Sam Horsfield’s career best on the European Tour is a 62, shot in the final round of the Scandinavian Invitation last August. Yet the 23-year-old Englishman can go lower, as his scorecard from a recent round at Streamsong Black in Florida would indicate.
A 59 to brighten your Sundays, courtesy of @hr59sam đź‘Ź pic.twitter.com/jfanDCkUrw
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) May 31, 2020
Suffice it to say that’s an awful lot of circles beside his name. A front-nine 29 included five birdies and an eagle, which he duplicated while shooting a back-nine 30. Given the par of 73 for the course, that amounts to a 14-under 59, an accomplishment that’s never been achieved in a PGA Tour or European Tour event.
Shooting a 59 anywhere is impressive, but to do it at Streamsong Black is pretty amazing considering a few things about the Gil Hanse course that opened in 2018. Golf Digest architecture writer Ron Whitten has described the course’s putting surfaces as “the boldest, biggest set of greens in North America.”
And that eagle 3 on the par-5 fourth hole is something we only wish we could have seen. We don’t know if Horsfield was playing from the tips, but if so, the hole feels way longer than the 601 yards listed on the card thanks to a very elevated green.
We’ve got to wonder, too, whether the wind that frequently serves as the course’s best defence was down a bit given not just Horsfield’s score, but that of two of his playing partners. (Sierra shot a five-under 68 and Gordo four-under 69. How would you like to have posted those pretty nifty rounds only to get trounced by Horsfield?)
Horsfield, currently 222nd in the World Rankings, opened his 2020 European Tour season with a 64 but in seven starts had made only three cuts.
