Jake Knapp Makes PGA National Look Like A Pitch-And-Putt, Fires First-Round 59

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PGA National, host of this week's Cognizant Classic, has long been considered one of the more challenging and demanding courses on the PGA Tour's regular rotation. It did not live up to its difficult pedigree during Thursday's opening round, with many players in the morning wave making easy work of the course with perfect conditions, but nobody made it look easier than Jake Knapp.

Knapp, the winner of the 2024 Mexico Open, came out of the gates on fire with five straight birdies to begin his opening round. If someone had offered Knapp a string of 13 straight pars from there to the house, he probably would have signed his card and happily taken a five-under 66.

While it looked like Knapp was coming back down to Earth with three straight pars to follow his five straight birdies, he picked up three more on the ninth, tenth, and eleventh holes, and standing on the 12th tee, the number 59 had to have at least popped into his mind.

Sitting at 8-under with six holes left, Knapp would have to play those final six holes at four-under to join the elusive 59 club. It was a tall order, but the way Knapp was in control of his golf ball, he made it look easy. 

A 12-foot birdie putt on the 13th, a six-footer on the 14th, and then a bit of a gift with a 32-foot birdie made on the Par 3 15th, and it was off to the races with the gettable Par 5 18th looming.

With pars on 16 and 17, Knapp hit the closing hole in two and just missed his eagle putt for what would have been an insane 58, but comfortably tapped in for 59. 

Knapp finished the day having hit 12 of 14 fairways and 16 of 18 greens, which if you manage those numbers around PGA National you're in store for a hell of a day, and Knapp just so happened to have the putter working as well.

Knapp's 59 bested the previous course record at PGA National by two shots. He became the 14th player to ever shoot a sub-60 score on the PGA Tour.

With the afternoon wave of players still teeing off on Thursday, Knapp holds a three-shot lead at the moment with 54 holes to play.

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Mark covers all sports at OutKick while keeping a close eye on the world of professional golf. He graduated from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga before earning his master's degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee. Before joining OutKick, he wrote for various outlets, including SB Nation, The Spun, and BroBible. Mark was also a writer for the Chicago Cubs Double-A affiliate in 2016, when the team won the World Series. He's still waiting for his championship ring to arrive. Follow him on Twitter @itismarkharris.