Summerhays, and the birdies are easy

    Writing from Silvis (a.k.a. Birdieville), Illinois
    Saturday, July 13, 2013

    For sale: One Monaco motorhome, owned by PGA Tour player Daniel Summerhays.
    Reason: The oldest of his three boys is about to start school, and the Summerhays clan is flying more than motoring these days.
    Summerhays’ next stop may demand air travel. He holds a two-stroke lead in the John Deere Classic with 18 holes to play, and while no lead at TPC Deere Run is safe, Summerhays has shown over the course of the first three rounds that he knows how to go low.
    Saturday, he went lower than anyone else, firing a 9-under-par 62 for a 54-hole aggregate of 19-under-par 194, setting the pace two strokes ahead of Canadian David Hearn (64 for 196), and three ahead of Zach Johnson (67 for 197). If the old standard of anyone within five strokes of the leader at daybreak Sunday having a chance holds true, only seven players are within striking distance of Summerhays, who says he’ll go to the British Open on Sunday night’s Deere-arranged charter if he wins.
    The flip side is that Summerhays has not yet won on the PGA Tour. His greatest triumph as a professional so far came six years ago with a win on the then-Nationwide Tour.
    This is a bigger stage, with greater rewards and greater pressure. Summerhays has felt it before. In last year’s Mayakoba Classic, a tournament in Mexico played opposite the World Match Play in Tucson, Summerhays owned a two-stroke lead going into the final round.
    He scored 2-over-par 73, the highest final round score of anyone finishing 60th or better, and ended up tied for fifth, three strokes behind John Huh, who beat Robert Allenby in a playoff.
    Been there, done that? So far, it’s more like been there, haven’t done that for Summerhays. But Sunday may be the day. Certainly, he has a positive attitude.
    “Make as many birdies as you can,” Summerhays said of his game plan. “In the past, if I’d miss a five-footer, I’d think, ‘What a blown opportunity.’ Now I just chuckle. It was Bobby Jones who said, ‘There’s never been a round of golf that couldn’t have been better.’ So I just pick myself up and go on to the next hole.”
    That was easy on Saturday. Summerhays birdied the first two holes, then eight more holes in the course of the final 15 to splatter his scorecard with red numbers. Other contenders were doing the same – amateur Patrick Rodgers led for 15 minutes in the middle of his birdie binge, only to see Johnson overtake him, and Summerhays overtake him in turn – and he knows more of the same is in order in the final round, along with par saves similar to those he authored on the 12th and 14th. But he doesn’t have a specific number in mind, not even another 62.
    “Just play each hole, each shot,” Summerhays said.
    Hearn did that en route to his 64.
    “My goal is to keep doing what I’m doing,” Hearn said.
    But not go crazy on a course where the scores are crazy.
    “My mentality is not to be overly aggressive,” Hearn said. “I’m not going to take chances I would not normally take. I’m really not going to think too much about trying to catch him or things like that. I’m really just going to keep the mindset I had today: do my best to stay aggressive with the wedges and the short irons and give myself as many opportunities as I can.”
    As will Johnson, the John Deere Classic board member who won in a playoff last year.
    “I know Daniel is up there,” Johnson said. “David Hearn? It seems like he’s knocking on the door too. Both of them are great players. I hope they’re intimidated, but I doubt that’s going to be the case. I’m not a very intimidating figure.”
    Johnson is modest, perhaps forgetting the 60-footer he made for eagle on the par-5 second hole, though he did make two bogeys in the third round. The first ended his par-or-better streak on the course at 42 holes, including his birdie on the second hole of last year’s playoff.
    Playoff? One on Sunday night wouldn’t be a surprise at all. Not when Nicholas Thompson throws a 64 on the scoreboard to stand five back or Morgan Hoffmann posts a 63 to climb within seven. This kind of thing happens all the time at Deere Run. (Though if Hoffmann won, it would go against precedent. He opened with a 3-over 74, and no player scoring over par in any round has won since David Frost did so in 1992 at Oakwood Country Club.)
    Summerhays’ change in viewpoint comes in part because of his family. Traveling with wife Emily and having three boys in five years grounds someone to handle the highs and lows.
    “My three little boys would love for me to hold that John Deere trophy,” Summerhays said. “It’s their favorite stop of the year. You can’t stay angry around them. You have to teach them along the way.”
    Five-year-old Jack’s imminent start of school means selling the Monaco, which has but 77,000 miles on it over the last 4 1/2 years. And it’s meant flying to tournaments, an adventure in inself.
    “Right now, the thrill of a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old on an airplane and in a hotel is unmatched,” Summerhays said.
    He’d love to find out how crazy it would be in the winner’s circle.

    Mr. Rodgers’ Neighborhood

    Patrick Rodgers of Avon, Ind., will be a junior at Stanford in the fall.
    For a while on Saturday, there was a distinct possibility he would return to the Farm as a PGA Tour winner, the first amateur to accomplish the feat since Phil Mickelson won in Tuscon in 1991.
    Rodgers led for a quarter-hour on Saturday after a birdie binge brought him to 13 under through a dozen holes. Then a quintet of pars held him in check as 11 players, led by Daniel Summerhays, passed him by. The winner of the 2010 Western Junior is tied for 12th and seven strokes back entering the final round.
    “I took advantage of all the birdie holes on the front nine and was hitting the ball well, converting on the putts,” Rodgers said. “A little disappointed with the way I finished, but it’s kind of a new experience for me, so it was nice to be in the mix for a little bit.”
    He’s not completely out of it, not with rounds of 67-69-65 for his total of 15-under 201. He doesn’t have to worry about losing money with a bogey, so he can freewheel it.
    “Each time I play out here I gain more experience, I get more and more comfortable,” Rodgers said.

    Around Deere Run

    Remember how Kevin Streelman, the pride of Winfield, was only two off the pace after 36 holes? It’s a distant memory now. Streelman scored even par, effectively give up about three shots to the field and 10 to the leaders. He’s tied for 24th at 10-under 203 and nine back of Summerhays going into the final round, and starting more than two hours before him. Streelman did go the longest before surrendering a bogey: 44 holes. ... Crystal Lake’s Joe Affrunti scored 2-under 69 and is at 205 after three rounds. ... Three-time winner Steve Stricker’s 2-under 69 felt like a million to him after a blah front nine. “It was frustrating and testing my patience,” Stricker said. ... The stroke average of 68.236 was 2.764 strokes under the par of 71. Only three holes played over par, with the par-3 seventh at 3.00 precisely.

    – Tim Cronin