Crowe's nest is The Glen Club

Writing from Glenview, Illinois

Saturday, July 29, 2023

Trace Crowe is a 26-year-old South Carolinian who went to Auburn, stands 797th in the world ranking, has yet to win a professional tournament of national scope, and has made about $225,000 in 31 starts on the PGA Tour – where he’s made two of three cuts – and the Korn Ferry Tour.

Start No. 32 might be his breakthrough. Crowe has stitched together rounds of 66, 64 and 63 at The Glen Club, including a closing 29 on Saturday, to earn the lead in the fifth NV5 Invitational with a round to play. Even at 20-under-par 193, his lead is only a stroke, with Ryan McCormick a stroke behind and Patrick Fishburn and Chris Gotterup two back. A rampaging horde of birdie-seekers follow.

One of those, Ben Kholes, is trying to win his third Korn Ferry tournament of the season. That would give him immediate promotion to the PGA Tour, where the money is about 10 times larger week-to-week. So Crowe’s sleep might be fitful.

Crowe has only three bogeys this week, against an eagle – Saturday on the par-5 first – and 21 birdies, 15 of which have been poured in on the back nine. Saturday, he needed only 22 putts.

To humans, The Glen Club is a difficult test. To these guys, it’s a big green dartboard. Overnight rains have softened the Tom Fazio layout, but still, 20-under through 54 holes seems like a typographical error until you realize how long the younger set hits it, and how precise their approaches are.

“I started struggling with my swing a little bit, but I was making everything on the green,” Crowe said. “I was just like if we can just manage this and get in the clubhouse, then go work on it after, that would be good. We got it, just made a lot of putts coming in.”

Crowe’s season has been curious. He squeezed into the Wells Fargo on the PGA Tour and finished 27th, winning $134,125 – that went with a tie for 63rd in the Honda Classic – but he’s missed seven of 11 cuts on the Korn Ferry Tour. Last week, he finished 44th and made $4,521.43. A big finish this week, even if it doesn’t include a trophy, would be huge.

“Just a revolving mystery, this game,” Crowe said. “It feels great just finally be in this position, to have a chance to win on Sunday. I'm excited, this is what you work for.”

As does everyone else in the field, including McCormick, who opened with an 11-under 60 on Thursday and nearly ended up out of the tournament on Friday. He somehow started the second round with a different version of the Titleist Pro V1 than he had played last year. The PGA Tour uses the one-ball rule, which means in a given round, you have to play the same model of ball. There are several different Pro V1s, and his 2023 model is different from the 2022 he teed off with.

“I was in the hotel putting around (Friday morning) and just threw it in my bag, didn't think of it,” McCormick explained. “I got up on 11 green and noticed it was different. So I played it on 10 and 11 and realized that I didn't have any other balls, because like the one-ball rule, can't play any other (type of) ball, so I had one ball to play.”

Literally, that one ball, the only one of that model he had.

“It was like insane,” McCormick said.

The insanity was only beginning.

“Hit it in the fescue on 12 and I'm honestly thinking (I’m) DQ’d,” McCormick said. “Like if I don't find this ball, like I'm going home.”

It was found, and eventually, a rules official was able to supply a handful more, including a couple cadged from Crowe, who was several groups away.

“Just tried to not lose it for like – I mean, it was insane. I mean, that aside, I'm just happy to be playing, it's nice. It was stressful.”

McCormick followed Friday’s insane 69 with a 6-under 65 on Saturday, and is in the final twosome of Crowe at 1:15 p.m. Sunday. Kohles starts at 12:31. Local notables include Vince India 12-under 201) at 10:05 a.m. and Daniel Hudson (13-under 200) at 11:15 a.m.

Live from Glenview

The unique aspect of the NV5 is the television broadcast on barstool.tv, the website of chats and podcasts that has dabbled in live sports in recent years. Perhaps it’s fitting that Barstool breaks into golf here, as the first broadcast of golf in television history was just a few miles away, the 1946 Tam O’Shanter carnival from Niles covered on WBKB-TV with one camera on the clubhouse roof using a telephoto lens borrowed from RCA.

Visually, the telecast resembles one from the early years of Golf Channel, or the early 1970s on network TV, albeit in high definition. PGA Tour Productions is supplying the pictures, enough cameras to document but missing the special aspects – close-ups on every tee, drone shots, etc. – that the biggest-budget productions have.

Still, you can see the ball, plenty of holes are covered, and the commentary by the Barstool crew has been expectedly irreverent while covering the tournament well. There have been plenty of player interviews, and some verbal surprises. Within 30 seconds of tuning in Thursday someone was talking about his bladder. Not even Gary McCord did that before he was banned from Augusta National over his “bikini wax” comment.

On Friday, when Tom Whitney missed a 4-inch putt on the back nine, the gaggle was in disbelief. “Jesus!” one of them yelped – sorry, we as yet can’t precisely identify who’s who in their seven-man crew. Another, perhaps Sam “Riggs” Bozoian, called it the shortest missed putt in history, clearly not knowledgable enough to recall the 1983 British Open, when Hale Irwin fanned on a putt at the lip of the cup in the third round. That whiff subsequently meant Irwin would miss tying winner Tom Watson by a stroke.

At one point Thursday, there were around 150 people watching through one of the outlets Barstool was employing. Ideally more are watching on the weekend, for the Korn Ferry Tour’s coverage on Golf Channel has diminished this year even as the quality of the golf has improved.

The Tour believes this could be a path to more coverage, and to a younger audience. In his memo on more pressing topics this week, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan wrote to the players, “We hope to come out of this test with a multi-event model that will provide fans with more opportunities to see live competition coverage of the Korn Ferry Tour in 2024 and beyond. Please tune in for a bit this week and let us know your thoughts.”

– Tim Cronin