Club pro’s hot start wiped out at No. 5

It’s hard to blame club pro Matt Dobyns for thinking big.

He opened the day with three straight birdies.

“You start dreaming, you see your name up there, I’m two back of the lead, you think, ‘What the hell?’ You never know,” Dobyns said.

Almost as quickly, the dream was over.

Dobyns blocked his tee shot on the fifth hole into the right rough. On his second shot, he pounded down into a tree root and the ball popped up and advanced about 4 feet. He didn’t know he had broken his 4-iron, so he lined up for another swing. The clubhead sawed off and went almost as far as the ball. That resulted in the first of two triple-bogeys, and he finished the round shooting 76.

The lesson from all this?

“We always come back to the mean,” Dobyns said. “You don’t know how long that wave’s going to last. They key is to not go crashing off the wave and onto the barrier reef.”

Instead of challenging for the lead, Dobyns will have to scramble to make the cut for the first time in his five trips to the PGA.

But, boy, was that a start to remember.

“I’m just thinking, this is how it’s supposed to go,” he said. “I mean, I know that streak’s not going to just keep going. But I’ve been coming out of the gate really strong all year long. It wasn’t a surprise. I felt fresh. I hit good shots.”