Canadian has share of lead at ATP Classic
Mark McCumber’s son Tyler shoots 68 to sit stroke back of co-leaders
If he can gut out a victory at the 2016 ATB Financial Classic at Country Hills, it wouldn’t be the first time that an injured Tyler McCumber mugged for the cameras after a trophy presentation.
This time, of course, would be a little different.
McCumber’s father, Mark, was a longtime fixture and 10-time winner on the PGA Tour, and while trailing his pops at the Tour Championship in 1994, Tyler had a collision with what golfers call an ‘immovable obstruction.’
“I would have been about four or five, and I ran into a bench and I split my lip wide-open and I had to get stitches,” McCumber recalled with a chuckle. “And then he won, and he put me on his shoulders and it made the cover of Golf World. I have a picture of that in a notebook that I keep, and it was my Facebook profile picture for a while. I have the backwards hat and the mismatched socks, so not much has changed.”
Except that Tyler, now 25, is the guy making the birdies. And making a lot of them through two days at the ATB Financial Classic, Calgary’s annual stop on the Mackenzie Tour-PGA Tour Canada.
McCumber rolled to a 4-under 68 in Friday’s rip around the 7,209yard Talons Course at Country Hills, signing for a two-day tab to 10-under 134 and sitting just one stroke off the pace set by coleaders Austin Connelly of Canada and Carlos Sainz Jr. at the midway point of the $175,000 shootout.
Those are impressive stats even before you consider that Mark’s son is dealing with a torn labrum and rotator cuff in his left shoulder and is hoping to delay surgery until after the season.
“It’s been tough with this arm (injury). That’s taken a lot out of me, energy- and focus-wise,” McCumber said. “I can’t hit balls much — I’ll go hit maybe five balls — but I’ve been working hard on the mental side since I can’t hit balls, so it’s kind of a blessing in disguise. I guess that’s why it’s all coming together. It’s not really physical, it’s more of a mental thing.”
Every guy on the tee-sheet at Country Hills — the field was trimmed to 72 after Friday’s cut, with 2-under being the minimum requirement to stick around for the weekend — dreams of pegging it as a regular on the PGA Tour.
Thanks to his father, who won The Players Championship in 1988 and finished second at a pair of majors, McCumber has already been treated to a behind-the-scenes peek at life on golf’s biggest stage.
“I got to grow up with a lot of the guys that are legends of the game and got to have some cool experiences with people like Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. I’m pretty lucky to have experienced that,” said McCumber, a two-time winner on PGA Tour Latinoamerica and runner-up at a Mackenzie Tour event in Vancouver in May. “And just being around that competitive atmosphere, you learn a lot and it just kind of becomes ingrained in you.”
Sainz was a PGA Tour member last season, although he survived just three cuts in 20 starts, while Connelly — a dual citizen who is based in Dallas but represented Canada at the 2015 Pan-Am Games — has also had a look-see at the top level.
At the tender age of 19, Connelly has already teed it up in five PGA Tour tournaments. That’ll be six by this time next week, since he’s headed directly from Calgary to Illinois for the John Deere Classic.
Connelly is the youngest player in the field at the ATB Financial Classic, but success at an early age doesn’t seem so far-fetched when you call Jordan Spieth a friend and occasional workout partner.
“He rose like a rocket-ship,” Connelly said of Spieth. “Things start clicking and you play well at the right time and next thing you know, you’re on the PGA Tour.”