Tyrrell Hatton was nearly flawless Friday in Maui.
The Englishman made 10 birdies and an eagle during the second round of the Sentry at Kapalua’s Plantation Course as he vaulted up the leaderboard with a 62.
His 96-foot eagle putt on the final hole brought him into a share of the lead at the time at 15 under before eventually finishing the day one back of Scottie Scheffler.
Of course, we said “nearly flawless” as the Ryder Cup star did have one bogey on his card, coming on the drivable par-4 14th hole. Hatton is just the third player in the last decade at the Plantation Course to shoot 62 or lower with a bogey, according to stat wiz Justin Ray.
The lone bogey came amid a scorching-hot back nine when he made six of his 10 birdies and the eagle. He even played the final four holes after the bogey in five-under, but that didn’t stop him from lamenting the dropped shot afterward.
“It was a nice way to bounce back after making bogey on 14,” Hatton said. “Just one of the easiest holes out here and, yeah, definitely pretty frustrated walking on to the 15th tee.”
Hatton’s drive at the 295-yard uphill par-4 left him just about 25 yards to the pin, but he missed it left of the front left greenside bunker and short-sided himself.
His second shot carried the bunker but still was short of the green in the rough. His third suffered a similar fate, hanging in the collar, 15 feet short of the hole.
That led Tyrrell Hatton to do some very Tyrrell Hatton-like things.
He raised his wedge and slammed it into the turf where the ball was, twice. Then he stomped on it, twice with his right foot, then again with the left before the NBC Golf cameras cut away to another part of the course.
Of course, he got his next shot up and in before catching fire down the closing stretch, but you’d hardly know he shot 62 in his postround interviews.
“Long game didn’t feel that great, I’d say it’s pretty rusty,” he told Golf Channel. “My body doesn’t feel that great.”
When he was reminded he just shot 62, his response was perfectly on-brand for the fiery 32-year-old.
“I know yeah, but I’m good at being negative so I’m just going to roll with it.”
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Hatton can be as negative as he wants after a round where he vaulted 23 spots on the leaderboard and beat an already insane course scoring average (67.47) by more than five strokes.
But as he revealed later on in his press conference, he had good reason for feeling less than 100 percent, physically.
“I think traveling from England, the 25 and a half hours, door to door, and my body still, I wouldn’t say I looked after myself in the December period, maybe that played a part,” he said with a smirk. “Yeah, so [my] body hasn’t been moving well.”
Hatton flew from London to Maui through Los Angeles, but he had a very relatable airline delay during his layover.
“We had a three-hour stopover in L.A., sat on that plane for 90 minutes and it went technical, so you have to get off that plane, wait another hour and a half to get on another plane,” he said. “Then you fly from L.A. here and land, yeah, about four hours later or three hours later than you had planned.
“I think we landed about 11:30 Saturday evening.”
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Even five days later, he was still feeling the effects of jetlag, even as he opened with a four-under 69, which was still about a quarter-of-a-shot above the course scoring average for the day.
And Friday, he still wasn’t happy with how he was hitting it. But where he was hitting it was working.
“I’m sure if you had seen some flight tracers of some of my tee shots you would be disgusted,” he said. “They’re kind of going into not-too-bad of spots.
“I guess it shows how much of a stupid game it is.”
As Forrest Gump says, “Stupid is as stupid does” and Hatton will play the final group Saturday with Scheffler and Brendon Todd. However, even after this week, he won’t have much time to get his body back to normal.
“Pray for my body these next six weeks because I’m playing Sony next week, and flying straight from there to Dubai, and Dubai for six days, and flying back to Orlando for five days, before flying back to West Coast,” he said. “I mean, I’m a plank of wood as it is, by the end of that trip it’s going to be brutal.”