All Bill Haas wanted to do was cozy his 47-foot birdie putt into tap-in range at the 18th hole at TPC Louisiana so Team Haas could have a stress-free finish to the second round of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. So much for best-laid plans.
Bill’s putt stalled 4 ½ feet short meaning his dad, Jay, would have to sweat over a par putt in the alternate-shot format to make the cut of the PGA Tour’s lone two-man team event as part of the FedEx Cup season.
For Jay, 68, he’d been in this spot too many times and he delivered as he had on so many Fridays before.
“That was probably as nervous as I’ve ever been over a putt of that length certainly,” he said. “It sounds silly just to have a chance to make the cut. However, there’s a lot of circumstances here that it kind of made it doubly important in my mind.”
That included becoming the oldest player to make a cut on the PGA Tour, edging past Sam Snead, who made the cut at the 1979 Manufacturers Hanover Westchester Classic at 67 years, 2 months and 23 days.
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“I don’t think it should (count) because Sam Snead did it on his own and all that, but anything that I’m even remotely close to Sam Snead on would be very special,” said Haas, of Snead, who was in the field when he made his Tour debut at the 1973 Wyndham Championship.
Haas is making his 799th Tour start, second on the all-time list behind Mark Brooks (803). Among his other achievements he counts leading the record books with 591 made cuts. And Jay, who captained the 2015 U.S. Presidents Cup team, was no slouch in his prime, winning nine times on Tour and another 18 times on PGA Tour Champions, where he remains active.
On Thursday, young guns Collin Morikawa and Viktor Hovland were asked if they could imagine making 800 Tour starts.
“We’ve got a long ways to go,” Hovland said.
“No, I can’t imagine that,” Morikawa added.
“That’s cool. He must have seen some stuff,” Hovland said. “He must have some pretty good stories. That’s a lot of events.”
Team Haas opened with 7-under 65 at the Pete Dye-designed layout matching the best-ball score of Morikawa and Hovland, ranked second and fifth in the world respectively, and defending champions Cameron Smith (No. 4) and Marc Leishman.
On Friday, Team Haas signed for 1-under 71 and made the cut on the number, tying at 8-under 136 with World No. 1 and reigning Masters champion Scottie Scheffler and his partner Ryan Palmer.
“I was getting stretched this morning,” Bill said, “and Charley Hoffman was raving about how good (my dad) played yesterday, and I just kind of said, ‘Well, I see it all the time at home. This isn’t anything new.’ ”
Father and son got off to an auspicious start with birdies at the first two holes. Bill rolled in a 12-foot birdie putt at the first and his old man stuck a wedge to 4 feet at the par-5 second. A bogey at the third only slowed their progress momentarily as they continued to make hay on the par 5s, adding birdies at Nos. 7 and 11. That improved their score to 10 under and comfortably inside the cut line. But the trip to the house was shaky from there with bogeys at Nos. 14 and 17.
“I was grinding,” Bill said. “At 14, he hit an unbelievable hybrid in there on that par-3 and I ran it by five feet and we three-putted, and then the next hole he hit a beautiful 6-iron and I left that three feet short.”
Bill added: “It’s just hard when you’re trying so hard. It’s one of the hardest things to do in golf is to let that go and quit trying so hard and just execute.”
Bill, 39, won the FedEx Cup in 2011 and six Tour titles but none since 2015. He has struggled in recent years to keep his card and this season is using a one-time exemption for being top-25 on the all-time Tour money list. He entered the week at No. 168 in FedEx Cup point standings.
Father and son earned a chance to enjoy two more rounds together, and already have clinched the feel-good story of the week.
“To somehow shake that putt in on the last hole was something I’ll never forget,” Jay said. “But just the whole week, playing with Bill, getting texts from all my kids, it’s just been a real charge.”
