David Skinns‘ record-setting day will be remembered more for one putt he missed more than the 12 he made.
Skinns shot a 12-under-par 60 Thursday during the first round of the Sanderson Farms Championship, a Country Club of Jackson course record.
But the 42-year-old former University of Tennessee golfer from England missed a 9-foot birdie try on his final hole, denying him the chance at becoming the 15th different player to shoot 59 or under in PGA Tour history. Jim Furyk has done it twice.
“It’s hard not to be a little bit disappointed because how many nine-footers are you going to get to shoot 59?” Skinns said of the putt, his shortest miss of the day. “I’m sure I’m not going to get many.
“But I really want to just look back on how kind of in control mentally I felt, how I kept attacking. Wasn’t really thinking about the future at all, which is kind of the thing I’m going to take away from today.”
Still, Skinns has a 3-shot lead.
Skinns’ longest putt of the day was a 54-footer on the seventh hole.
He had six birdies on the front nine and six more on the back nine.
“Great to see a couple go in that maybe some days don’t,” Skinns said. “I never really thought about the score too much, just where I was going to hit the next shot.”
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The rest of the field
Scores were on the low side Thursday. Thirty-six players finished 5 under or better.
Michael Thorbjornsen was one of those players. His 63 put him in second place behind Skinns. Gary Woodland and Ben Griffin are tied for third at 8 under.
Nine more players are at 7 under, while 11 more are at 6 under.
Paul Skrbina is a sports enterprise reporter for the USA Today Network. Reach him at pskrbina@gannett.com and on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter) @paulskrbina. Follow his work here.
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: David Skinns breaks Country Club of Jackson record, leaves disappointed
