Through 10 holes of his second round on Friday at the Humana Challenge, Ryan Palmer had to feel like shooting the tournament’s second-ever 59 was a mere formality. After all, Palmer was 10 under to that point in the round, with six birdies and two eagles in an eight-hole run after a pair of opening pars at the Nicklaus Private course in the California desert.
However, playing back to front, Palmer stumbled with consecutive bogeys on his 11th and 12th holes of the round. Palmer recovered with three birdies in the final six holes, which, without the bogeys, would have gotten him to 59. Instead, he ended up with 11-under-par 61.
“You have that feeling inside you that there’s no way I can miss this,” Palmer said. “You get in that zone. They could put that pin anywhere they wanted and I could have found it.”
While Palmer didn’t match David Duval’s final-round 59 from 1999, he did set a PGA Tour record for the longest birdie-eagle stretch. Palmer’s front-nine 27 was a shot shy of Corey Pavin’s PGA Tour mark for the lowest nine-hole total.
Although Palmer didn’t get to the happy side of 60, he did get on the very happy side of the cut line. Palmer’s second round jumped him from 82nd place into a tie for seventh, just three shots back of 36-hole leader Matt Kuchar.
Ryan Ballengee is a Yahoo Sports contributor. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.
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Devil Ball Golf – Golf – Yahoo Sports
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