What's better than made putts? No putts
What's better than made putts? No putts
McAllister's finish just one of the great stories coming out of the first round of the Korn Ferry Tour's Compliance Solutions Championship
Note: I hope you’ll indulge my continuing to cover this one-step-below-the-PGA Tour golf event taking place in Norman this weekend, for my heart is now involved, thanks to the emergence of 40-something Andre Metzger, who’s still trying to make it big in the game, who I originally encountered playing for Norman High as the best junior golfer in the city and among the best in the state in a different century. Read on, perhaps your heart will get involved, too.
NORMAN — The old saying is “drive for show, putt for dough.” Still better, of course, is not having to putt at all.
It’s a concept former Sooner Logan McAllister, one week after playing in his first U.S. Open, embraced Thursday afternoon, finishing his first round of the Korn Ferry Tour’s Compliance Solutions Championship.
Because he’d putted quite well, thank you, McAllister, an Oklahoma City native who went to high school at Christian Heritage, was already 7-under par upon reaching the 322-yard par 4 18th hole at Jimmie Austin Golf Club.
Typically the course’s 10th hole, tourney organizers made it the 18th, creating two eagle possibilities to close the round for each competitor.
McAllister, kind of on purpose, he said, shot his drive long and right, knowing he’d get line-of-sight relief from the grandstand beyond the green, allowing him to pitch back toward the far-left pin on the green.
What he didn’t count on was his pitch rolling off the green’s left edge into heavy rough no more than 20 feet from the green.
“It was just sitting down in kind of a little bit of a hole, so I had to try to get it up,” McAllister said. “I caught it just a little bit thin, but it worked out.”
What it did was fly directly into the hole, his sixth birdie of the day — along with an eagle on the par 5 fifth after holing out from 55 yards — to shoot an opening 8-under-par 64, good enough to be one stroke back of tourney leader Thomas Walsh, whose 63 included 10 birdies and a bogey on the par 4 first hole, his 10th hole of the day.
Joining McAllister at 8-under par are Pontus Nyholm, of Sweden, Tano Goya, of Argentina, William Mouw and Jackson Suber.
Roberto Diaz, Brent Grant, Peter Kuest, Frankie Capan III, Zecheng Dou and Jack Maguire each carded 7-under 65s.
After that, among a group of seven at 6-under-par 66, is Norman native and Norman High graduate Andre Metzger, whose final uphill right-to-left putt on the par 4 ninth hole somehow stayed out of the cup.
“I’ve been struggling like crazy, trying to keep the faith …,” said Metzger, who reports winning more than 50 mini-tour events over the years, but has never quite solidified himself at the Korn Ferry level, one circuit below the PGA Tour. “We worked really hard this week … and I felt a lot more comfortable than I have in weeks past.”
Metzger did all his damage on the front nine, his second nine, making birdie at Nos. 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 and 8. The 18-footer he missed on No. 9 was for a 29 on the side.
Former Sooners Max McGreevy and Patrick Welch are both in fine shape to make the cut, both shooting first-round 68s.
McAllister got his round going early, making birdie on what he called “probably the hardest hole out here,” the 472-yard par 4 first, when his 153-yard pitching wedge finished about 18 feet from the hole, after which he drained the putt.
“I would have taken four pars on that hole, but now I’ve got a birdie,” he said. “Hopefully, more of those will come.”
Another birdie arrived on the short par 4 third hole, then came the eagle on No. 5 and a two-putt birdie on the 600-yard par 5 eighth.
McAllister rolled in a 10-foot birdie putt on the par 5 12th (typically No. 13) and on the very next hole, the 443-yard par 4 13th, after driving into a left-of-the-fairway bunker, stiffed his approach to 11 feet and rolled that one in, too.
He hit 16 greens, finished 1-under on the two he missed, and averaged 1.57 putts on the 16 he hit.
After spending the previous six weeks on the road, missing cuts in all, McAllister was happy to claim a home course and home town advantage.
“I stayed home and slept in my own bed,” he said. “You know, that’s something that makes me feel a little more fresh and, hopefully it will make me [stay fresh] as the week goes on.”
While McAllister’s round included two hole outs, Walsh, but for his bogey, made everything look easy.
“My longest birdie putt was probably 20 feet,” he said. “I just had a lot of four- to 15-footers and … none of them broke that much, none of them were up and down hills.”
Walsh entered the event 46th on the tour money list at $98,076, McAllister 94th at $43,889 and Metzger, playing on a sponsor’s exemption, in four previous Korn Ferry starts, has banked $4,650, making the cut at the season opening Astara Chile Classic in Santiago, Chile.
After one round of the Compliance Solutions Classic, they’re just three of the stories.
Round two tees off at 7 this morning and will end 12 or 13 hours later.