David Hearn from Brantford, Ont. finished 11th in the final round of the Texas Open on Sunday. (CP PHOTO/Paul Chiasson)Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press
David Hearn shot a final-round, six-under par 66 at the Valero Texas Open in San Antonio Sunday to move sharply up the leaderboard. He tied for 11th as Ben Curtis won his fourth PGA Tour event. Hearn advanced 31 places in the final round. He won $148,800 (USD) to increase his earnings this season to $328,019.
The 32-year-old from Brantford, Ont. opened the tournament at the TPC San Antonio with rounds of 74-74. He double-bogeyed the last hole, a par-five, in his second round and appeared to have missed the cut. But he made the cut right on the number, and then had his strong final round. He finished the tournament at three-under par 285. Graham DeLaet, of Weyburn, Sask., shot 73 in the last round to finish at 295 and tie for 56th. Calgary's Stephen Ames shot 76 to finish at 297 and tie for 63rd.
"I know this course from last year that it plays really hard in a north wind, and that's what we had Friday," Hearn said in a phone interview after he finished. "So I wasn't sure I'd missed the cut when I finished. But I hadn't been getting much luck with cuts, missing by a shot. I thought, there goes another. I wasn't too positive."
Having made the cut, Hearn didn't hit the ball in the third round as well he wanted to, but he chipped better than all year and got up and down for par all day.
Then, in the last round, Hearn put it all together.
"I found my rhythm," he said, "and found something in my swing."
Brennan Little, who was Mike Weir's long-time caddie, worked for Hearn in San Antonio. Little normally caddies for Camilo Villegas, who wasn't playing because he'd hurt his back. Villegas is scheduled to play the Zurich Classic of New Orleans this week. Hearn is also entered, and is looking for a new, full-time caddie.
"It was a one-week thing," Hearn said of having Little on his bag. "I've gotten to know Brennan the last few years, and having him out there was a great learning opportunity for me. He has a lot of experience. He knows what he's doing. It's nice to have somebody like him on the bag, to see what he does."
Hearn said that Little has "great timing" on the course. "He's upbeat. He's thorough in his calculations."
Little, like Hearn, is also a big hockey fan. They watched quite a few games in the NHL playoffs through the week in San Antonio.
Hearn finished 104th on the 2011 PGA Tour's money list. He opened the 2012 season with a T-10 at the Sony Open in Hawaii. His best finish from then until San Antonio was a T-44 at the Northern Trust Open in Los Angeles. Hearn had missed the last four cuts, and nearly doubled his earnings in San Antonio. He'll play the next three weeks, through the Players Championship in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. from May 10-13.
He will also file his application by the April 25th deadline to qualify for the U.S. Open in San Francisco in June. His wife Heather is expecting their first child after the U.S. Open.
"I'm happy to get on a bit of a roll," Hearn said. "It's been a funny year so far. I feel like I've been playing well, but not getting much out of it."
In the last round in San Antonio, he did get something out of it.
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Lorne Rubenstein has written a golf column for The Globe and Mail since 1980. He has played golf since the early 1960s and was the Royal Canadian Golf Association's first curator of its museum and library at the Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, Ontario and the first editor of Score, Canada's Golf Magazine, where he continues to write a column and features. He has won four first-place awards from the Golf Writers Association of America, one National Magazine Award in Canada, and he won the award for the best feature in 2009 from the Golf Journalists Association of Canada. Lorne has written 12 books, including Mike Weir: The Road to the Masters (2003); A Disorderly Compendium of Golf, with Jeff Neuman (2006); This Round's on Me (2009); and the latest Moe & Me: Encounters with Moe Norman, Golf's Mysterious Genius (2012). He is a member of the Ontario Golf Hall of Fame and the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame. Lorne can be reached at rube@sympatico.ca . You can now follow him on Twitter @lornerubenstein