Well, DJ has a pretty steady, solid round of golf today. He hit the ball really well and put up some good numbers in a number of departments, shooting 2 under par and comfortably made the cut, which was at even par.
For his fairways in regulation, he hit 64% today which gives him a two day average of 679%, tying him for 4th. His greens in regulation were 78% today for a two day total of 72% for second place, which puts him spot on his 72.5 yearly average for all the tournaments, which has him at 3rd. Overall, ball striking is right on target.
The two holes that were quite remarkable started with #9, which is a 332 par four. It's like hitting down a bowling alley. About 280 yards out there, there's a couple pine trees on the left and a couple on the right that hover in pretty close and really shrink the size of the fairway. Sort of like you see driving on the 18th at Augusta National.
DJ told my brother, Ken, as he was walking off the 8th green that he was going to definitely hit a driver there. Kenny didn't see it come down but one of my former teachers there said that it flew the front bunker and landed on the right side of it, landed in the rough and stopped very quickly and that he had a straight shot across the fairway without even having to walk to the green. He hit a chip that really came out hot and rolled about 15 or 20 feet by. His birdie putt stopped dead center of the cup, an inch or two from the hole.
That basically was the theme of his round today. He missed at least 5 or 6 putts that nibbled the edge or was one turn from falling in. So I guess he hand that thing that the balls are scared of going into the dark.
The other hole that remarkable in term of his drive was #15, a par 5 that's guarded short of the green by a group of pine trees which are just left of a little stream that runs down. So you have the steam in play with these tall pine trees guarding the green that are in the 70 to 100 foot height range. From anywhere in the fairway, the only shot to the green is right over the top of them, which makes it hard for a lot of guys to get a chance of going for the green. That's an enormously hit shot over the trees straight to the green.
DJ bombed on that hole. The 15th plays 571 yards and he knocked it on with a driver and long iron, flying it right to the center of the green. He had a straight, 40 footer uphill putt and he a lip out, but made birdie.
The par 5's treated him pretty good today. He birdied all three of them. The only thing that was a really low point in the round were the two par 3s on the back side which are about as tough as you're going to find anywhere. 14 and 17 are really small, narrow greens. Both have water in play. 14 has water in front and totally on the right side. 17 has a huge sand trap on the left and water left of that.
The pin was back center left on 14 and he hit it right over the left edge of the green. Back there is this little, rinky, dinky pot bunker that's as much as 3 or 4 feet deep. The sand area is no bigger 3 foot by 3 foot circle. So if you're in that bunker, in the sand, you basically can't stand in the bunker and hit the shot without one or both feet out of the bunker.
What happened to DJ was he hit it to the back side of the bunker and a rake was laying there. It held up his ball from rolling into the bunker. So he had a downhill shot to hit over the front lip that was higher and stop it on the green with all that water on the other side. He told me he was thinking of chipping it sideways and then chipping it back on, but he decided to hit it in the front bank and it would jump up and scoot on the green. It did, about 4 feet. He said he hit a good putt that just did inches from being right dead in the hole.
17 was in a big cross wind, left to right, and it's a very narrow green and there's a bunker that looks like a banana. Like 14, if you're balls in it, you're very likely not in it. You might to be able to hit your ball, at best, one foot. He was in that little bunker and came out about 10 feet shot and missed that putt.
So that's it for the Surge today from Harbour Town Golf links from Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, our former home for a number of years.
The Surge!