Wesley

Bryan

The 32-year-old Bryan, who shot 66-78 to miss the cut last week at the Wells Fargo Championship, had nine birdies and one bogey on Monday and will be joined in the field at TPC Craig Ranch along with Conrad Shindler, Kyle Wilshire and Andrew Loupe, who all shot 66 and got in through a four-for-one playoff. The Bryon Nelson will mark the 12th start of the season for Bryan, who began the season with a medical extension but did not get the points needed to keep his card, exhausting his medical with a T-62 at the Valspar Championship. He is playing the rest of the year with Past Champion status (winner of the 2017 RBC Heritage). Bryan has made five cuts in 11 starts with his best finish being a T-15 at the Corales Puntacana Championship. Last year at TPC Craig Ranch, he finished T-26.

This duo started their day on the 10th tee and picked off four birdies before the turn. That included a 37'4" birdie bomb from Mullinax at the 12th. The highlight of their round would come after the turn, though. They swallowed a rare, four-ball bogey at the par-4 fourth but Mullinax holed out from the rough (96 yards) for an unconventional eagle at the par-4 fifth hole. “Wesley, he played great. There was a few times out there today we kind of didn’t know where it was going, but I thought we scrambled around really well. We hung in there. Our attitudes were good.” Bryan arrived with a 1-for-2 record at the Zurich, a T29 back at the 2017 edition while Mullinax is 2-for-3 here with a T31 in 2018 and T13 in 2019.

The South Carolina product fell 3.5 FedExCup points shy of conditional status when playing out the final start of his medical extension at the Valspar Championship. That drops him in the priority ranking but he will still find an occasional start via Past Champions status. In his first post-medical start, he snagged a top 15 at the Corales Puntacana Championship. It was his first top 20 since the 2020-21 Sanderson Farms Championship. Looking to build on that momentum, he’ll now head home to South Carolina for the RBC Heritage. It’s an event where he holds a 4-for-4 record with a win in 2017 and T25 last year as notable finishes. He said this back in 2017, “I love it. I’m not a super technical guy, so the guy that kind of imagines shots going both ways. I work the ball probably a little more than the average guy out here. This is a course when I looked at the schedule starting off that this is one of the places I thought that I had the best chance to contend at.”

Earning 29.406 FedEx Cup points in his five prior starts, Bryan is still in need of 95.354 points which translates to roughly a sixth-place finish. Finishing in a tie for seventh in 2017, the 31-year-old will hope the good vibes of five years ago come to life this week. As the beginning of his 2022 has been extremely disappointing, missing the cut at The American Express, WM Phoenix Open, and most recently, the Honda Classic. With his lone weekend appearance of 2022 coming at the Sony Open (T-27), Bryan has struggled both off-the-tee and on the greens. Posting -5.1 SG: Off-the-Tee in two rounds at TPC Scottsdale and -2.2 SG: Off-the-Tee at PGA National, he may take solace in his iron play at the Honda Classic. Posting +3.3 SG: Approach in the first start of the Florida Swing, this marked the world No. 523’s best iron performance since the Byron Nelson when he finished in a tie for 26th.

The 31-year-old, who circled six birdies versus four bogeys, is making his fourth appearance with one prior cash, a then-career-tying-best T4 on debut in 2017 during his rookie campaign, where he was T1 after 18 and 36 holes, respectively (64-67-72-70). Four starts later, he came from behind to win the 2017 RBC Heritage, still the only native South Carolinian to win the event in its now-53-year history, but has mustered just one more top-3 finish in 61 starts since (T3, 2017 John Deere). Bryan, who is playing this season on a Major Medical Extension (shoulder surgery in Jan. 2019) which dates to 2020 season, has two starts remaining on the medical, inclusive of this week, to earn 95.354 FedExCup points to meet the terms. This is his fifth start of the season, first since a missed cut two weeks ago at the WMPO, while his best is a T27 three starts ago at the Sony, where he was T40 after 18 holes (67-65-69-67).

In what will be his debut appearance in this tournament, Bryan hopes his late spring form can carry over despite the lack of reps. As before his hiatus, Bryan’s game appeared to be on the right track after recovering from a wrist injury. With finishes of T-25 at the RBC Heritage, T-48 at the Valspar Championship, and T-26 at the AT&T Byron Nelson, the South Carolina native looked strong. Perhaps being able to draw from those performances, the 2017 RBC Heritage winner is set to begin his ZOZO Championship at 10:20 a.m. local time alongside Branden Grace and Sebastian Munoz.

When the Colombia, South Carolina, native won on debut here in 2017 as a PGA TOUR rookie (60/1 outright), he became the first native South Carolinian to win the event, and still is. At the midpoint, he was T10, four back, before going on to a one-shot victory (69-67-68-67) over oft-runner-up Luke Donald. That remains Bryan’s lone TOUR win, which came in his 14th start as a member, and had arrived to the main stage off the battlefield promotion, winning three times on the Web.com Tour the prior season en route to the regular-season money title and Player of the Year honors. This season, he’s playing on a Major Medical Extension (shoulder surgery), and inclusive of this week, has nine starts remaining to earn 192.010 FedExCup points to meet the terms. On nine (of 14) fairways and 12 greens in regulation, the 31-year-old outflanked two bogeys at 14 (watered tee ball) and 15, with five circles at 11-13, 17 (hole-out from 27'11" away) and 7, and an eagle-3 at 2 from 8'11". He recorded 0.930 SG: Around and 2.997 SG: Putting, converting his four conventional circles from between nine and 54 feet. “I’ve played this place a lot growing up. It’s just one of the few stops even as a rookie I felt very comfortable from day one. Shoulder is great. Post-surgery I picked up a lot of speed and started actually striking the ball well for the first time in my career, which was nice.”

Bryan won this event in his 2017 tournament debut. It was his first time playing it on the PGA TOUR but the course was very familiar to the South Carolina native. “It’s crazy to think that all of the great golfers that have come out of the state not one of them has won here. But to be the first is really, really special. And like I said, to win in my home state, I honestly couldn’t have dreamed anything better than this.” He made his dreams come true in 2017 but has settled for finishes of T42 and T68 in two return trips. More recently, he’s lost 14.5 strokes tee-to-green in his last four rounds played so he’ll need to lean on course comfort, and not recent form, this week at Harbour Town GL.

Bryan came out swinging a hot stick when he returned from injury last summer but cooled off in the fall. He posted finishes of 31st or better in four of five events before missing back-to-back cuts just before the holidays. Bryan has made just one start in 2021, landing a top 35 at the Sony Open in Hawaii. Now he’ll head back to Riviera Country Club, a course he’s played two times on the PGA TOUR circuit. He’s gained a combined 6.6 strokes on approach in those six measured rounds, so the iron shots appear to fit his eye. Bryan currently ranks 58th on TOUR in eagle rate and 46th in birdies per round. Combine that with his top 5 finish back in 2017 and he becomes a viable value option for weekly gamers looking to save some salary.