Andrew Putnam today is living, smiling, admittedly head-shaking proof that, sometimes, practice for a golf tournament can be over-rated.
He can say this from second place on the leaderboard at the Sony Open in Hawaii after shooting a career-best 8-under-par 62 Thursday, one stroke behind first-round leader Adam Svensson in the PGA Tour’s first full-field event of the year.
All of which was accomplished without so much as setting foot on the Waialae Country Club course until just before his 7:50 a.m. tee time. No practice rounds or a trip to the putting green. Not even an appearance in the pro-am.
“I actually didn’t get a practice round on (the course). Today was my first day rolling on them and it worked out pretty good,” Putnam said.
Much as the 29-year-old from Tacoma, Wash., might like to suggest that it was all part of some carefully crafted strategy, he concedes it wasn’t.
Instead, it was the result of a bee sting that he can laugh about only now that the swelling has gone down.
In attempting to get a lawn chair for his mother at a pool on Maui three days ago following the completion of the Sentry Tournament of Champions, Putnam said, “I got stung by a bee on my foot and I couldn’t walk. So, I had to withdraw out of the (Sony) pro-am. I was just sitting around all (Wednesday) and couldn’t even hit a shot. I could hardly walk. It was pretty crazy.”
Putnam said, “I was still limping around a little bit just trying to get through the day and make the best of it.”
Since he couldn’t work in a practice round, Putnam acknowledged, “I was a little bit up in the air with the speed of the greens.”
Not that there was much to fear from the beginning as he birdied three of the first five holes on the way to a 5-under tour of the front nine holes. Overall his 23 putts measured 174 feet. “The putter was hot; I don’t know how many feet I made putts, but it was getting a little ridiculous out there. For some reason, it just felt right,” Putnam said.
His name, after all, is Put-nam.
A lot has been feeling better for Putnam in his second go-around on the PGA Tour. The Pepperdine graduate earned his first tour card for 2015 as a 25-year-old, when he was viewed as a fast-rising prospect. A claim to fame that year was joining older brother Michael as the first brothers to play the PGA Tour simultaneously in more than a decade.
But 13 missed cuts — including at Sony — and a No. 185 FedEx ranking sent him back to the lower level Web.com Tour for what ended up being two more years of seasoning. An eighth-place finish on the money list earned him another PGA shot in 2018 and Putnam made the most of it, winning the Barracuda Championship and the two-year exemption that came with it.
“(I) really learned a ton. Really use a lot of what I learned to have some success my next year out on tour. It was pretty hard my first year, but I am thankful for it all.”
Last week at Kapalua, Putnam managed a tie for 14th after coming in with modest expectations and admittedly little practice.
“Didn’t practice a ton this offseason; had some other things going on,” Putnam said. “Maybe that’s the key, work less.”
Putnam said, “Maybe that’s my new strategy, not play before the tournament starts.
“Or, get stung by a bee …”
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
