'Always cool': Despite miscue, Sam Ryder happy with birdies record at Players Championship
If golf only meant a birdies contest, Sam Ryder would have lifted The Players Championship's famed golden trophy Sunday night.
But it isn't. So the Atlantic Beach resident has to be content with possession of a Players record that had endured for 30 years.
"That just goes to show it was an emotional roller coaster, but it's cool," he said. "It's always cool to have a record."
The wind and water of The Other Par 3 on the Players Stadium Course back nine, the short but soggy 13th, shoved his tee shot into the drink and derailed Ryder's ride toward a top-10 finish at The Players Championship during Sunday's roller-coaster final round.
Ryder still came away with a 68 for the round and a total score of 10-under 278, his best in five visits to The Players. And he surpassed the all-time record of 27 birdies in a tournament, surpassing the 26 birdies made by Fuzzy Zoeller in 1994.
But non-birdies — two double bogeys earlier in the tournament and a devastating triple bogey at the 13th — kept him off the pace of the leaders, 10 strokes behind eventual champion Scottie Scheffler.
At 13, Ryder thought he knew what to expect from the wind when he took aim at the green on the northeastern corner of the Stadium Course. As it turned out, he guessed wrong, coming up short and watching as his ball splashed down. Compounding the miscue was a three-putt once he did reach the green, tumbling down the leaderboard from 14 under to 11 under.
"The wind was really swirly today," Ryder said. "It went from being west-southwest to east, southeast, northeast at times. It switched kind of halfway through the round. We knew that. I, honestly, made what I felt like was a really good committed swing there, and you could just see the ball just got stood up by the wind. Unfortunately, it came up short.
"But that's what happens out here. That's why it's tough."
For a sliver of the afternoon, when a seven-birdie streak launched him to within four strokes of the lead, Ryder even looked like penetrating the top five.
Ryder birdied five of his first six holes (Nos. 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6) to go out in 31, then added birdies on the 10th and 11th to open the back nine before the trouble on 13. He closed with two more bogeys at 17 and 18 to slip outside the top 10.
Still, the weekend closed with much to celebrate for Ryder, who achieved his best result to date at The Players. He had missed the cut in his first two appearances, then tied for 60th in 2022 and for 44th in 2023.
"Heard a lot of fans in my corner," he said. "Always pushes you through, especially when you maybe have some bogeys and some down holes, it kind of keeps pushing you, makes you want to keep fighting."
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Players Championship 2024: Sam Ryder sets birdies record with 27
