At the beginning of 2022, an PGA Tour record will not be guaranteed...
The Sentinel Championship was played in just three rounds, with world number one Joan Ram and Australian rookie Cameron Smith soaring a stunning -26 overall result and tied for the lead!
-26, which has set the second lowest total of 54 holes in PGA Tour history, just one stroke more than Patrick Reid's -27 after three rounds of the Heumana Challenge in 2014.
Ram and Smith tied for the lead
It is worth mentioning that Rhett only played -1 in the final round that year, that is, the final result of winning the championship was -28. And look at this week's Sentinel Championship in Hawaii, the wind and rain, the greens are soft, and all the famous players have directly hit the flagpole with the digging pole, resulting in the average number of strokes in the second and third rounds of only 67.816 and 67.711, which has refreshed the new low since the event moved to Maui in 1999, and Justin Thomas and Ram brushed the lowest single round in the history of the tournament with a single round of -12 in just 3 hours on the move day!
If this game is developed, the final victory of this week's Sentinel Championship is not only expected to easily surpass Red's -28 eight years ago (currently only 2 strokes), but even the PGA Tour's multi-year-old record of the lowest negative pole on 72 holes seems to be in jeopardy in front of the likes of Ram and Smith who saw the Buddha kill Buddha...
But how much is this lowest score record? There seem to be two different versions
In 2003, Els ranked second in the world
In the PGA Tour's official media brochure, the "Most Strokes Under Par in 72-Hole Event" was given to South Africa's Ernie Ayres. Coincidentally, this record was set precisely at the Sentinel Championship – to be precise, the name of the tournament was called the Mercedes Championship – and in 2003, Els beat Choi Kyung-joo and Rocco Mediat by 8 strokes at the Kapalua Resort in 2003, winning the PGA Tour's "Battle of Kings of Kings" crown, and also writing a low-par monument that had never been seen before the PGA Tour!
However, if only four rounds of 72 holes are counted, there are people who have a lower number of poles than Ayers.
At the 2009 Bob Hope Classic, American star Steve Streak scored -33 from the first round to the fourth round. According to the PGA Tour's press release at the time, he set a new PGA Tour's "Lowest 72-hole score"!
However, Stryker did not break Els's record. Why?
Stryker in 2009
The reason is that bob Hope Classic is an extremely rare 5-round 90-hole event on the PGA Tour. In fact, it was a pro-am matchmaking, with the first four rounds played at 4 different stadiums in California, and by the fifth round, all the pros competed for the championship through the 18-hole final day. Interestingly, although Stryker soared -33 in four days, he exploded a +5 77 in the fifth round, and finally only finished second, and could only watch his compatriot Pat Perez come in and win the championship with the same -33 strokes, but a total score of 5 rounds...
To sum up, if only the "lowest negative stroke of the 72-hole event" is counted, Ayers's -31 will be the record that Ram and Smith need to catch up with tomorrow morning (currently 5 strokes). But if you are talking about the "lowest negative par on 72 holes", Stryker's -33, and the "all-time gap" of 7 strokes from Ram and Smith, it is undoubtedly more difficult.
Therefore, it cannot be said that the PGA Tour's lowest score record is a "confused account", but different statistical standards have produced different answers.
Ram and Smith are about to storm history
But since the PGA Tour has officially "endorsed" Ayers's record, the media brochure does not even have the "lowest negative 72 holes" (and Streaker) statement, always based on the "72 hole lowest negative", Ram and Smith only need to shoot 67 (-6) in the final round to break this record that has been established for nineteen years - is this difficult for the two leaders? At least in the first three rounds, the two scored 66-66-61 and 65-64-66 respectively, all under the 67! It seems that a historic moment on the PGA Tour seems to be about to come out.
But Els's monument is still enough to go down in history. It is worth mentioning that not only the PGA Tour, but even the official "lowest score of 72 holes" of the European Tour is also held by South Africa's "Big Easy Brother"! Also in 2003, just 35 days after the Mercedes Championship set a PGA Tour record, the 33-year-old Els won the Johnny Medallion Classic in Australia with a -29 stroke, setting a Record for the European Tour that no one has yet matched.
Thomas scored a 59 in the single round of the 2017 Sony Open
In fact, the PGA Tour has another record for the lowest strokes: a fewest strokes in a single tournament, which is "the minimum total number of strokes added up from four rounds." This record, held by Justin Thomas , the 2017 Sony Open ( also in Hawaii with the Sentinel Championships ! ) , JT handed over a scorecard of 59-64-65-65 in four days , with a total of 253 strokes , and while winning the title , it also set a record for the least number of 72 holes in PGA Tour history! However, Thomas's overall negative stroke under par was -27 at the time, so it did not break Els's record.
So, is it possible for Both Ram and Smith to hit JT's record? The answer is rather slim. Because Thomas's standard par for that year's race was 70, and this week's Sentinel Championship was a standard of 73. The completely different stadium setting means that Ram and Smith need to shoot 60 on the final day, which is 18 holes-13 (the lowest score in a single round of the game is 1 stroke less) to match the monument of JT...
But golf is never impossible, Beijing time early in the morning, PGA TOUR will have several records will be broken, let's wait and see!
(Follow the Sentinel Championship Final.)
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