Denny McCarthy showing eagle eye on both golf course and basketball court
Denny McCarthy isn't the most likely player on the PGA Tour to have two eagles in one round.
The 30-year-old from Maryland is regarded as one of the tour's best putters, but at 5 feet 8 he's one of the shorter golfers off the tee.
That didn't matter Saturday when he eagled the par-5 seventh and 15th holes to shoot a 4-under 68 at the Memorial Tournament. He is at 5-under for the tournament.
“It's pretty special, especially at this place when I'm not the longest to attack to the par-5s,” McCarthy said.
On 583-yard No. 7, McCarthy hit his drive 323 yards and drilled a hybrid 3 feet from the cup.
On the 564-yard 15th hole, McCarthy hit his second shot within 24 feet and made the putt.
“To pick up four shots like that on the par-5s is massive,” McCarthy said.
His putting did the rest on Saturday. He made a 13-foot birdie putt on No. 14 and sank par putts of 10, 9, 24, 11, 13, 14 and 10 feet, the last five on the back nine.
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“It's felt good in my hands for a month or two now,” McCarthy said. “To be able to pour that many in consecutively on the back nine like I did was really nice.”
It's the second time in his career that McCarthy has had two eagles in the same round. He did it at Wyndham in 2021. McCarthy was the second golfer to do it this week at Muirfield Village. Amateur Aldrich Potgieter eagled the seventh and 11th holes on Thursday.
McCarthy showed this week he's adept from long distances on the basketball court as well as the golf course. Several tour players arranged to have a 3-point shooting contest on an Ohio State practice court at the Schottenstein Center. McCarthy won it.
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That was his niche as a high school basketball player at Georgetown Preparatory School in Bethesda, Maryland.
“My junior year we had a really good team a lot of D-I players,” McCarthy said. “I was probably the eighth or ninth man to start the year. About a quarter of the way through the season, the coach found out that I could really shoot. Our point guard (Markel Starks) was going to Georgetown, and he was one of the best players in the area. I fit in well with the team just because he was able to drive and collapse two or three defenders and kick it out to me, and I fit in perfectly for that.”
McCarthy believes there's a correlation between his shooting ability and aptitude with the putter.
“I've got really good hand-eye (coordination), always have,” he said. “Kind of like a point-and-shoot mentality, being super reactionary. Basketball is probably my first love. I just loved shooting around as a kid. Our neighbors had a sports court, and in the winter, I would shovel their sport court for free just so I could shoot hoops.”
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Two eagles propel Denny McCarthy onto Memorial leaderboard
