How to bounce back from a 4-putt … or a triple bogey - pgatour.com

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“There wasn't a huge swing of emotions,” said Spieth, who won here in 2016. “I stayed calm. I was just trying to hit each shot where it needed to go to make the best score on that hole, and 5 was huge. 5 was really big, to feel like I kind of salvaged the Horrible Horseshoe and came out of it with actually some momentum.”

If we’re ranking them, Spieth’s bounce-back may have been only the second-best of the day. Consider the way tournament leader Harold Varner III started his round Friday off the 10th tee.

His errant tee shot found the bridge going across the gulley in the fairway. Not under the bridge, or over on the bridge. But the actual bridge. Varner was forced to take a penalty shot. He dropped in the rough, then found the greenside bunker, then blasted out over the green to the rough.

Triple bogey for Varner, the 18-hole co-leader with Justin Rose after his opening 63.

“Obviously not the start I wanted,” he said.

The round could have easily come unraveled, but this is not the Varner of three years ago, when he missed the cut in his only previous start at Colonial. This is his 78th PGA TOUR since then, and he’s matured – both physically and mentally. And not just inside the ropes.

“I've grown up a lot off the course, so it makes it easy to make good decisions that prepare you a little bit better for on-the-course stuff,” Varner said. “Yeah, I'm a lot better golfer.

“I don't really get rattled as much.”

He certainly wasn’t rattled Friday. Three birdies in his six-hole stretch regained the momentum, and then he regained the lead with five birdies in his last six holes, leaving him at 11 under through two rounds, one shot ahead of Spieth.

“He’s hitting his mid-irons really well,” said playing partner Scottie Scheffler. “Just stiffing it.”

Since 2003 in the ShotLink Era, 691 players have opened their rounds at PGA TOUR events with a triple-bogey. Varner’s 66 is the lowest score ever shot under that circumstance.

“Even after a triple, you just can't live in the past,” he said. “… After making the triple I was just fighting for my life.

Pretty impressive stuff for the golfer who’s bidding to win for the first time in 129 career starts (and it just so happens that his 129 total through two rounds is his best career 36-hole score). If he breaks through, Varner would be just the second African-American to win a PGA TOUR event since Tiger Woods won the first of his record-tying 82 victories in 1996. Cameron Champ has two wins since 2018.  In all, seven African Americans have won on TOUR.

Given the developments in the U.S. since George Floyd’s death in late May, a Varner victory would be of increased significance. On Friday, Varner – along with all golfers, caddies and others at Colonial – stood for a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m. in Floyd’s memory. It is a reminder each round this week of the “efforts to end systemic issues of racial and social injustices,” according to PGA TOUR Commissioner Jay Monahan.

“It's pretty cool that the TOUR is doing that, but when you're out there, you're just so in the moment,” Varner said. “Well, I was anyway. I don't know, man, I was just trying to make a birdie.”

Understandable. When you start with a triple bogey, it’s really the only approach to take.

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