Myrtle Beach Classic Round 1: Brandt Snedeker Shoots 64 at Dunes Golf and Beach Club and the Whole Thing Just Got Interesting

Professional golf runs two tournaments simultaneously this week: the Truist Championship at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, where the Tour’s elite Signature Event field is competing for $20 million and FedExCup implications, and the ONEflight Myrtle Beach Classic at Dunes Golf and Beach Club, where a different kind of story is running.

Brandt Snedeker shot 7-under 64 Thursday at Dunes and leads the Myrtle Beach Classic by one shot over Mark Hubbard. Snedeker is 45 years old. His last PGA Tour victory came in 2018, nearly eight years ago. He had sternum surgery in the intervening period. He has spent the last several years on the fringe of Tour relevance, playing on exemptions and sponsor invites and the accumulated goodwill of a career that includes nine wins and a fedora that has become as much a part of his brand as any single shot he’s ever made.

On Thursday at Dunes Golf and Beach Club, he looked like the Snedeker who won those nine times.

The Myrtle Beach Classic’s Specific Stakes

The opposite-field event does not carry the FedExCup weight of the Signature Events, and its $4 million purse reflects that reality. What it carries, for the players who are not in the Truist field, is something more specific and more urgent: the winner receives a PGA Championship exemption. Next week’s major at Aronimink Golf Club in Pennsylvania will include the Myrtle Beach Classic champion in its field. For players who are not otherwise in the PGA Championship — which describes most of the Myrtle Beach field — that exemption is worth considerably more than the $720,000 first-place check.

Snedeker is not currently in the PGA Championship field. His ranking and exemption status don’t qualify him. Win Sunday, and he goes to Aronimink. That’s the story sitting underneath the scorecard that said 64 on Thursday at Dunes.

What 64 Actually Means From a 45-Year-Old

Dunes Golf and Beach Club is a Donald Ross design that rewards precisely the things Snedeker’s game has always done best: shot-making from 125-175 yards, scrambling from slightly awkward lies around the greens, and the kind of methodical par-preservation on the holes that don’t offer birdie opportunities. His 64 was not a bomb-and-gouge round. It was seven birdies built on iron play that produced proximity numbers ranking second in the first-round field, converted by a putting stroke that looked Friday like it had recovered everything the sternum surgery interrupted.

Mark Hubbard at 6-under is the closest pursuer. Beau Hossler and Kevin Roy are at 5-under. The Myrtle Beach leaderboard entering Friday reflects the specific quality of player that opposite-field events attract: legitimate PGA Tour professionals who are not in the Signature Event for reasons of ranking or eligibility, playing for a first-place check that matters and an exemption that matters more.

Snedeker leads them all. At 45. Eight years removed from his last win. With a PGA Championship invitation waiting at the finish line. Some sports stories write themselves. This one appears to be writing itself in 64-stroke increments.