Eric Cole, minutes after he shot Friday’s low round at the John Deere Classic, says he had a good day. He had rebounded to a 63, one day after he was a dozen shots worse.
How he got there, though, made him a bit sheepish.
In his post-round session with reporters at TPC Deere Run, Cole said he had played a new set of irons from the day before, and that led to some fact checking. He was asked how that process worked.
“I mean, I’d rather not, but I will,” Cole said while wiping his brow with his left hand.
And he did.
If Friday was a good day for Cole, Thursday wasn’t. He played his first nine holes at one-under, then shot a six-over 41 on the back nine, which included a pair of double bogeys. Here, we’ll let Cole take over.
“I was frustrated yesterday and bent one of my irons,” he said.
“I was due to get a new set, so I kind of texted the PXG people, and they overnighted me a set of irons. So, yeah, they were much better today, so we’ll go with that.”
Should you break your clubs out of frustration? No, of course not. Did Cole? Yes, because he’s human, and everyone’s been there. And then came some magic. On Friday, he birdied his first hole. Then the second. Then the sixth, eighth and 10th. He followed a bogey on 11 with a birdie on 14. He eagled 17. No one was better.
“Yeah, it was just kind of had nothing to lose,” Cole said. “You know, I played so poorly yesterday that I was just going to try and obviously shoot as low as I can and hopefully get in a spot to potentially make the cut, but you know, more just like have a day to work on my game and try and make some improvements and see where my game is at.
“Yeah, it was a good day.”
Back to the irons. Cole said the new ones all had the same specs as the old ones. He also said he has “this thing” where if he gets one new iron, then all of them have to be new. “So if all your clubs are on the older side or have been used a lot, let’s say, and then you get a brand-new 8-iron, you know, it almost looks like it doesn’t fit the rest of the set,” Cole said. “I’m the same way with wedges. When I change one, I kind of like to change all of them.”
He also said he’d never put in play a new set irons mid-tournament.
“I usually use maybe one set of irons for the whole year, but mine were just kind of a little bit beat up,” Cole said. “I was talking about maybe switching them out about a month ago, three weeks ago.
“So when my 8-iron was no longer straight, I figured this is a nice opportunity to switch them all out, so that was my theory.”