[Photo: Mike Mulholland]
If to many Michael Brennan was a surprise winner of the Bank of Utah Championship, it was no shock to Brennan himself. “I know my parents showed me things I wrote in kindergarten what my dream job is,” Brennan said. “It was always to play professional golf and to do so on the highest level.”
It didn’t take long to tick that box.
Playing in just his third PGA Tour event and on a sponsor invite to boot, Brennan displayed a maturity and quality of play consistent with someone who knew they were born to play the tour.
Brennan rebounded from a two-shot swing on the 10th hole that dropped his lead from five shots to three over Rico Hoey by drilling a 382-metre bomb just short of the green on the par-4 12th that led to a birdie then nailed a 3-wood onto the green at the 285-metre par-4 14th, producing another birdie.
Brennan’s driver is a 9-degree Titleist GT3 with a Project X HZRDUS Smoke Blue RDX 70 TX shaft. Brennan used the club to not only led the field in distance at 359.9 yards (329.1 metres) and in strokes gained: off the tee, gaining more than seven shots on the field, but was reliable with it as well, hitting nearly 90 percent of his fairways.
Although there were some stressful moments that kept it from being a walk in the park, Brennan tried to keep it like a walk around his home course.
“[My manager tells me] treat it like it’s River Creek,” Brennan says of his home club in Virginia. “That was a course I grew up playing and have some really, really fond memories playing with my family, brother and a bunch of friends out there. That’s where I grew up basically was at the club. It’s a very calming and peaceful place to me. When I try to imagine I’m hitting shots, [it’s] just a 7-iron I would hit at River Creek. It makes me feel a little bit better out on the golf course.”
So does being a PGA Tour winner.
What Michael Brennan had in the bag the Bank of Utah Championship:
Ball: Titleist Pro V1
Driver: Titleist GT3 (Project X HZRDUS Smoke Blue RDX 70 TX), 9 degrees
3-wood: Titleist GT1, 14.5 degrees
Irons (3): Titleist T150; (4-5): Titleist T100: (6-9) Titleist 620 CB
Wedges: Titleist Vokey SM10 (46, 50, 54, 60 degrees)
Putter: Scotty Cameron by Titleist Phantom 7.2 tour prototype
