Taylor Pendrith Is Rolling In Detroit After An Injury-Plagued Year

The resilient Taylor Pendrith is back in action and leading the 2022 Rocket Mortgage Classic.

There is a potentially remarkable story unfolding for Canadian Taylor Pendrith this week in Detroit.

Pendrith has endured a turbulent year one as a member of the PGA Tour, but despite the fact that this is his first season on Tour the 31-year-old has actually been playing professional golf for quite some time now.

Making his debut back in 2015, Pendrith has bounced back and forth across multiple Tours before finally earning a place on the PGA Tour this year.

“It has been a long journey. I’ve been up and down from Mackenzie Tour, Korn Ferry Tour, Mackenzie Tour, Korn Ferry Tour and now here finally with some injuries in between. I think it shows all the hard work’s paid off and when I’m healthy, I can compete with the best. It’s been — other than the injury, it’s been a great rookie year so far and just nice to be back,” Taylor said at the Rocket Mortgage Classic earlier this week.

Taylor Pendrith has experienced crazy highs and lows already during his first full season on Tour.

The highs include a top 5 finish at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, a solid performance at this year’s Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines (T16), and an impressive showing at TPC Sawgrass (13th) in March during one of the craziest and most bizarre Players Championships’ of all time.

Unfortunately for Taylor Pendrith, his time at the Players was also one of the low points of his year.

The 31-year-old suffered a rib fracture during a warm-up at TPC Sawgrass in March which would lead to him missing a good chunk of the season.

“I felt the pain when I was warming up and that was initially the pain that I felt. It just never got better. I went and got an MRI and thought it was going to be some sort of muscle thing.” Pendrith said.

"“The report was a broken rib, which was pretty wild. I did not expect that.”"

Taylor Pendrith first attempted to make his return to golf in early June at the RBC Canadian Open before eventually having to pull out of his nation’s national championship.  He then looked set to return at the John Deere Classic in late June/early July but had to withdraw once again, this time due to a positive COVID-19 test result.

Taylor was at long last finally able to make his return to action at the Barbasol Championship during the same week as the 150th Open Championship at St. Andrews. This coming after almost a four-month absence from the game.

It didn’t take long for Pendrith to hit the ground running once again as well, as he quickly compiled two top 15 finishes in the build-up to this week’s Rocket Mortgage Classic.

Taylor Pendrith is rolling through two rounds of this year’s Rocket Mortgage Classic.

The Canadian who grew up in Richmond Hill, Ontario, just a few hours away from this week’s Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit, has gotten off to an incredible start in an event that he said feels like a “home game” this week.

Pendrith opened with a sensational 64 on Thursday to join Tony Finau at the top of the leaderboard after day one. He would follow up his first round with an equally impressive 65 on Friday during a round in which he amassed eight birdies with just one dropped shot on the card.

With lots of family and friends in attendance this week, Pendrith will take a one-shot lead into the weekend.

“Me and my wife drove here on Monday, it was like three and a half hours. Pretty close. It feels like a home game,” Taylor replied when asked about all the family and friends who followed him over to Detroit this week.

Those who made the journey could be in store for something special over the weekend if the first two days are anything to go by, and a long and turbulent season may be about to end on a high note for Taylor Pendrith.