Holmes shoots 10-under 62 on Doral course
DORAL, Fla. — J.B. Holmes said one thing. His score said another.
He never liked the old Blue Monster at Doral because he felt it was too easy to be hosting a World Golf Championship. Those events were supposed to be difficult and yet the two previous times he played the Cadillac Championship, the winning score was 17- and 18-under par.
“It’s a very difficult golf course,” Holmes said.
He was serious. And he had just posted a 10-under 62 that matched the tournament record. He had a four-shot lead, the largest on the PGA Tour in just over two years. And he had a simple explanation.
“I was able to hit the shots where I envisioned and hit good shots, and today the putter was on,” Holmes said. “Put that combination together, you do everything pretty good, you’re going to shoot a good score.”
He pictured a 362-yard drive on the 10th hole, an iron into the green on the 616-yard par 5 and a two-putt for birdie. OK, the 35-foot birdie putt on the next hole was a surprise. And then after a 376-yard drive, again with the wind at his back, on the 603-yard 12th hole, Holmes pictured a 6-iron that might be enough to get over the bunker and possibly stay on the green. It stopped just under a foot away for a tap-in eagle.
It was like that all day.
Holmes finished with an 8-foot par putt on No. 9, which he said was “about 5 feet” longer than any other par putt he faced all day. The 62 gave him a four-shot lead over Ryan Moore, who made double bogey on his last hole for a 66.
“Ten under? You’re joking,” Shane Lowry said after a hard-fought 71.
It was no joke to Rory McIlroy, who shot 40 on his opening nine and rallied to salvage a 73.
Phil Mickelson shot 74 and failed to make a birdie for the first time in 186 rounds on the PGA Tour, dating to the final day at Olympic Club in the 2012 U.S. Open.
Holmes last played at Doral in 2010, missing time with injuries, not the least of which was surgery to remove a piece of his skull in 2011. Gil Hanse renovated the Blue Monster to make it more sensational with so much water hugging the fairways and greens.
The average score was 73.4, meaning that Holmes was more than 11 shots better than the field, the best standard of a great round. His 62 matched the tournament record set by Bubba Watson at Doral in 2012, and Sergio Garcia and Retief Goosen at Mount Juliet in Ireland in 2002.
McIlroy’s standard is slightly off at the moment.
