Jeff Overton's best shot might have been his worst at WM Phoenix Open
It isn’t often that your best shot of the day on the golf course turns out to actually be your worst.
That’s what happened on Friday to Jeff Overton as he faced his approach shot on the par 4 No.10, the hole on which he would start his second round of the Waste Management Phoenix Open.
“Yeah, hit probably one of the best shots of the day – a 9-iron in there from like 154 (yards),” Overton said. “… The thing landed like eight feet short of the green.”
That wasn’t the bad part. It’s what happened during the “landing” that went south right off the bat for the former Indiana University standout. You see, it was still frosty out on the course at TPC Scottsdale. Overton’s shot hit what he figured was a patch of cold ice.
“It shot right over (the green),” he said.
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Overton bogeyed the hole, but that was his only blemish on what otherwise was a fantastic round of 5-under 66. It was good enough to place him in the Top 10 entering the final two rounds, where the “People’s Major” could be anyone’s to win.
And who knows? The winner could end up being Overton, who’s never tasted a PGA Tour victory but has four second-place finishes in 274 career tournaments spanning 13 years as a pro.
“I think what worked for me today was just the fact that I didn’t really think out there,” he said. “I was just trying to scrape it around and I made some putts. It’s a tough golf course. It got windy. The greens were really firm with the frost a little bit early and I was just able to keep the ball in front of me.”
A couple of new additions to his golf game also helped him to score six birdies on Friday. One, is a new driver – the M2 from TaylorMade. The other is a new caddie – the venerable Kip Henley, a longtime looper on the Tour.
“We’ve been having good vibes together,” Overton said. “… I’m just a little more relaxed out there and whenever I hit bad shots, I don’t really get as down on myself. You’re going to hit bad shots. It’s just kind of understanding (with Henley). He’s helped me with little putting stuff here and there.
“He tells me to just ‘stay down, trust your read.’ He’ll tell me, ‘Everybody’s going to get nervous, just stay down through it. Putt it. Don’t care if it goes in or not.’ It’s just kind of basic stuff you learn in the first few years whenever you play golf. It’s just ‘stay down through your putt, hit it solid and don’t care.’ ”
That was the approach Overton took as he made his way to the wild and wooly No.16, the loudest and craziest hole on the PGA Tour if not in all of golf.
“Yeah, 16, you know,” Overton said as his eyes lit up. “Kip comes up to me and says, ‘All right, buddy. Knock it in there and let these people cheer.’ I don’t know if the group behind was chanting everybody’s college alma mater or what, but I heard like 20 people just starting yelling ‘Hoosiers!’ It was like, ‘Hoo, Hoo, Hoo, Hoosiers!’
“It gave me a little extra motivation and I just ran that thing right into the center and (after birdying the hole), did kind of a walk-off. You know, throw your hands up in the air and throw the ball into the crowd, just kind of play along with them. There’s no better feeling whenever you can birdie that hole.”
There’s no worse place to be than when you bogey it, too.
“Yeah, it’s great it’s only once a year,” Overton said. “But it’s the best hole on Tour.”
The way Overton sees it, he just needs to attack the easier holes and play smart on the tough ones to give him a real chance come Sunday.
“You’ve really got to take advantage of the back nine because the first 12 holes are as good as any 12 holes we play all year as far as difficulty goes,” he said. “So if you can kind of get through those holes around even par for the week and then get the last six holes at four under or so each day, you’re 16 under for the four days and that should be pretty close I would think to the winning score by the end of the week.”
Reach McManaman at bob.mcmanaman@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on Twitter @azbobbymac and listen to him live every Monday at 5:30 p.m. on NBC Sports Radio 1060-AM with Roc and Manuch and every Wednesday night between 7-9 p.m. on Fox Sports 910-AM on The Freaks with Kenny and Crash.
