new sense of respect and camaraderie with the better players that I didn't have before, even during my previous good play." Todd has joined the game's elite, having made the TOUR Championship and finishing 18th in the FedExCup last month. Now he aims to return to East Lake, contend in a major, and make the U.S. Ryder Cup team for 2021 and/or the Presidents Cup team the year after that. Not bad for a guy who missed 43 cuts in 55 starts heading into last season, and who had never been to Bermuda before kicking off his amazing run. Todd's parents honeymooned at the tournament's host hotel, the Fairmont Hamilton Princess, and he jokes that that good mojo must explain everything. It makes as much sense as anything else. How does a guy who couldn't hit it straight shoot a final-round 62 to beat Harry Higgs by four? "Absolutely not," Todd says, when asked if he had a premonition that it would be his week. He had regained his TOUR card through the Korn Ferry Tour Finals but started last season with four straight missed cuts. Then came a T28 at the Houston Open, followed by a two-week break. Little did he know what was just around the corner. "I did play a really good round at home, shot 65 with Davis Thompson, a really good Georgia player, at UGA the Saturday before (Bermuda)," he says. "But when I flew there, I could only play nine holes in torrential conditions Tuesday, and could only chip and putt Wednesday, so I wasn't even able to play the whole course. I had no idea how the week was going to go. "I had confidence," he adds. "I had had a good year in that I played out of the past champion category, worked my way into the (Korn Ferry Tour) Finals, finished second, got my card back. But I had missed my first four cuts, and when you go to a new country, new golf course, and don't play every hole in practice, it's hard to walk out there like, ‘Yep, I'm going to win.'" The final-round 62 in Bermuda, he says now, was the absolute hottest he's ever been, and was the lowest final round by a winner since Rory McIlroy at the 2019 RBC Canadian Open. "I parred the first hole but burned the edge from 15 feet," he says. Then: seven straight birdies. "Then I lipped out on nine from 15 feet," he says, "birdied 10 and 11, and on 12 I had 5 feet for birdie, but it horseshoed at me. I felt like through 12 I should have birdied every hole." Todd is rarely asked to talk about such glory. With him, people want to hear about the slump. It started how these things often start, after a win. Upon winning the 2014 AT&T Byron Nelson, Todd decided he had time to retool his swing to create a higher launch angle. Instead he ended up with a big right miss and faded off the TOUR. Total FedExCup points in 2018: zero. Todd and his wife Rachel considered franchising a Your Pie pizza restaurant - plan B, hold the anchovies - but a book called "The Great Ballstrikers" by Bradley Hughes, an Australian who played the inaugural Presidents Cup and became Todd's swing coach, provided hope. So did a book by Rick Ankiel, a baseball pitcher who had battled the throwing yips. Todd also called on Ward Jarvis, a caddie on the Korn Ferry Tour who fought and overcame a stuttering problem before becoming a firefighter and performance coach. Eventually, Todd says, he began to "keep it between the trees" and claw his way back. "Every interview, I get asked about it," he says. "And I get calls from other people in slumps, or Instagram messages. I am tired of sharing all the details, that's for sure. But I'm happy to use it to help people, because everybody who plays golf for a long time is going to have a slump, and probably even go through the yips. It's nice to be able to share how I worked my way out of it. "I've had some teachers say they've been really encouraged by what I did," he adds. What he did could have been even better. He held the outright 54-hole lead a TOUR-leading four times last season, not just at Mayakoba but also The RSM Classic, Travelers Championship and World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational. Only in Mexico did he get the win. "I have no regrets," he says. "I felt I prepared for each final round well. I didn't feel nervous or overwhelmed, had a good mentality, and I learned from each one. All three were different." At RSM it was a three-quarter 7-iron that found the hazard at the fifth hole, leading to a double-bogey. At the Travelers it was what he calls "one goofy chip" - a bad mistake from a terrible lie that led to a triple. And he just couldn't make a putt at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude. "I'm not the longest guy," he says, "so I definitely rely on my putting to get it under par." No, at 187th in driving distance last season, Todd is definitely not the longest even if he might be the longest longshot. Or he was, anyway. Now he's firmly established among the game's elite. "I learned that my natural good ball-striking is good enough to play great out here," he says. "I think it probably always was; just keep being me, and good things will happen."
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