Sizzling Snedeker opens with 59
Wyndham leader joins exclusive club after ‘birdie fest’
GREENSBORO, N.C. Brandt Snedeker predicted low scores at the Wyndham Championship, but not this low.
Snedeker shot an 11-under 59 on Thursday, falling one shot shy of matching the PGA Tour record.
He made a 20-foot putt on his final hole to become the 10th player in tour history to break 60. Jim Furyk set the record with a 58 in the final round of the Travelers Championship in 2016.
“I better be smiling,” Snedeker said. “I don’t do this every day.”
This is the third consecutive year the PGA Tour has had a sub60 round. Snedeker is the first to shoot 59 since Adam Hadwin of Abbotsford, B.C., in the third round of the 2017 Careerbuilder Challenge.
It gave him a four-stroke lead after one round. Ryan Moore and John Oda shot 63s, and Martin Flores, D.A. Points, Brett Stegmaier, David Hearn of Brantford, Ont., Abraham Ancer, Ollie Schniederjans and Jonathan Byrd had 64s.
Right behind them with 5-under 65s was a group that includes Corey Conners of Listowel, Ont., and Abbotsford’s Nick Taylor. Mackenzie Hughes of Hamilton is at 2-under and Ben Silverman of Thornhill, Ont., sits at 1-over.
Snedeker — who said a day earlier that the tournament would turn into a “birdie fest” — began the round at par-70 Sedgefield Country Club with a bogey at No. 10, and took off from there. He played the front nine in 27, including an eagle 2 on the par-4 sixth hole when he holed out from 176 yards.
After that shot, Snedeker said a 59 felt like a real possibility. He remembered a non-tour event he played in China in which he was one putt from that score, but those thoughts “got in the way.”
“To know what you’re trying to do and step up and have a 20-footer (on the final hole) and know what it means, I was very aware of what was going on, and to knock that putt in was really special,” Snedeker said. “To know I’m a part of a small club on tour and not very many people have done this, really cool feeling right now.”
Snedeker, the 2012 FedEx Cup champion, won the Wyndham in 2007. He broke Si Woo Kim’s twoyear-old Wyndham record of 60 and had the best opening round in this event’s history. Arjun Atwal had a 61 in 2010.
“The trick for him is, he’s playing great. Now he’s just got to rest, relax and start over tomorrow from scratch and go play three more good rounds,” said Furyk, who also shot a 59 at the BMW Championship in 2013. “It’s awesome to see.”
Snedeker, who began his round on the back nine, reeled off four consecutive birdies on Nos. 13-16. He then got even hotter on his final nine holes, with six birdies in addition to the shot of the day on No. 6. But he missed a three-foot birdie putt on No. 8 that would have made a 58 possible.
“Could have been even more special,” he said, “but happy with the way everything turned out.”