Lost in the first-win-in-five-years triumph of Stewart Cink at the PGA Tour’s Travelers Championship on Sunday – and in the general post-Tiger Woods/U.S. Open/left knee furor – was a special Saturday moment for former Clemson golfer D.J. Trahan.
The fourth-year PGA Tour member, who put himself into consideration for the U.S. Ryder Cup team this September by winning the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic in January, and earned respect by tying for fourth at the Open (which also was sort of lost in the Tiger-Rocco Mediate playoff), did something he had never done before.
He shot an 8-under-par 62 at TPC Highlands in Cromwell, Conn., tied with Kevin Streelman for low round of the tournament – and more importantly for Trahan, his career best round by two shots.
Granted, it came on a day when rain softened the greens and made Saturday’s round “like throwing darts,” as one reporter put it. Still, Trahan, who has with rare exception struggled with his putting as a professional, did most of his damage with his putter.
“I hit a lot of good putts that found the hole, and a lot of good putts that didn’t,” Trahan told reporters after his Saturday round. “It was definitely the best round I’ve played all year. It was really nice.”
And not exactly expected. Trahan, like many players who went directly from Torrey Pines in San Diego to Connecticut, played like someone coming off a coast-to-coast redeye flight on Thursday and Friday. His scores of 67-70 weren’t terrible – but they were exactly good enough to make the cut of 3-under-par.
“The course has been there for the taking all week,” Trahan said. “I’m really happy with the round (because) I feel it kind of threw me back in the mix.”
It did – but only for 24 hours. On Sunday, Trahan went the wrong direction with a 1-over 71 while Cink, who began the day in the lead and four shots ahead of Trahan, shot 67 to finish 18-under and win by one over Hunter Mahan and Tommy Armour III (both shot 65 Sunday). Trahan tumbled to 10-under, eight behind the winner, and collected $65,250 and 272 FedEx Cup points (valuable for prizes!).
Despite his finish, Trahan had to come away with good feelings, especially about his putting. He seemed to turn things around early in the year after working on his putting with Jack Moore, a student of his golf-instructor dad, Don Trahan. Moore is “nothing special” as a player, but has a gift with the flat stick, Don Trahan said.
That, and a “good feel” for TPC Highlands’ greens, had D.J. Trahan rolling.
“I just really burned the edge (of the hole) so much, especially the first two days,” Trahan said. “(Friday) I couldn’t get a putt to go in. That’s golf sometimes; it’s frustrating. But I was making good strokes and good putts all the same. I went out there (Saturday) and finally made a few.”
Enough that, late in the round, he allowed himself to think about shooting 60, or even a record-tying 59. “Absolutely, I played well enough to break 60,” he said.
“Every time I got over (the ball), I felt really good. A lot of days when you putt well, you don’t feel good over all of them, but I really did. Every time I stepped to the putt, it was very, very comfortable.”
A few more weeks at that “comfort level,” and we might see Trahan wearing U.S. colors at Louisville’s Valhalla Golf Club. After all, someone’s got to replace Woods on the American team, right?
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HOT START, COOL FINISH. Another former Clemson player, Lucas Glover, was right around the lead through 36 holes, shooting 65-66, before a 71-68 weekend dropped him back to 10-under, along with Trahan and Greer resident Bill Haas (68-67-69-66).
Glover, one of the better drivers on the PGA Tour, said early in the week he had to pick and choose where he used the big stick. He had missed the cut at TPC Highlands three years running, and “I can’t lash at a lot of drivers because there’s a lot of run-outs” where balls end up in the rough.
“Experience is huge” at the course, Glover told reporters. “You’ve got to play to your strength, and that’s my driver. But around here you can’t hit it every hole.
“You’ve kind of got to be careful. I wouldn’t say I throttled back, but I thought well. I was thinking well and going through my game plan pretty well. Just be smart would be a (good) theory.”
Still, Glover did something you don’t see a lot of players doing in this era of oversized heads on drivers: At the par-5 sixth hole, he hit driver-driver, his second shot from the fairway reaching the back fringe of the green, where he two-putted for a birdie.
“I did not ‘throttle back’ on No. 6,” he said.
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DRY SPELL. If you’ve missed seeing Columbia native and former Clemson player Charles Warren on the weekends at PGA Tour tournaments lately, there’s a reason: He hasn't been around.
The first weekend in February, Warren finished third (behind winner J.B. Holmes) at the FBR Open in Scottsdale, Ariz. Since then, he has made it to Sunday just once: New Orleans’ Zurich Classic, where he was 23rd.
After the FBR, Warren missed cuts in Los Angeles and at the Honda Classic in Florida. Then at the PODS Classic in Tampa, he fell victim to the modified MDF rule (made cut, did not finish), when a third-round 81 knocked him out of the field for the final round.
After missing the cut at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Warren made it through the weekend in New Orleans. Since, he’s missed cuts at Houston and Hilton Head, was nailed by MDF at the Wachovia (a third-round 78), and missed the cut in four of his next five events. The lone exception? He was disqualified at the AT&T Classic near Atlanta.
For all that misery, Warren still is well within the top 125 among money winners (106th, with $509,942). He remains among the Tour’s better drivers (13th in total driving, which figures distance and accuracy), but is 126th in greens in regulation (61.1 percent) and a horrible 178th in putting (1.841 per hole).
Based on last year’s results, though, Warren will need to earn another $300,000 or so to be assured of a top-125 finish for the year. Not doing so would be a scary prospect for a player who has won $1 million-plus each of the past three seasons.
BOB GILLESPIE
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