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PALM HARBOR, Fla. – Down to his final start on his medical extension, Wesley Bryan said he was feeling the pressure as he straddled the cut line on Friday at the Valspar Championship.
“I usually don’t sweat out cut lines,” he said. “Yesterday felt a little different, for sure.”
Bryan, who missed five months last year with a wrist injury, made birdie at No. 7, his 16th hole of the day at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course, to improve to 3 under and right on the cut line, which came at 3-under 139, the lowest 36-hole cut in tournament history. But one hole later, he was in between clubs – deciding between 4-iron or hybrid – at the 224-yard par-3 8th and tried to cut a hybrid into the wind. He overcooked it long and left, 42 yards past the hole, across the cart path and under bushes.
“I was in a world of hurt over there in the left hedges,” he said.
But Bryan, who made a living performing trick shots with his brother, George, before making it on the PGA Tour, got on his knees and whacked it out and got up and down for bogey. Then all he did was rip a 3-wood to the left corner of the ninth fairway and wedged to 4 feet and made birdie.
“Bogey on the 17th hole was way better than the birdie on the last,” he said.
Bryan gathered himself and made the clutch birdie knowing full well he had to make the cut to have any chance of satisfying his medical and improving his status on Tour. In his final of 21 starts he was granted, Bryan needs a solo sixth to retain full status or a solo 51st to stay in the top 126-150 category. That Bryan, who had missed the cut in his last three starts, delivered with the proverbial gun to his head came as no surprise to his caddie, William Lanier.
“When he has to get something done, he gets it done,” Lanier said. “He’s got no quit. Even at his worst, he fights to the end. Rather than shooting 79, he’ll shoot 78.”
Where does that grit and determination with his back against the wall come from, Bryan was asked?…
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Source : yahoo
