Sizzling Sam Saunders Shoots 59 to Lead the 2018 Web.com Tour Championship

Sizzling Sam Saunders shot a 12-under par 59 to take the lead in the Web.com Tour Championship. More importantly he followed it up with a 5-under par 66 the next morning in Round Two.

Starting on the 10^th tee in Round One, the 30-year old grandson of the legendary golfer Arnold Palmer began with three straight birdies and then added ten more to offset one lone bogey on the par-3 16^th hole.

Round Two started off slowly with four straight pars, then a birdie, when hardship struck on the par-5 6^th hole. A pulled drive left nearly went out of bounds and wound up in a hedge line. Allowed a free drop from a sprinkler drip-line that gave Saunders a swing, he hit wood on his second shot and then chipped out on his third. Faced with a pitch from 123 yards, he executed well and was able to make the downhill 10-footer to save par.

Calling for his hybrid-two second shot to make the front left greenside bunker on the par-5 7^th hole it listened and did. The Atlantic Beach Country Club member and resident, the de facto player host was at 13-under with a three-stroke lead as   he approached the green. After a magnificent fairly long bunker shot to a back left table-top hole location, the man who endeared himself to all of us a little over a year ago by sharing his last phone call with his grandfather, our hero, then made the six-footer for birdie and a four-stroke lead.

Onward Saunders marched, making deuce on the par-3 8^th hole, and arriving at the 9^th green where he made a 10-footer to seal the 59 deal less than eighteen hours prior.  That par meant only a 3-under 32 on the front nine whereas he posted a 28 with seven birdies the day before after a first nine 31 to become the seventh player in Web.com history to post a round of 59 or better (following Notah Begay 13-under 59 in 1998; Doug Dunakey 11-under 59 also in 1998; Jason Gore 12-under 59 in 2012; Will Wilcox 12-under 59 in 2013; Russell Knox 12-under 59 in 2013; and Stephan Jaeger 23-under 58 in 2016).

Saunders intensified his pace to break the 36-hole Web.com Tour Championship scoring record of 16-under par 126 with four straight birdies to begin his second nine but hardship appeared again and this time triumphed with a bogey on the 16^th and a short game double-bogey on the last with an unpredictable fluffy lie and water long first out of the rough and then out of the greenside bunker. Even with the finish, Saunders posted 59-66=125 to set a new scoring record.

After the round he shared that his private goal was to get to twenty-under par which a birdie on the last would have made possible. In tune with Forrest Gump, he said ‘it happens,’ and the key is to not get mad, to know how to handle it mentally. Asked, with wind and rain predicted on the weekend, if he would take an even par 142, he laughed it off as the insulting thinking that it was. Instead he reiterated the big stage that this Web.com Tour Championship is and that he needs to win a golf tournament. In his own words, if he can win this he is 100% sure he can win on the PGA TOUR.

I agree and I hope he is right! Though being 17-under par and a leader by four strokes, when he finished his Round Two, is a good place to be, being 1-over par for the final four finishing holes is not a good omen. Rather a challenge for Saunders who in his 182^nd professional golf tournament, fairly evenly distributed between the Web.com and PGA TOUR, is destined to win many golf tournaments, not just one.

History is on his side if he continues his good play and goes on the win the 2017 Web.com Tour Championship. Champions of this event, the likes of David Duval and Stewart Cink have gone on to win on the PGA TOUR and won a major championship as well.

Back on the 7^th green the scoreboard also read that there were 71 players at the time targeted to make the cut at 3-under par. First things first—make the cut, play well on the weekend, win the Web.com Tour Championship and go on to win in your fourth year on the PGA TOUR my good man, the Sizzling Sam Saunders!