SAN ANTONIO — Corey Conners knows his way around the TPC San Antonio Oaks Course, as is evidenced by his combined 35-under par through his previous four starts at the Valero Texas Open.
The Canadian also secured his only PGA Tour title here in 2019, topping Charley Hoffman by two strikes to walk away with a $1.35M payday.
But golf is a fickle game, and even with all his success at the Greg Norman design, Conners looked the part of a newbie when he was putting on the par-3 16th hole during his second round on Friday.
Conners four-putted from 55 feet on the short hole, needing three putts to get home on the final four feet.
3 putts from 4 feet.
Corey Conners drops to 6-under after the double bogey but still co-leads @ValeroTXOpen. pic.twitter.com/oB4tFVmG5z
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 31, 2023
“It was just really windy. Yeah, just caught a bit of a gust on the first putt. Yeah, a little mindless trying to knock in my bogey putt and it got away from me as well. They both seemed to turn a little right from opposite sides of the hole,” Conners said. “I think the wind kind of got the first one a little bit and the second one maybe wasn’t the best putt. It happens. I feel like I’m rolling it well. I made a nice bogey putt on the next hole to kind of get back in rhythm, good birdie putt on 18.
“Yeah, that was an unfortunate blemish on the card, but it happens.”
Despite the double bogey, Conners was right in the thick of things, sitting just behind Patrick Rodgers through much of the early afternoon.
It’s been a solid season thus far for Conners, who has six top-25 finishes in 10 starts. He’s already in the field at Augusta National next week, so he doesn’t have the same pressure he had when he won the event in 2019, marking the last Monday qualifier to win on Tour.
Last week during the final World Golf Championships event, Conners won two of three matches and built some momentum, beating Davis Thompson and Sepp Straka. His only loss came to Cameron Young, who finished second in the match-play tournament.
“I took a lot of confidence from last week,” Conners said. “I didn’t end up making it through my group, but felt like my game was really solid and liked a lot of the things that I was doing there. Just tried to keep those thoughts going this week. Halfway through and in a decent spot, looking forward to keeping it going on the weekend.”
