Waste Management: Joel Dahmen turns it around for round two

Personally, round two is always my favorite round in golf. Joel Dahmen and his second round at the Waste Management are the exact reason why.

Here’s the thing. I love watching the side-by-side arrows that are on the leaderboard showing you how far up or down a player has dropped during the current round. It’s make or break time, as people are either going to implode and fall down the leaderboard, or do something special and launch up the standings.

Joel Dahmen is a prime example. Take a look at the differences between his first two rounds.

Round One – Two Birdies, Four Bogeys, One Double Bogey for a +4 75, and in 122nd place

Round Two – Seven birdies, One bogey, for a -6 65, now in 63rd place.

He climbed an insane 59 spaces, and it was because he shot one of the best rounds of the day at -6.

Starting on the back nine, it didn’t take him long on Friday, as he would sink an 18-footer on the 11th for his first of many birdies on the day. He then made a 25-footer on the 13th and a 7-footer on the 14th for back to back birdies. He would get back to even for the tournament at short par-4 17th. Driving the green, he had a 21-foot look at eagle, but just missed, and tapped in the two-footer for birdie. He would go back to back once again, this time making the 21-footer on 18 to get to -5 on the back, and -1 for the tournament.

After nearly chipping in at the first, settling for par, he would make back-to-back birdies for the third time so far on the 2nd and 3rd holes. He stuck it to nine feet on the second, and six feet on the third, making them both.

He then played much worse, with a par on three straight holes, his longest streak of the day without a birdie. (heavy sarcasm in case you couldn’t tell) In all seriousness though, you should start writing about someone before their round is over… as evidenced by me starting as Dahmen walked to the tee box at the par 3-7th, where he would hit the green and then promptly three-putt for his first bogey of the day. SORRY JOEL!

He finished out with pars, so it wasn’t too bad of a writer’s curse. Whew.

At the end of his first round, Joel Dahmen was well outside the cut line. By the end of his second round, he was right at it (at the time of posting), and ready to see what the weekend has in store at the Waste Management Phoenix Open.