Besseling leads European Tour season opener in South Africa

On Thursday, a large gallery followed Phil Mickelson. They cheered him and jeered. They were not there, though, to see him play the game well.

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ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. — Sebastian Munoz saw the tough weather conditions on the way to The RSM Classic and figured all he could do was keep his head down and make birdies. He wound up with a 10-under 60 to shatter his career round by six shots. RELATED: Leaderboard | Jordan Spieth and wife welcome first child Scoring was so low Thursday at Sea Island that all that got Munoz was a one-shot lead. The Colombian, who won his first PGA TOUR event just over two years ago, birdied his final hole at Seaside. He led by one stroke over Sea Island member Zach Johnson at Seaside, while three other players were one shot behind. Past champion Mackenzie Hughes, Chez Reavie and Scott Stallings each had a 9-under 63 on the Plantation course. Four players were tied at 8 under, led by Canadian Corey Conners (62 at Seaside). His wife, Malory, gave birth last week to their first child, a girl named Reis. Jhonattan Vegas, Talor Gooch and Russell Henley shot 64 at Plantation. Scoring was so ideal that 33 players shot 66 or lower on the two courses, located just off the Atlantic Ocean, and all but 21 players in the field of 156 broke par. The cumulative score in relation to par at the Seaside Course was 288 under, 42 shots lower than the previous record set in 2018. The scoring average of 66.308 at the Seaside was a tournament record, and the second-lowest for any round on the PGA TOUR since 1983, when the TOUR began tracking hole-by-hole data. The record is 66.28 at Indian Wells in the 2003 Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. Munoz matched Tommy Gainey’s 2012 record for low round at Seaside; Hughes, Stallings and Reavie tied for low round at the Plantation set last year by winner Robert Streb and Bronson Burgoon. A warm, sunny day that began with just enough light rain to soften the already pure greens is expected to morph into more common November weather on the Georgia coast Friday with a drop of about 10 degrees in the temperature and wind forecast to gust as high as 30 mph. “When you’ve got just absolute pure conditions weather-wise and pure conditions on the golf course — the best I’ve ever seen these two golf courses, period — you know you’ve got to get after it,” said the 45-year-old Johnson, who hit all 18 greens. “It was a perfect day and we all knew it (low scores) was out there,” added Cameron Smith, who had a 66 at the Seaside. Munoz, however, was staying in the present for his best round as a professional. He hit 11 fairways and 16 greens, made six birdies on the front nine and punctuated the day with a 12-foot eagle putt at No. 15 and a 10-foot birdie putt at No. 18. “I felt great yesterday playing the pro-am, basically the same weather for two days, so I knew I was hitting it good,” he said. “I just let it happen.” And for tomorrow? “I haven’t really looked at the forecast,” he said. “I don’t know how much it’s going to blow tomorrow or if it’s going to be cold or not, so I’m just kind of here right now and I’ll adjust tomorrow and see what happens.” Johnson was the only player who had a reasonable shot at a sub-60 round. He was 9 under through 15 holes after making a 7-footer for birdie at No. 15 and missed birdie attempts of 10, 20 and 25 feet on the final three holes. “It hit me (the chance to shoot 59) after I birdied 12 and 13 and I got to 8 under,” Johnson said. “Making birdie on 15, I was like, ‘Well, two more and I’m right there.’ I gave myself looks, pretty good looks and that’s all you can hope for.” Johnson also had a shot at 59 in the TOUR Championship in 2007 until hitting into a bunker on the par-3 18th hole at East Lake and having to settle for par and a 60. Johnson and playing partners Matt Kuchar (65) and Joel Dahmen (65) didn’t make a bogey.

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Sometimes, they’ll ask her if the bag is too heavy. But Varada Maulkhan, all 5-foot-4 and 90 pounds of her, just smiles, hoists the bag and all those golf clubs on her shoulders and goes about her business, which is caddying at places like Baltimore Country Club or Greenspring Valley Hunt Club three or four times a week. The 18-year-old has even looped occasionally at Caves Valley Golf Club, a course Maulkhan calls “absolutely gorgeous,” where the BMW Championship begins its 72-hole run on Thursday. And that’s where this story gets good. Proceeds from the second event of the PGA TOUR’s FedExCup Playoffs benefit the Evans Scholars Foundation, which awards full tuition and housing scholarships to caddies with outstanding character who demonstrate leadership, academic excellence and have financial need. Caddies just like Maulkhan, the daughter Guyanese immigrants who found out in March that she would be part of the inaugural Evans Scholar class at the University of Maryland. Maulkhan, an honor roll student at Catonsville (Md.) High School, will move into her dorm on Sunday. But not before a whirlwind week at Caves Valley where she will speak at the BMW Championship pro-am party and caddie for 14-time PGA TOUR champ Justin Thomas. “This is going to be a lifetime opportunity,” Maulkhan says. “Definitely a memory to remember for the rest of my life.” Maulkhan is one of a record 1,070 Evans Scholars going to school at 21 different schools this fall. The program was founded by the Western Golf Association and World Golf Hall of Fame member Chick Evans in 1930 and has since sent 12,500 caddies like her to college. She was introduced to the game when she was 7 years old by her father Kris, a recreational golfer who took her to First Tee-Greater Baltimore. The program operates from five different facilities, one of which is home to the Caves Valley Golf Club Foundation Learning Center at Forest Park that offers five target greens, practice bunkers and a putting green. Maulkhan liked being outdoors and she thrived on the life skills and core values central to the First Tee experience. She says she was shy at first but has become more comfortable in social situations and meeting new people, which has come in very handy with her part-time job. While she liked golf, though, Maulkhan didn’t begin to take the game seriously until she was a teenager. She’s competitive — earning Middle Atlantic PGA Junior Player of the Year honors in 2020 – but she’s just as comfortable playing casual rounds with friends. “For me, golf is a really good stress reliever,” she says. “If I’m really stressed, I can probably go out and make a tee time and just go play 18 holes with maybe by myself or a couple of girls that I normally play with. “But I like meeting new people. I like honing, forcing a lot of the communication skills I have to balance, and it taught me a lot about responsibility and respect.” Matt Bassler, the executive director of First Tee-Greater Baltimore, said Maulkhan was one of the first students to join the program. A decade later, he was helping the young woman he calls “very driven internally” with college applications – she applied to 14 different schools. “I’ve seen her grow from a 6-, 7-year-old young girl to now going to the University of Maryland at College Park,” he says. “And not only her golf game has got better, but she’s always been so mature. She does great in school. “I just think the world of her, and I think she’s going to do great things in the future.” Several years ago, Maulkhan became involved with the Baltimore Caddie Academy which is a collaboration between First Tee, Baltimore Country Club and the Western Golf Association, which became involved in an effort to grow the reach of the Evans Scholars program. For Maulkhan, it was a no-brainer. She liked golf, she enjoyed being outdoors and she wanted a summer job. But she’s been surprised at how much she’s learned, including honing more formal communication skills in talking with the adults whose bags she carries. “It has helped me tremendously with my golf game,” Maulkhan says. “I learned a lot of tips from the members. They’re so nice and they’re so helpful. “And it’s really enforced my aspect of responsibility because it’s not my clubs I’m carrying; I’m carrying someone else’s property. And I treat it the way I’d want my clubs to be treated.” Maulkhan first heard about the Evans Scholar program during caddie orientation. She wasn’t a rising senior, though, so it wasn’t really top-of-mind at the time. But she started to think seriously about it when an Evans alum who she’s caddied for encouraged her to apply. To be eligible Evans Scholars must have caddied regularly for two years and be evaluated by the sponsoring club. So first, Maulkhan talked with Greg Jones, the director of golf at Baltimore Country Club, about increasing her loops. The application process begins in October each year. Maulkhan had to write an essay and submit transcripts and recommendation letters. She learned she was a finalist early this year and then in March, she got a letter saying she was going to receive the scholarship. The letter took Maulkhan completely by surprise. She actually thought it was one of the credit cards her dad had recently ordered for the family. It came in the same kind of standard 8-by-11 envelope he’d gotten his in – he even told her, ‘Hey, your credit card’s here.” When Maulkhan opened the envelope, there was another smaller one inside. “I was like, okay, well it’s a credit card — maybe it’s because I’m like, a first-time user for this credit card company that they’re sending such a fancy package,” she recalls. “So, I opened it up and I kind of just pulled out the papers. “Then on the left top corner saw the Evans Scholars logo, and of course I screamed because it really shocked me.” Maulkhan’s mother, Sandy, happened to be working from home that day. When her daughter explained her outburst, Sandy called to her husband to come over. “We read it all together and it was a really big happy moment,” Maulkhan says. “It was a really good surprise for us.” Maulkhan plans to double major in secondary education and history, particularly the ancient civilizations like the Mayans and the Aztecs. Had she not gotten the Evans Scholarship, she says she might have had to take a break, find a different job or choose a more affordable college. (The average value of the scholarship is $120,000.) Instead, she’s going to attend Maryland, which is about an hour away from home and was ranked among the top 20 among public universities by U.S. News & World Report last year. She’ll finish up her packing between trips to Caves Valley this week to see favorites like Rory McIlroy, Bryson DeChambeau and Jordan Spieth play. And Maulkhan will do a little more work on Wednesday, toting Thomas’ bag. All the caddies in the pro-am are current or former Evans Scholars who donate their tips to the Foundation. And who knows? Maybe Jimmy Johnson, Thomas’ regular looper who was inducted into the Caddie Hall of Fame by the Western Golf Association this week, will give her some advice. “I’m a little nervous because normally when I do caddie it’s for members and they know me in some sense, or I’ve met them previously at some event,” Maulkhan says. “And as I said previously, I’m a very tiny person. So, I’m nervous on how me carrying his bag will go. “But I’m sure it will go perfectly fine.”

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