Tyrrell Hatton (-15) offered three hours of extraterrestrial golf this Friday in the second round of The Sentry. Probably the best of his entire career. It has been thirteen holes of absolute madness. A ‘Hattonada’. One of his own. He has signed a ten under par with nine birdies, an eagle and a bogey. A madness that started at hole 6. A new demonstration that when this player ignites, it is better to step aside. For better and for worse. He has that fabulous ability to take advantage of his good moments. He is not scared, he does not conserve, he does not save. Tyrrell keeps shooting because he knows that inspiration lasts as long as it lasts in this sport and you have to take advantage of it.
Hatton has handed in a card of 62 strokes at the Plantation course in Kapalua, eleven under par, the best of his career on the PGA Tour, and has positioned himself as provisional leader tied with Brendon Todd and Sungjae Im. It is worth delighting in the sequence: birdie at 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16 and 17, plus a bogey at 14 and an eagle at 18. The icing on the eagle has been simply exceptional, sinking a putt almost from England, from more than twenty meters. Spectacular.
We have to talk about ‘Hattonada’ because it is not the first time he has done something like this. Last year he recorded the best sequence in history in the last nine holes of THE PLAYERS. He made 29 strokes, seven under and, although it did not give him the win, it did allow him to finish second. He also signed an outstanding 62, ten under par, at the Old Course in St Andrews at the Alfred Dunhill Links in 2016. Hatton has always shown that he can do very low rounds, but above all he has a special ability to put on streaks from another planet.
As is logical, today he has done everything well. He has been better than yesterday from the tee, he has hunted all the greens except one and he has putted like crazy. He only needed 23 putts to complete his round. It was not a perfect round, but it was pretty close.
Hatton is one of the names that Jon Rahm has put on the table to incorporate him into his LIV Golf team. His signing has not yet been confirmed, although everything points to him being one of the chosen ones. They have paired up in the Ryder Cup and Jon has acknowledged more than once that he is one of the players he has the most fun with, not only on but also off the golf course. The Englishman plans to play the Sony Open and the Desert Classic in Dubai in the next two weeks. It’s as if he wanted to stock up on world ranking points in case he finally went with the Arabs.
Chris Kirk (-14), Matt Fitzpatrick (-13) or Akshay Bhatia (-13) have also moved up. In addition, Scottie Scheffler, Jason Day or Viktor Hovland, among others, who had not finished their round at the time of writing this article, are coming on strong. Again, one more day, you have to fly very low in Hawaii to be on top. The leadership is currently projected at thirty under par and not even -11 is enough to make a place in the top 10.
