Wesley Bryan returns to the PGA Tour this week at the site of his greatest triumph. In 2017, the South Carolina Gamecock grad became the first native of South Carolina to win the RBC Heritage when he rallied from four shots back on Sunday to win his maiden PGA Tour title.
But Bryan’s Cinderella story came to a grinding halt when he tore the labrum in his left shoulder, requiring surgery and nearly 18 months on the sideline. He last made a cut on the Tour in July 2018, and played two rehabilitation starts on the Korn Ferry Tour in Panama and Mexico this season before the suspension of play due to the global pandemic left him waiting again.
“I was gearing up for an April return, and then the coronavirus stuff hit. It’s good. It gave my shoulder a little bit more time to heal,” he said.
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Until his win at the RBC Heritage, Bryan was better known for batting golf balls out of mid-air, chipping basketballs into hoops and banking shots off walls and into trash cans in homemade videos recorded with his brother, George, his setup man and a master at juggling, at their father’s driving range in Chapin, South Carolina. Bryan’s best trick of all had been going from toiling in mini-tour obscurity with no status in 2014 to the Korn Ferry Tour to an automatic promotion to the PGA Tour in less than nine months.
Match 9 from @KiawahClub is live! Enjoy the views from the back nine at Cassique 🙌🏻👇🏼.https://t.co/zt5pGpFehN pic.twitter.com/5wnYRCiXIG
— Bryan Bros Golf (@bryanbrosgolf) June 8, 2020
When golf took a break, the Bryan Bros., put the band back together and relaunched their YouTube channel, which has more than 50,000 subscribers, and became a source of live golf entertainment as George and Wesley competed head-to-head and in other challenges such as seeing if they could shoot 59 from the red tees.
“I’ve been seen as very brash and abrasive and a lot of smack talk toward George, and George is embracing the role of the guy that’s always jittering and jolting around the golf course and readjusting his glasses and picking up his tee oddly. So, we’ve been running with that for a little bit,” Wesley said. “I think the biggest comment I get is why can’t you take that level of trash talk on Tour and mic yourself up? And I think that it would be a more entertaining product than what you normally see on the golf course, but I don’t think – it’s not the time or place. I can talk junk to my brother, but I can’t quite do it – I don’t know.”
Bryan suggested that it wouldn’t be quite the same at a Tour event if he were jawing with his fellow South Carolina resident Kevin Kisner.
“That’s a bad example,” Bryan said, with a wide smile. “I think we could really get into it. I wouldn’t mic us two up, but you know what I mean. It’s a different game when you can edit and do all that.”
That’s really nothing new, though, for Bryan, who once argued with tournament officials at a 2015 eGolf Tour event that he should be allowed to play with a GoPro strapped to his chest as a means of generating greater social media exposure. Too bad it was deemed a violation of USGA rules. Last week, at the Charles Schwab Challenge, Rickie Fowler wore a microphone during competition. Is Bryan willing to be the next Tour pro to give golf fans a window into his most intimate thoughts on the course?
“Believe it or not, when you are away from competitive golf for 18 months, nobody really remembers that you were there,” he said. “Maybe after a few weeks, they’ll realize that I’m back out here and maybe ask me to get mic’d up, I’m not sure. But it’s not like people have been blowing up my phone or banging on my door trying to get a camera in front of me with a microphone on.”
Bryan already has proved once that he’s more talented a golfer than someone simply blessed with incredible hand-eye coordination to hit a ball in mid-air and make trick-shot videos. He said the biggest adjustment when he returned to tournament competition was figuring out how to use a yardage book again after relying on his laser at home. When he played the Korn Ferry Tour in February, his heart rate jumped to 165 beats per minute on the first tee, according to his Whoop.
“Just getting those nerves and the juices flowing was amazing. That’s what I miss,” he said. “Just to be back on property where my first and only PGA Tour win came is great. I’m excited to lace up the shoes and go out there tomorrow.”
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