Rookie wins 1st start on PGA Tour
HONOLULU — Russell Henley has delivered big moments before, just not to this degree, and certainly not on this kind of a stage.
Not even three months after he celebrated getting a PGA Tour card, Henley made his rookie debut with a three-shot win Sunday in the Sony Open that will not be forgotten anytime soon because of the sheer numbers.
He birdied the last five holes to shatter the tournament scoring record by four shots.
His score of 24-under 256 was the second-lowest in PGA Tour history for a 72-hole event, two shots behind Tommy Armour III in 2003 at the Texas Open.
He set the Sony Open record for the 36-hole score (126), shared the 54-hole tournament record with fellow rookie Scott Langley (193) and set another tournament record with the lowest closing round by a champion at 7-under 63.
About the only time he looked like a rookie was when he walked off the 18th green and said, “I don’t really know what happened.”
What he did was play some really good golf and rode a putting stroke that was pure over four days at Waialae Country Club.
He made 26 birdies — 18 of them on the par 4s, the most at this tournament in the last 30 years — and a collection of pars equally important. Henley, a 23-year-old from Georgia, made a 15-foot par putt with a foot of break on the sixth hole, and another par putt from 10 feet on the 12th hole to stay two shots clear of Langley and Tim Clark.
