Sean

O'Hair

The big-hitting Matthews arrived with a T35 at the Corales in his most recent start. It was the best finish of his PGA TOUR career and may have helped with his confidence ahead of this week’s event. For O’Hair, he had played in just eight events this season with two of them doubling as top 25s (T11 at the Bermuda Championship and T19 at the Valspar Championship). There is a 12-year age difference in this pairing but they met each other while Matthews was in college and O’Hair was a member at Aronimink. This finish may provide a much-needed spark for the spring and summer stretch but both golfers remain outside of the top 100 in the FedExCup standings so there is still a lot of work to be done.

The Texan zoomed out of the gate with four straight birdies and carried that momentum into a blemish-free day at Port Royal Golf Course which saw uncharacteristically calm conditions. “I think like in today’s conditions where there’s really no wind or anything, I mean, it’s just a putting contest. Like I said, I didn’t putt that well, but I struck the ball really well, so I had a lot of very good opportunities and I’m not going to hit the ball like I did the next three days, hopefully one day I will, but I’m not going to do it four days straight. Hopefully you get some tougher conditions where I can just control my ball flight and keep it in play and just hit fairways and greens.” O’Hair is happy to be in contention after arriving without much competitive play recently. This is his first start of the new season with his only other action being a missed cut overseas at the Alfred Dunhill Links.

The 39-year-old, playing this season on Past Champion status, celebrates his birthday tomorrow (July 11th), and despite the uneven finish, celebrates his first top 10 of the season in 10 events. It’s his first at the Barbasol in two visits (WD/2021), and first since T9 at last season’s opposite-field Barracuda 11 starts ago, and he’ll head to that very same Barracuda in short order. For the festivities, the Texas native signed for laps of 68-65-65-73, T5 thru 54 holes, totaled two eagles and 23 birdies versus eight bogeys and a double, the double a 6 at hole 6 in R4, and at last check, ranks 19th SG: Tee-to-Green (5.592) and 20th SG: Putting (3.228), including a -0.960 SGP in R4.

One hour and 42 minutes of golf was completed before the latest stoppage and players will be back in position on Sunday at 7:45 am. The good news, all 83 players are underway in R3, and Sunday’s weather forecast for Nicholasville, Kentucky, is showing sunny with just a 4 percent chance of precipitation. World No. 446 Sean O’Hair, playing this season on Past Champion status, is in the fourth-to-last threesome and has quickly moved to T5 with birdies on three of his first four holes. The Texan, who owns four TOUR victories in 396 events, most recently the 2011 RBC Canadian Open 219 starts ago, has been splitting time between the Korn Ferry Tour this season, 71st-ranked in The 25 with three top-15 finishes, and the main circuit, where he’s recorded three top 25s in nine events but no top 10s, and arrived 185th in the FedExCup standings.

The 39-year-old O’Hair matched his third-best finish in a KFT event and his highest finish in an official PGA Tour-sanctioned event since a T-4 at the 2020 Bahamas Great Exuma Classic at Sandals Emerald Bay. On the season, O-Hair has made three cuts in eight KFT starts with one other top 10 – a T-6 at the LECOM Suncoast Classic. He’s also made seven PGA Tour starts this season, making five cuts with three top-25 finishes including a T-16 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and a T-21 at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. He also recorded a T-7 finish at the unofficial QBE Shootout in December. O’Hair is in the field this week as the KFT season continues at the AdventHealth Championship, hosted by Blue Hills Country Club in Kansas City, Missouri.

As this will be O’Hair’s 14th appearance in the Arnold Palmer Invitational and first since 2018. With a tournament scoring average of 71.11, most will remember the 39-year-old for his play in the late 2000’s. Chopping it up with Woods in back-to-back final rounds of the API, O’Hair collected finishes of T-3 and runner-up. Since adding to his Bay Hill resume with top-10 finishes in 2014 and 2018, he arrives this season with some strong form. Racking up a top-20 result at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, he has since added a T-6 outing at the LECOM Suncoast Classic on the Korn Ferry Tour. Priced at $6,200 on DraftKings, O’Hair could make for an extremely cheap plug-in for those gamers looking to begin their lineups at the top.

The 39-year-old is making his 17th appearance in the event with one previous top 10, a T10 in the 2009 edition that was reduced to 54 holes. It’s just his third start of the season, first in the calendar year, and arrived 2-for-2 and off a season-best T22 at Bermuda 14 weeks ago. The Texan, who failed to meet the terms of a Major Medical Extension last season, also played the last two weeks on the Korn Ferry Tour, posting a missed cut and a mid-tourney WD. He was in the halfway top 10 eight starts ago at last season’s Rocket Mortgage (T6), which was his final start on the aforementioned medical, before fading to T32 (70-66-71-71). Today, O’Hair offset three squares with seven birdies and thru 36 holes, is currently T11 in Greens in Regulation (30/36) at 83.33 percent, and T25 in putts per GIR (1.667). See link below to post-round comments.

The 39-year-old Texan started his week on the host course and made an early splash when he eagled the par-5 second hole (9'7" conversion). From there, he did well to survive and scramble his way to six pars and a bogey before the turn. A three-jack bogey at the 10th could have soured his round but O’Hair bounced back with birdies on five of his final eight holes. The first three were splashed home from inside of eight feet but the most notable was a 34'3" bomb at the par-4 16th. O’Hair is playing his first PGA TOUR event of 2022 and arrived fresh off a missed cut and WD on the Korn Ferry circuit. He arrived with a 12-for-16 record at the AT&T Pro-Am but each of his last five visits has yielded finishes of T50 or worse. O’Hair is flipping those trends on their side but he’ll need to keep his foot on the gas for three more days. Next up is a showdown with the Shore Course at Monterey Peninsula.

The 39-year-old O’Hair secured one of his Shootout victories at Tiburon Golf Course with Stricker in 2018 (shooting 26-under 190 to beat Shane Lowry and Graeme McDowell by two strokes), and he won the other while teamed with Kenny Perry in 2012. Of note, the only other players to win the Shootout twice with different partners are Raymond Floyd, Fred Couples and Jerry Kelly. Perhaps Zalatoris, No. 32 in the world rankings, will provide a reboot for O’Hair, who’s made just two starts in the new season, finishing T-58 at the Fortinet and T-22 at Bermuda. Last season, O’Hair made eight cuts in 21 starts was 168th on the FedExCup standings. He had a best finish of T-9 in the Barracuda Championship, but O’Hair also notched a T-2 at last year’s Shootout with playing partner Kevin Na. Zalatoris has made five starts in the new season, starting strong with a T-11 at the Fortinet and T-14 at the Sanderson Farms, but missing cuts at the Shriners and Mayakoba.

The Texan opened his week with two birdies and a bogey on his first seven holes, starting on the 10th tee at Keene Trace Golf Club. Then at the 17th he found trouble with his approach shot and ultimately swallowed a triple-bogey 7 before withdrawing from the event. O’Hair has racked up a steady stream of mid-tourney WDs over the course of his career. Playing in his 384th career event, this is the 16th time he’s backed out early. O’Hair started the season on a medical extension but failed to meet the terms, making starts tougher to come by for the four-time PGA TOUR winner.