J.B. Holmes (Gordons/Flickr)
WHEN I PLAYED ON my high school golf team, I was in high school. J.B. Holmes played on the Taylor County (Ky.) High School golf team when he was in third grade.
Are you kidding me? A nine-year-old!
Holmes played No. 1 as a fifth-grader and eventually won the state title as a tenth-grader. (Gee, J.B., what took you so long?)
The 26-year-old Holmes, a University of Kentucky product who hopes to make the Ryder Cup team so he can play in his home state, is the only man under par at the PGA Championship.
Saturday’s third round at Oakland Hills was a washout. That wasn’t so bad because I got to see parts of that amazing Tiger Woods-Bob May duel at the 2000 PGA Championship. That was as good as it gets.
As for Sunday, it will be 36 nerve-wracking holes for Holmes, who has never finished higher than 25th in a major. We’ll see how the young two-time winner holds up.
One last thing. His first name is John, but he likes to go by J.B. That means he’s also bidding to be the best tour pro with initials as a first name. So watch out D.J. Trahan, D.A. Weibring, J.P. Hayes, T.C. Chen, R.H. Sikes and any others I can’t remember.
−The Armchair Golfer