Shots are being fired low at the PGA Tour’s John Deere Classic. Defending champion Sepp Straka started with a round of 66 and is still only in 27th place, while the leader Hayden Springer celebrated the fourth of July with his very own fireworks: a round of 59 and still only matching the course record.
PGA Tour: With an eagle-birdie finish to 59
Springer has only been on the PGA Tour since this year and can already count himself among an elite circle of players who have finished a round with fewer than 60 strokes. There have been a total of 14 rounds under 60, 13 including Springer with a 59 and Jim Furyk with a 58. Springer started with an eagle on hole 2 and followed it up with six birdies on the front nine alone. The birdie fireworks then dried up a little on the back nine. It wasn’t until the 15th that he gained a stroke to get to nine under par, by which time the prospect of a 59 was already close. But he kept his chances alive with an eagle hole-out on the 17th and completed the rare result with a birdie on the 18th.
“It’s like something you dream of, right?”, Springer said after his round. “We all want to go out and shoot 59. You don’t ever really — I don’t know how many chances I’ll ever get at doing that again. To pull it off and hole that shot on 17 and give myself a putt at it and make the putt on 18 was pretty special.”
Paul Goydos already managed a round of 59 at the John Deere Classic in 2010, but the course was played as a par 70 on that occasion.
An impressive stamp on the resume for his rookie year 📝
Inside Hayden Springer’s historic 59 @JDClassic. pic.twitter.com/areZCgBauw — PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) July 4, 2024
