Golf is a Cruel Game

On June 3, Golf’s Longest Day, rookie professional golfer Davis Bryant of Aurora putted out on the 18th hole of Oregon’s Pronghorn Resort tied for the lead of a U.S. Open qualifier.

The top two finishers that day would earn coveted entries into the 2024 U.S. Open, held in June at the fabled Pinehurst No. 2 course. He was six months into his pro golf career and was one more round, 18 holes, away from possibly qualifying for one of the greatest tournaments in the game. His first-round 68 was in the bag and he was one of the few golfers on the course to go under par.

Golf Channel’s Bailey Chamblee pulled Bryant aside as he walked off the green. He had 20 minutes before his second round started. Is that too much time, too little, or just right, she asked.

“I was stoked,” he said later. “Personally I’d rather just keep playing and not have to think good or bad. I told her I’m playing good; I’m executing shots pretty well. A couple of long putts fell.”

Then it was time to begin the second round. The first hole of Pronghorn’s Nicklaus course is no cream puff, but there are harder holes. It is less than 400 yards, a par 4 that big hitters like Davis can use to set themselves up for success. Bryant pulled out his 3-wood and drove it to the right. It hit and bounced further right. He had to punch out from the pine scrub.

“I made a mess of the hole after that,” he said.

He double-bogeyed with a 6, bogeyed the second hole for good measure, and two hours later finished two shots away from second place. However discouraging your job was that week, Bryant’s may have been worse. “I just hit a couple bad shots on the first couple holes and I don’t think I hit a green until the 5th hole,” he said. “For some odd reason, the game didn’t feel exactly the same as it did just an hour prior. Sometimes it’s like ‘What is this club, this object, I’m holding in my hands?’”

Fellow Coloradan Colin Prater, a 29-year-old science teacher and golf coach at Cheyenne Mountain High School, took the second spot. Such is the life of a young first-year pro. Bryant is playing in his first season of professional touring golf. An excellent player in high school and at Colorado State University, he is learning the lessons of tour life the hard way.

“You’re trying to be one of those 156 guys next week in Pinehurst, that’s why we play,” he said. “I did my best to try and embrace what I was feeling and what I was going through. It was hard to execute to make the same putts to make the same swings. I’ll be more prepared when it comes again.”

And it likely will come again. That’s because overall, Bryant is having a successful first season. After the Pronghorn Massacre, he flew home to Denver and talked with his parents, got some rest, and two days later was ready to keep going. After playing this winter in several mini-tour events in California, Louisiana and Arizona, Bryant is heading into a summer of qualifiers as well as Canadian events.

He played well at a qualifying tournament at the Wigwam Golf Club in Arizona, finishing tied for 16th. That earned him partial access to an upcoming series of nine Canadian tournaments. Many things remained unclear – which ones, who else would be playing, would his status improve or decline based on how he plays – but if nothing else it made him an official member of the PGA Tour Americas.

That may be a small step – the tour is the third level of PGA Tour events, behind the Korn Ferry Tour and the PGA Tour itself. But there are perks: the cost to enter Monday qualifiers for PGA Tour events the rest of the year drops from $500 to $300 each. He gets to play and practice at the Tour’s TPC courses around the country. And, since he’s not yet 25, he’s been paying an upcharge every time he’s rented a car; that upcharge going forward would now be waived.

Baby steps.