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Jake Knapp shoots 59 at PGA National, narrowly misses tying PGA Tour scoring record
Mike Mulholland
Jake Knapp narrowly missed tying the PGA Tour single-round scoring record on Thursday. He happily settled for just the 15th sub-60 score in tour history.
Knapp made 12 birdies and no bogeys during an opening round 59 at the Cognizant Classic. The final birdie was a tap-in after missing a 19-footer for eagle on No. 18 at PGA National.
Had Knapp converted his eagle putt, he would have tied Jim Furyk for the lowest round in PGA Tour history. Furyk fired a 58 in the final round of the 2016 Travelers Championship.
However, Knapp is the first golfer to break 60 at PGA National's Champion Course, typically one of the toughest tests on tour. He bested Brian Harman's previous course record of 61 set in 2012.
"I had it going really early, but at the same time, that can happen and then it can kind of fizzle out pretty quick," said Knapp who started five under through five holes before parring his next three. "I thought I did a good job of just trying to focus on shot by shot and not letting what happened or what could happen affect anything. . . . Then once I made the long putt on 15, it was like, okay, now this is kind of here."
Knapp was using a new putter for the first time. However, he only needed to make one putt over 12 feet—a 30-footer for birdie on 15.
Here was how Golf Twitter reacted to Knapp's historic round:
The 30-year-old Knapp was working as a nightclub bouncer as recently as 2022. He won his first PGA Tour title at the Mexico Open last year. And with three rounds to go as he attempts to get win No. 2, he didn't have much planned for Thursday night.
"Just kind of the same old," Knapp said of his plans. "Work out this afternoon, go get some rest. It was an early morning this morning so maybe take a little nap this afternoon."