With his most recent putting, Harry Hall no longer has any reason to be dissatisfied. The English PGA TOUR rookie needed just 22 putts to finish at 8 under par and take a four-shot lead in the Charles Schwab Challenge. His final putt was an 8-foot birdie.
Hall had an outstanding debut at Colonial; he hit eight birdies and two par-saving putts from 15 and 30 feet, respectively.
Tom Hoge, who now resides in Fort Worth after playing collegiate golf at TCU, blasted out for an eagle from the seventh fairway on his way to a 66.
Sam Burns, the reigning champion, and Scottie Scheffler, who tied for second at the PGA Championship, both climbed back to No. 1 in the world and were in the big group of 67 early starters. With a 45-foot putt, Burns defeated Scheffler in a playoff last year.
Jordan Spieth opened with a 72 and didn’t make his lone birdie until the eighth hole.
At the PGA Championship, California club pro Michael Block was living the dream. At Colonial on Thursday, he was brought back to reality.
Block, who made headlines at Oak Hill when he tied for 15th place in the strongest field in golf, started the Charles Schwab Challenge with three straight bogeys and concluded the round with three double bogeys over his final four holes to shoot an 11-over 81 and finish last, 19 strokes behind Harry Hall.
After an outstanding week at the PGA Championship, Block won a sponsor exemption, and he will also get one for the RBC Canadian Open next week.
He joined WME Sports, was on “CBS This Morning,” and got a text from Michael Jordan.
“I have nothing,” he told himself this after a tee shot on the 13th barely cleared the river and finished on a green with a front right pin.
“If you play golf, and you had a day like mine. You are aware of the truth of the badness of lies and the constant obstruction posed by trees. Your awful shots are worse than even your bad shots, which are not good enough.” Block talked about the four PGA Tour-level competitions he has participated in this year where Block’s score was seven strokes behind his best.
“It is what it is. I will put up with it,” he said.
“Last week at Oak Hill, I believed it would occur in the third or fourth round, but it never did. To be honest, I wasn’t surprised when it happened right now,” he said.
The past six days have been quite the rollercoaster for Block. At the PGA Championship, he played on Saturday and Sunday alongside Rory McIlroy and made the cut.
A performance by the 46-year-old head pro at Trabuco Arroyo in Mission Hills, California, rivaled Brooks Koepka’s sixth major triumph in terms of making history.
With his hole-in-one on the fifteenth hole, he tied for fifteenth place and earned himself a berth in the PGA Championship for the following year.
After a week of extreme activities, during which he had only seen Colonial once before Thursday, he then abruptly returned to reality. But he wasn’t ready to give up yet.
“I’m excited to go out tomorrow, play a fantastic round, and give it everything I’ve got. I’ve shot 58 and a 59 in my life, so given today’s performance, I wouldn’t be shocked if I did it again. So, cool if I do. If not, I’ll be spending tomorrow night in Orange County, California, with my wife and kids. Either way, everything is for the best.” he said.
Hall, who played collegiate golf for UNLV, is now ranked No. 99 in the FedExCup after having a respectable rookie year that includes two top-10 finishes at the Puerto Rico Open and the Mexico Open at Vidanta.
He broke with tradition this week and played 36 practice holes at Colonial on Monday in a pro-am before playing nine holes on Tuesday and Wednesday. Together with his putter, that is helpful.
“To simply take in a little more of the course than I have in the past, I suppose, is the key. I didn’t really change much. I essentially simply simplified things a little bit.” Hall said.
He started off easy, hitting a 10-foot birdie putt after two-putting for a par on the opening par-5 hole. This does not imply that it was always simple. On the following hole, Hall made a 15-footer for par and then twice got up-and-down to preserve pars.
The biggest was a chip-in for a birdie from approximately 80 feet on the 12th hole that placed him at 7 under with six holes remaining. He missed seven greens and played those holes in 1 under. The rest of the way, he only managed one birdie, but his longest putt was 30 feet for par on the fifteenth.
“Out there, I was fully present and focused on playing some solid golf. The fact that I scrambled 7 out of 7, which is my strongest skill, doesn’t really surprise me, but the way I hit the ball during the first two-thirds of the round was fairly unique.” Hall said.
Hoge, who was reared in North Dakota, is so devoted to the Horned Frogs that he traveled from Maui to Los Angeles to watch TCU play Georgia in the college football championship game. After that, he flew back to Hawaii for the Sony Open.
He had a good start, but then his round stopped. On No. 6, when his approach landed just inches from the cup, it really got going. Then, on the seventh hole, he made an eagle with an 8-iron from 157 yards away.
After three consecutive missed cuts at Colonial, this is just the start he needed.
In the previous few years, I really battled on Thursday before fighting back somewhat on Friday in an effort to make the cut. This year, I made it a point to start out strong, try to be a little more patient, and let the round come to me. Making a few birdies right away was wonderful.
It was unclear to Scheffler how to interpret his round. There were times when he thought it was slipping from him, and he felt it could have been better than his 67. In the end, he reasoned that anything below par at Colonial never hurts.
The sixth was one instance where it might have gotten away from him. Scheffler decided that driving was too much with the wind at his back and instead chose to hit a fade with a 3-wood. That became more of a slice and was moving toward the danger. The trees trembled as a result.
“I saw the ball bounce out the next thing I knew, and I had a shot from the center of the fairway. There’s a huge break. I was ultimately able to profit from it and shoot a birdie. I’d say there was clearly a swing of one or two shots during the game.” he said.
