Why Sunday at the PGA could be a final round for the ages

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. – Wesley Bryan had a confession to make after carding a second-round 66 to get to 8 under and in contention at the RBC Heritage presented by Boeing. RELATED: Full leaderboard | Tee times | RBC Heritage kicks off Carolina Swing As a kid, on family vacations, he snuck onto Harbour Town Golf Links. Just a time or two. Nothing crazy. OK, maybe it was more than that. “I’ll be honest,” he said, “we snuck out here way more often than we probably should. We would walk out to the 10th tee and just start playing holes as kids. “Yeah, a lot of hours have been spent out here, whether they knew about them or not.” It’s fitting that Harbour Town would be the site of a mini resurgence for Bryan, given that he authored his lone PGA TOUR victory here in 2017. The Columbia, South Carolina, native and former University of South Carolina star is a popular figure around here. Even the home crowd, though, could be excused for wondering where he’s been. Bryan, 31, is 172nd in the FedExCup, 429nd in the Official World Golf Ranking, after missing five of eight cuts this season. He’s playing on a Major Medical Extension with nine starts remaining after undergoing surgery for a torn labrum in his left shoulder in January 2019. “I’ll be on a little hiatus,” he wrote on Twitter then, “but don’t worry I’ll be back.” He was coming off four straight missed cuts and a WD the previous fall. It was time. But it’s taken a while for Bryan to get back. A little hiatus? He made just nine combined starts in 2019 and 2020. “Shoulder is great,” he said after his second round, which included an eagle 3 at the second hole, plus five birdies and two bogeys. “I been feeling a lot better about the golf game than what the scores have been showing as of late. Post-surgery I picked up a lot of speed and started actually striking the ball well for the first time in my career, which was nice.” Bryan has always been streaky-good: He won three times on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2016. And he’s finally scoring, not just hitting the ball well. Now he just needs to keep it going through the weekend to become the first two-time Heritage winner since Jim Furyk (2015/2010). Asked what he learned from winning here four years ago, Bryan said the real lessons came earlier than that, on all those family trips to Harbour Town, which is more or less the same. “I’ve played this place a lot growing up,” he said. “It’s just one of the few stops even as a rookie on TOUR I felt very comfortable from day one. Not as much homework learning the golf course. “It’s more of just out here knowing where to miss it,” he continued. “You don’t necessarily have to drive the ball in the fairway out here to stay in position in the hole.” With that familiarity paying off, Bryan, too, is looking familiar – like the player he used to be.

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