Hayden Springer matches course-record 59, takes commanding lead at John Deere Classic

SILVIS, Ill. – He graduated from Byron Nelson High School and learned the game at the only course ever designed by Ben Hogan.

Perhaps, nothing in his past gave the outside world reason to suspect Hayden Springer could claim standing alongside such Texas golf royalty.

Yet, on the Fourth of July 2024, the 27-year-old, outwardly laconic Dallas-bred Springer earned standing among the rare pantheon of players who have notched a sub-60 round on the PGA TOUR.

And it came only as a mild surprise to those is his small circle of family and mentors when the PGA TOUR rookie calmly curled a 12-foot, 8-inch putt at TPC Deere Run’s 18th hole to complete a 12-under round of 59 early Thursday afternoon, thereby joining 12 others who have done the same.

“He has always had a mindset of being the best of the best,” Springer’s wife Emma said after watching her husband forge a four-shot lead (two, by the end of the day) with his monumental opening round of the John Deere Classic. “You don’t have to shoot 59 to be the best in the world, and you don’t have to be the best in the world to shoot 59, but certainly success and excellence and being the best he can be is a very high priority to him.

“It’s one of those days for anybody that is a huge career check of the box. He can say he did that.”

Certainly, Rosey Bartlett, the longtime – but now retired – director of instruction at Trophy Club outside of Dallas saw that desire and fire when Springer joined the storied club’s junior program 18 years ago.

“He’s just a wonderful young man,” she said Thursday from Texas. “He’s kind. He’s curious. But he is intensely driven. He’s a typical redhead, a little stubborn, but he’s just a great young man.”

Likewise, Michael Burns, who’s caddied for Springer off and on over a five-year journeyman’s search for a place on the PGA TOUR, has seen elements of a game strong enough to hold his own with the best.

“The first time I worked with him he shot a 61 in a Monday qualifier for (Korn Ferry Tour’s) Price Cutter Charity Championship, and I knew when he got his card I was going to work with him,” Burns said.

Since turning professional in 2019, Springer had taken a long road, with middling success, to claim that card. In 2022, the young Texan made nine cuts with five top-10 finishes in 12 starts on the PGA TOUR Latinoamérica (now part of PGA TOUR Americas along with PGA TOUR Canada). In 2023, he won twice with a pair of other top-10 finishes in seven PGA TOUR Canada events, but he made just one cut in four Korn Ferry starts that season.

Yet, Springer proved his mettle – and completed his mission to join the TOUR – with a T4 finish in the final stage of PGA TOUR Q-School presented by Korn Ferry in December. Tellingly, he did so only a month after his 3-year-old daughter Sage lost a long battle to the genetic chromosomal condition Trisomy 18.

That may be the best evidence of the determination and strength that Emma, Bartlett and Burns long saw in Springer.

“For him, to even be swinging the golf club is miracle,” Burns said. “I don’t know how I would be able to continue on. But I think since Sage has passed, he’s been on a mission. I know he misses her dearly. Her picture is his screen saver on his phone. The young man is on a mission, and he’s never one to quit.”

Added Springer: “It definitely tests you. You just find ways to work through it and continue to move forward. We have had some challenging things happen. But at the end of the day, I also want to compete. I love doing that.”

Thursday’s magnificent round was a much-earned reward, and also provided evidence of the perseverance and patience that carried the tough Texan through Sage’s loss, his journeyman’s sojourn and a rookie campaign with more downs than ups.

Following a solid start to the season that included a third-place finish in the Puerto Rico Open – one of five cashes in his first seven events – Springer endured a string of six straight missed cuts before four solid rounds resulted in a T10 finish at last week’s Rocket Mortgage Classic.

That followed a return to working with Bartlett, who identified some possible fixes after watching Springer struggle at THE CJ CUP Byron Nelson and Charles Schwab Challenge.

“He’d gotten a little out of kilter with his set-up, and we got him back to where he was in his set up,” Bartlett said. “The last few weeks we tried to get him comfortable with the things he’d done in the past, and he embraced them all. I thought a 63 or 64 was in there. I’m not sure I thought a 59 was in there yet. I’m just so thrilled for him because he putted great (Thursday), too.”

Indeed, Springer made 111 feet of putts and gained 3.746 putts on the field in the course of his morning round. He also averaged 304.5 yards off the tee, hit 14 greens and scrambled successfully on the other four.

Starting with an eagle on the par-5 second hole and finishing with a string of six birdies over his next seven, Springer blitzed the TPC Deere Run frontside with a John Deere Classic tournament-record 27. Six straight pars on the backside slowed his march to the second sub-60 round in TPC Deere Run history. But he relit his Fourth of July firecracker round with an 18-foot, 6-inch birdie roll at the challenging 15th hole, and after parring the signature TPC Deere Run 16th (a 166-yard par 3), set the stage for an eagle-birdie finish and the 14th sub-60 round in TOUR history – and the second in as many weeks.

He did it the hard way, holing out from 55 yards from the left rough at the par-5 17th. He moved to 18 with a chance to match Paul Goydos' magical 59 at TPC Deere Run in 2010. (Like Goydos, Springer played his round under lift-clean-and-place provisions.) A 308-yard drive to the right middle of the 18th fairway followed by a 153-yard approach to 12 feet, 8 inches put the big-hitting rookie in prime position for a piece of golf history. He drained it.

“I tried not to get ahead of myself, but I was thinking about it,” he conceded. “To pull it off feels pretty special.”

Springer has more work to do this week as he battles to improve his 127th place standing in the FedExCup chase.

“Tomorrow is a new day,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Come what may, the graduate of Byron Nelson High School and product of a golf course designed – along with Kathy Whitworth – by the Ben Hogan, has placed his name in golf history.