Opposite-field events like the Sanderson Farms Championship have developed a (justified) reputation for giving some of the PGA Tour’s rising stars a chance to shine.
But they also offer some of the Tour’s more experienced veterans a chance to turn back the clock and climb up the leaderboard once again - just ask defending champ Woody Austin. Through two rounds, David Toms is taking full advantage of just such an opportunity in Mississippi.
Toms has 13 wins to his credit, the most recent of which came at the 2011 Crowne Plaza Invitational. Since 2013, though, the 47-year-old has turned 38 starts into just three top-10 finishes; his best result last season came at the Puerto Rico Open, where he tied for fourth in another tournament staged while many of the game’s best play elsewhere.
An avid fan of the LSU Tigers, Toms is soaking up the SEC hospitality this week in nearby Jackson, Miss., playing his first 36 holes without a bogey. At 10 under, he shares the lead with John Rollins, another former PGA Tour winner looking to reignite his game. Toms closed with a final-round 65 en route to a T-14 finish at the McGladrey Classic in his most recent start and has successfully carried that momentum with him to the Magnolia State.
He wasn’t the only veteran showing signs of old form on Friday, though - even in his own threesome.
Toms played the first two rounds alongside Lucas Glover, whose U.S. Open triumph is now more than five years in the rear-view mirror and whose last win came in 2011. Rounding out the threesome, Padraig Harrington has not won since his major double-dip in the summer of 2008; his full-time PGA Tour membership has now lapsed as a result.
The three men combined to shoot 14 under in the second round, paced by Toms’ 6-under 66, and all three head to the weekend inside the top 15.
Make no mistake - golf remains a young man’s game, and this week the trophy could still go to a player like 26-year-old Nick Taylor or 27-year-old Robert Streb. But every now and then, those whose glory days have likely passed can show fans and players alike that they still have a little game left.
Such is the case through two rounds in Jackson, where the leaderboard at the halfway point feels more like 2004 than 2014.
