Across 3 events, 3 courses and just over 3 weeks, Tour pro is record perfect
Adam Long hits his tee shot on Thursday on the 9th hole at Port Royal Golf Course.
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Adam Long didn’t hit fairway metal, or hybrid, or iron. He didn’t hit a putter, either, though that would’ve been weird. Long hit the 1-wood. The big dog. The driver.
And to that, he deserves a hat tip. Long played things straight — as he played things straight.
Of course, he would. For 13 years, Long’s been an earnest, steady pro. He’s won once, in 2019, when he held off Phil Mickelson at the former Bob Hope event. He’s top-10’d seven times. He’s pocketed over $7 million. And he’s also been a straight shooter. This year, he ranks 13th on the PGA Tour in driving accuracy. So it was no surprise three and a half weeks ago when he hit a pair of fairways to finish his Shriners Children’s Open.
But then he didn’t stop. Last week, during the World Wide Technology Championship’s first round, Long hit all 14 fairways. Others did, too, though. The fairways at the Tiger Woods-designed El Cardonal course were generous. But then Long hit all 14 in round two. And round three. And his final round.
And dude became the first since Brian Claar at the 1992 Memorial Tournament to play all of an event’s par-4s and par-5s from the fairway.
“It’s something I’ll be able to say forever,” Long told PGATour.com. “Some sort of bragging rights or an interesting stat at trivia nights.”
What a nice segue. The two-event, two-course run had folks digging into the history books, where they found that Claar also held the mark for most consecutive fairways struck, at 59. Long was at 58. And he was playing this week’s Bermuda Championship.
Only there was a four-day gap between tournaments, and that must have been a whopper to sleep on, right?
A little, Long said. You don’t go 58 for 58 by being a bundle of nerves.
Pro achieves rare PGA Tour perfection: ‘Something I’ll be able to say forever’
“It’s been funny,” Long told the PGA Tour’s social media team, “some people are worried about talking to me about it. It’s something like, I feel like it’s basically over. I mean, it’s going to end here for sure this week. It’s a matter if it’s the first, second, third, fourth hole, somewhere in there because these fairways are much different than last week.
“I’m aware of it, but I’m not going to change my strategy, although I could, because the first hole here, you know, you could be pretty conservative. And also the second hole is a par-5, which I’m going to hit driver. But the fairway is like seven yards wide, so pretty unlikely to hit that fairway. Now if it meant more to me, maybe I would hit a 5-iron off the tee, but I could probably miss the fairway with that, too, so I’ll just swing at the driver and see what happens.”
Thursday and the Bermuda’s first round came. Long pulled a hybrid on the 438-yard, par-4 1st hole at Port Royal Golf Course. Fairway. He was tied with Claar. One more hole, the 553-yard, par-5 2nd.
Driver.
Long hit. He stood upright after contact. He waited.
Fairway.
There were some cheers, and the moment was captured by the Tour’s social media team. Long plucked his tee from the turf. He high-fived playing partners Dylan Frittelli and Sung Kang. He high-fived his caddie.
“Yeah, had everyone not come up and said something to me the last 24 hours, I probably wouldn’t think about it as much as I did,” Long said afterward. “But it was in my mind, for sure, to start. Hit a hybrid on the first, and then the second fairway’s really hard to hit. Luckily it was kind of into the wind so I hit a driver and hung in the fairway somehow and perfectly in the middle, so after that I was just kind of coasting.”
There was more. They play 18 holes, you know.
Long hit the 4th hole’s fairway. Sixty-one. (The 3rd is a par-3.) He hit the fairway on the 5th, 6th, 7th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th and 14th. (No. 8 and 13 are also par-3s.) Sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-four, sixty-five, sixty-six, sixty-seven, sixty-eight and sixty-nine. Notably, the 11th is a blind tee shot, and Long didn’t know at first.
“I felt bad for the media guys following me,” Long said afterward. “I told them a couple holes earlier, I’m like, one of these times you’re going to be able to get out of here; sorry about this. There’s a few lucky ones like on 11 and 12 that somehow stayed in the fairway, found the fairway.”
But then, yeah, he missed. It was going to happen.
On the 412-yard, par-4 15th, Long played from the longer grass. He said his 3-wood tee shot got caught up in the wind. He said it was relieving, understandably so.
But Long said it was all kinda fun, too. “Made Thursday a little more exciting than usual.” Players were reaching out. He also scored well. Long shot five-under 66, and he’s five strokes behind leader Alex Noren.
But Friday, Long starts at zero.
He missed the fairway on his final hole on Thursday.
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