NAPA, Calif. – Scottie Scheffler may be done piling up trophies for the time being but the FedEx Cup Fall season got under way on a warm sunny day in wine country.
It’s that time of season when the rank-and-file get back to work and fight for job security. The chase is on over eight fall events to finish in the top 125 of the FedEx Cup for anyone who didn’t make the top 70 in the regular season. Nos. 51-60 at the end of the RSM Classic in November also will earn a berth in the first two signature events. Victories in the fall also means a trip to Kapalua for The Sentry in January, the Players Championship in March and the Masters in April. So, there’s still a lot to play for during football season. Here are five things to know about the first round of the 2024 Procore Championship.
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Lipsky leads
While the best players were battling it out in the FedEx Cup playoffs, David Lipsky went back to school. Rodney Dangerfield would be impressed. Lipsky spent a couple of weeks at his alma mater, Northwestern University, working with his former college coach, Pat Goss, and said being around the current members of the team helped him reset his attitude.
“Sometimes you have to realize golf can be fun and I think I sort of forgot that along the way as I’m grinding it out week in and week out,” he said. “Sometimes you’ve got to put things in perspective, take a step back. Sort of did that, seems like it’s working out.”
Did it ever. Lipsky posted eight birdies and shot 7-under 65 at Silverado Resort’s North Course on Thursday. Being around the current members of Northwestern golf team gave Lipsky a much-needed boost.
“Just being around those guys and seeing how carefree they are not knowing what’s coming for them yet. You know, it’s sort of, it’s nice to see that. I was almost energized by their youthfulness,” he said.
Lipsky, who entered the week at No. 165 in the FedEx Cup point standings, has a simple philosophy for the fall: “Just have a good time and take what comes at me.”
Laird’s lucky break
Martin Laird felt like his tournament almost was over before it really began. After making a bad bogey at the first hole, his round nearly went sideways early.
“I had one of the luckiest breaks I had in a long time on my second hole. I kind of block cut my 6-iron into the par 3 and I thought it was going in the water and it hit one of the rocks on the wall and bounced 30 feet in the air and stayed up and finished in the fairway short of the green and I got up and down for par,” Laird recounted. “Honestly, that could have been the whole tournament in terms of you start bogey, potentially double bogey, it’s hard to battle back from. I said to my caddie walking off the green that, you know, when you got a break like that you want to take advantage of it, so let’s see what we can do.”
All he did was reel off five birdies in a row and six in a seven-hole span en route to shooting 6-under 66. Laird gained nearly three strokes on the greens. The 41-year-old four-time Tour winner has missed the cut in five of his last six starts and entered the week at No. 147 in the FedEx Cup.
“All through the summer I just played terrible,” said Laird. “So I need to kind of hit the reset button, didn’t touch the clubs for two and a half weeks. Then I started practicing hard last week. My coach (Mark McCann) came out to Denver and worked with me at home, felt like we got some good stuff done. I came in here with a little better attitude than maybe I had this summer.”
Hubbard’s wild week
Mark Hubbard celebrated a day’s good work at the Procore Championship by wolfing down one of Silverado Resort’s famed burger dogs and then split a second with his wife. He carded nine birdies but made one bad blunder, a triple bogey at No. 17, his eighth hole of the day but it still added up to 5-under 67 at the North Course on Thursday and two shots off the early set by David Lipsky.
When was the last time you made nine birdies and a triple, he was asked. Hubbard didn’t have to think long. “Never,” he said.
But that beat the alternative – Hubbard almost missed playing in one of his favorite tournaments on the PGA Tour and it was all his fault. Hubbard missed Friday’s 5 p.m. ET deadline to register for the Procore Championship, the first event of the FedEx Cup Fall.
There weren’t any sponsor invites available so Hubbard did the next best thing and decided to go and play the Monday qualifier, where he paced the field with a 7-under 65 at Yolo Fliers Club to secure the first of four available spots in the Procore field, just a couple of hours away from where Hubbard attended college at San Jose State.
“It’s an area that kind of feels like a second home. My wife’s from Sacramento, so all of her family comes out,” he said. “I just have a lot of friends and family in the area too. It’s Napa too. I like wine; we call it one of the wives’ majors. It’s just a great week.”
As Hubbard ran through the highs and lows of his opening round, veteran pro Russell Knox, who was the last man into the field when Hubbard forgot to register, walked by.
“He’s the guy I let in with my blunder,” Hubbard said. “He did come up to me and say if he had a good week, he’d send me a case of wine.” Hubbard’s first round encapsulated his whole week: the triple bogey was missing the deadline and the nine birdies was the Monday qualifier.
After finding the water and making triple bogey at 17, he proceeded to birdie five of the next six holes. He credited a putter change for his strong performance.
“I went back to my old black beauty, my Odyssey No. 9 that I putted with since 2014,” he said. “I switched back to that for the Monday qualifier an obviously that went well and I carried over into today.”
Who’s on Dahmen’s bag?
Joel Dahmen and Geno Bonnalie have become one of the most popular player-caddie duos thanks to the Netflix documentary “Full Swing.”
But this week, Dahmen has his longtime swing instructor Rob Rashell, TPC Scottsdale’s director of instruction, on the bag but for good reason. Bonnalie is in Italy celebrating his wife’s birthday.
“I’m assuming with Geno he got a great deal on whatever he booked so he couldn’t pass it up,” Dahmen said. “He told me a long time ago the dates weren’t going to work and I said no problem. I mean, I miss him obviously, but to have Rob, I mean, Rob’s been my coach for nine-plus years, he played on Tour in the early 2000s, played the European Tour, he coaches at a high level, he knows my game as well as anyone. And just a different voice sometimes is OK. I mean, when your best friends with someone, sometimes it’s easier to ignore them. When your coach says something it’s harder to ignore them, so in that situation, it’s good for a week to have a different voice.”
Dahmen opened with 5-under 67, which included a chip-in, a hole out from 90 yards and a 30-foot putt that found the bottom of the cup. Rashell, who has caddied for Dahmen once before, proved to be a calming influence.
“Sixteen, we’re in the left rough, pin’s back right. He gave me a target that was way left of what I would have typically and he says things in a way that it makes it seem like it’s my idea that we’re doing it. Very much like a wife,” Dahmen said.
Earlier in the round, Dahmen admitted he was grumpy after hitting in the water at No. 11 and failing to make birdie at 12.
“Rob says stay patient. When Geno tells me to stay patient, I tell him to be quiet. When Rob tells me to be patient, I listen,” Dahmen said.
That’s when he holed his second shot at 13 for eagle and rammed in a long birdie putt at 14.
“To hoop one with a wedge and then to come back and make a 30-footer down the hill is a great bonus,” he said.
Rocco Mediate to the rescue
Kevin Streelman has experienced a frustrating season that has him sitting at 176th in the FedEx Cup, which means he has his work cut out to keep his card. But he’s also sitting on 299 career made cuts. One more and he would qualify for an exemption category that is 300 made cuts. Brian Gay is playing out of that category this season, though hasn’t made a start yet this season on the Tour. The last person to play out of the category was John Senden during the 2019-20 season, which carried over to the 2020-21 season. He made 27 starts over those two seasons.
Streelman is in good shape to make his 300th cut after opening with a 5-under 67 during the afternoon. He missed three fairways but just one green. He made 104 feet of putts, including a 40-foot birdie on 15. Streelman credited Champions Tour pro Rocco Mediate for helping him with his game. Mediate had dinner during the 3M Open in July with Matthew Achatz, who was on the bag for Mediate during the U.S. Open playoff against Tiger Woods and now works for Streelman. Mediate looked at some videos of Streelman’s swing and told him to have Streelman call him when he got back to his other home in Scottsdale.
“I look back at when I won at Tampa and Hartford I didn’t use practice strokes. I just saw my line, walked in and one look and hit it. Rocco said, ‘Why are you doing these practice strokes?’ I took them out and had a couple 10-, 11-under rounds at Whisper Rock. I knew it was something I could take out here and believe in it.”
And it could help him secure his 300th career made cut on Friday.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Mark Hubbard’s wild week, Joel Dahmen’s fill-in caddie and more from 2024 Procore Championship
