Villegas, Wallace share lead at PGA’s RSM Classic
ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Georgia — Moving on from a devastating summer of losing his child, Camilo Villegas made a 10-foot birdie putt on his final hole Thursday for a 6-under 64 and a share of the lead with Matt Wallace in the RSM Classic.
Villegas and Wallace each finished on the Seaside course at Sea Island with big putts. Villegas capped off a bogey-free round on the ninth hole for his lowest score on the PGA Tour in four years. Wallace hit into a hazard on the 18th and saved par with a 30-foot putt.
They were a shot ahead of eight players, a group that included Sea Island resident Patton Kizzire and Robert Streb, who won his only PGA Tour title at Sea Island five years ago. They each had 5-under 67 on the Plantation course, which played about three-quarters of a shot harder.
Villegas was trying to return from a shoulder injury that kept him out all of 2019 when he and wife learned early this year their two-year-old daughter, Mia, had tumors developing on her brain and spine. She was going through chemotherapy when she died in July.
He’s trying to move on and hang on to memories, and he had one immediately while warming up with his brother, Manny, working as his caddie.
“Got on the range and see a little rainbow out there. I start thinking about Mia and said, ‘Hey, let’s have a good one.’ Nice to have Manny on the bag and yes, it was a good ball-striking round, it was a great putting round. I was pretty free all day.”
Villegas, a 38-year-old from Colombia, is a four-time winner on the PGA Tour, including the last two FedEx Cup playoff events in 2008. He has missed the cut in three of his five events of the new PGA Tour season, which began a little more than a month after his daughter died.
“I can’t change the past and since I can’t change the past, I’ve got to focus on the present,” Villegas said. “It’s not about forgetting because you never forget your daughter. It’s about being in the moment, being in the now and this is my now. It’s not with her, but it is with her at the same time.”
Corey Conners of Listowel, Ont., and Roger Sloan, from Merritt, are the top Canadians at 3-under after opening with 67s on the Seaside course. Nick Taylor, from Abbotsford, also played Seaside and fired a 3-over 73.
The other four Canadians started play on the Plantation course. Mackenzie Hughes of Dundas, Ont., shot a 1-over 73, while David Hearn, from Brantford, Ont., (74), Abbotsford’s Adam Hadwin (76) and Michael Gligic of Burlington, Ont., (79) are well back heading into the second round.