Matthew Wolff struggling early at the American Express
We are only at the turn for Matthew Wolff at the American Express, but the young phenom is struggling early in his first tournament of 2021. Plenty of people picked him to win, and are definitely feeling nervous early on.
It started on the first par 3 of the day at the 4th hole. He blew past the green on his tee shot and followed it up with a chip that wasn’t that great. He missed the 19-footer for his first bogey of the day, and unfortunately, it was the start of a bogey streak.
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For a big hitter like Wolff, you would think he would be able to make up for it on the par 5 5th hole. Maybe he was trying too hard off the tee box, as he pulled it a bit and put it in the drink. Having to drop just 50 yards from the tee box, he couldn’t get to the green in two from there and would make another bogey.
The left pull off the tee box would continue on the par 3 6th hole, as he missed to the left of the hole by over 30 yards. A great chip got him just outside ten feet, but he couldn’t convert and made bogey once again.
Matthew Wolff was now staring at three straight bogeys on his scorecard.
He saved it from being four straight with a wonderful up and down from the greenside bunker at the 7th, knocking it to just five feet before knocking it home.
That seems to be one of the few putts Wolff has made so far in his round, and it has been his nemesis early on. He’s missed a six, 11, and 16-footer through the first nine. If not for the 8th hole, it would’ve been a bad day on a whole new level, but he would finally make birdie by knocking home a five-footer and finally scoring on a par 5.
He then instantly wasted his birdie by going so far left he would’ve broken a simulator. Luckily for him, it wasn’t actually out of bounds, it was just a shot you would expect to see a weekend golfer hit at your local course that ends up in a separate fairway. He almost had one of the craziest birdies you would ever see, as he knocked it to eight yards, then chipped it right next to the cup for a tap-in par.
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There is a lot of golf left, as he is only through nine holes. With plenty of players going low or at least scoring at a reasonable clip, he has a lot of ground to make up. At the turn, he sits in 141st place. Wolff is going to need to find a handful of birdies, and he is going to need to find them quickly.