NEWS

Stroud, Landry have different reasons to smile

By Bob West
Published on

HUMBLE, Texas -- For Chris Stroud, who matched his best ever Shell Houston Open round of 68, there was legitimate reason to be optimistic that the light at the end of the tunnel is no longer an oncoming train. For Andrew Landry, who walked off with a smile on his face after shooting a 76, his first round on the PGA Tour was an awesome experience he'll never forget.

Stroud, clearly benefiting from two days of intense work with former Lamar golf coach Brian White, rolled in five birdies against a lone bogey and was tied for 15th after day one. He hit 12 of 14 fairways, 14 of 18 greens and never had to scramble. His lone bogey was a 3 putt from 45 feet.

"I'm still not as comfortable as I'd like to be, but I'm getting there," said Stroud, who was five shots behind leader Scott Piercy's sizzling 63 and two back of former LU teammate Shawn Stefani. "My ball striking was great. It was great yesterday in the pro-am when I shot the same score.

"At the end of the day, Whitey knows me better than anybody. He knows what my swing is supposed to look like. He said I just needed to go out and play a draw every single shot. I don't like to do that because I don't control the ball as well. But at least the miss when I'm trying to hit a draw is out to the right and the good ones go straight down the middle.

Stroud got himself into red figures with a 17-foot birdie on the 5th hole. It was his longest make of the day. His other birdies came from 6 feet on the par 5, 8th, 9 feet on the par 4, 10th, 7 feet on the par 4, 12th and 5 feet on the par 5, 13th.

"Making putts inside 10 feet was really the biggest difference for me today," he said. "I haven't been making those. My long putts still need work.

I'm not comfortable over them. But overall this was the kind of golf I like to

play. It was stress free. Keep it in the fairway and give yourself lots of

chances. If you start rolling in longer putts you can go low."

Despite back-to-back 68s, Stroud wasn't ready to say he's completely turned the corner.

"It's progress. I'm going in the right direction. I just have to keep building on what I'm doing. One day doesn't mean much, but when you are able

to do it one day after another after another it means something. One good sign is that all I feel I need to work on after today's round is long putts."

Landry, meanwhile, looked like anything but a guy who shot 76 when he

walked off the 18th green. That was partly because he rolled in an 18-foot

birdie on the final hole, partly because he overcame a disastrous start by

playing the final 12 holes in two-under-par and mostly because he didn't let his early struggle take away from the fact he was playing on the PGA Tour.

"That was awesome," he said, after signing his scorecard. "This was one of

the greatest days of my life. It's all positive as far as I'm concerned. I hit

some loose shots early and got off to a terrible start, but I take it all as a

learning experience. I'm proud of the way I played the final 12 holes."

Landry hooked his first tee shot into a bunker, left his secondt in the

bunker short of the green, exploded 20 feet past the hole and two-putted for bogey. The third hole, though, was the one that sabotaged his round. He pulled his drive into the water left of the fairway, took a drop, then hit the next shot over the green into water.

He walked away with a triple bogey 7. Bogeys at five and six left him six

over after six holes.

"It wasn't nerves," he insisted. "I was not nervous at all. I just hit some

loose shots. But I didn't let it get me down. Man, I'm playing in a PGA Tour

event. There were a lot of holes left. I was going to enjoy every minute. You can't believe the emotions I went through out there.

"This was so much different than the Web.com Tour. I'm just getting my feet wet and learning. I'm going to be on this tour next year. Today will help get me ready for that. So will tomorrow. I will come back and play better tomorrow. I didn't lose any confidence in my game. I can play with these guys."

This article was written by Bob West from The Port Arthur News, Texas and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.