FARMINGTON — By the luck of the draw — although the odds were in their favor as Monday qualifiers are often paired together — former BYU golf teammates Carson Lundell and Tyson Shelley played the first round of the Korn Ferry Tour’s Utah Championship together Thursday and will do the same thing in Friday’s second round.
Neither Utahn was willing to admit that the comfortable pairing was the sole reason why they played outstanding golf at rain-softened Oakridge Country Club, but both agreed that it certainly didn’t hurt.
“I didn’t play very well today. Didn’t hit it very good. Had one kick 20 yards left out of bounds, and then had one stay in a tree. So there was some weird stuff that went on out there.” — Former BYU golfer Patrick Fishburn.
“I would definitely say it helps settle the nerves, and you feel a little bit more comfortable,” said Lundell, a newly minted pro who fired a 7-under 64 Thursday and was tied for fourth place when play was halted due to darkness.
“I was really comfortable with the group I was in,” said Shelley, while also noting that Lundell’s caddy, Max Brenchley, is also his BYU golf teammate and made it feel like a home game for the Cougars.
Shelley made a couple clutch up-and-downs on holes 17 and 18 to finish at 6-under 65 and is tied for seventh.
“Everything was so exciting,” said Shelley, a Skyline High product, of the amateur’s first appearance in a pro event. “The adrenaline was up and it was so great to be here.”
Former Utes Blake Tomlinson and Mitchell Schow were also paired together Thursday but weren’t able to tee off until well after 5 p.m. because of more than 150 minutes of weather delays. Schow, also a Monday qualifier, and Tomlinson, a PGA Canada Tour regular who is playing this week on a sponsor exemption, were at 2-under (Schow) and 1-under (Tomlinson) when darkness fell, having completed 12 holes.
In all, seven products of Utah high schools teed it up Thursday, playing through two weather delays. The interruptions started early.
Play was suspended at 8:40 a.m. for exactly an hour because heavy rains had made the course unplayable. The tournament was halted again around 2:20 p.m. due to lightning in the area, not resuming until 4 p.m.
Former State Amateur champion Zac Jones, also a BYU golfer from Lone Peak High, shot a 2-under 69 and was tied for 78th. It was quite the up-and-down round for Jones, who made six birdies and four bogeys.
For BYU’s Shelley, the comfortability went beyond playing with a BYU teammate. The Shelleys are members at Oakridge, and he has a lot of familiarity with the course.
It was quite a day for the family, as Jackson Shelley finished second and Austin Shelley T8 in a national junior tournament at Glenmoor GC in South Jordan.
One of the pre-tournament favorites — if such a label exists on the Korn Ferry Tour, which bills itself as the pathway to the PGA Tour — was Patrick Fishburn, the former BYU golfer from Fremont High who lost in a playoff last week in the Chicago area and entered with plenty of momentum.
But the 6-foot-3 Fishburn could never quite get it going Thursday, and shot a 72.
“I didn’t play very well today. Didn’t hit it very good,” Fishburn said. “Had one kick 20 yards left out of bounds, and then had one stay in a tree. So there was some weird stuff that went on out there.”
The lost ball in the tree came on No. 15 and forced the affable Fishburn, No. 15 on the KFT points list, to make the “walk of shame” back to the tee box.
“That is the best walk in golf, right there, walking back to the tee (after a lost ball),” he quipped, tongue in cheek, while holding his young son, Bo.
Fishburn said he changed the setting on his driver before his round because he thought it would rain all day, “which is not a good setting when it is not raining. … That wasn’t a good idea.”
He now finds himself needing to go low on Friday to make the cut, after entering with the notion that another strong tournament in his home state — he tied for second last year at Oakridge — would secure his PGA Tour card for 2024.
Fishburn predicted the cut will come at 5- or 6-under par, “depending on what happens with the wind.”
When the rain stopped mid-morning and golfers returned to the soggy course, conditions were rather benign and the scores showed it. It got breezier in the afternoon, when the former Utes and former PGA Tour regular Daniel Summerhays (-1) of Farmington were on the course.
Sweden’s Tim Widing, a KFT rookie who played collegiately at San Francisco, shot a 9-under 62, his career-best, to seize the first-round lead. Widing made nine birdies, no bogeys, and says he was “never in any real danger” of making a bogey aside from a 12-footer for par on No. 1.
“I have been playing really well the last couple of weeks, but just haven’t been scoring well,” said the lanky Swede who is No. 34 on the points list. “But today I had a hot putter. I made a lot of putts.”
He also had a battle with a bee, which somehow got inside his pants and stung him on his left leg as he got ready to hit his approach on the 17th fairway.
“So I had to take my pants off and it flew right off, and I was able to hit the wedge to 3 feet and made birdie after that,” he said.
Wait, what?
Widing asked his playing partners if he should hide in the trees before dropping his drawers, but they told him to do it right there, so he did. Later, he said his leg was “swollen” but he was hoping he isn’t allergic to bees. He planned to apply ice and figured he would be OK.
“If getting stung by a bee is required to birdie 17 and 18, I will take it,” he said.