Beau Hossler’s career hasn’t gone as planned, but he’s in contention at the CareerBuilder Challenge
He was a can’t-miss phenom as a teenager, a golf prodigy from Mission Viejo who qualified to play in three U.S. Open championships as an amateur before he turned 20.
Beau Hossler’s plan was written: He would turn professional after competing for Texas at the 2016 NCAA championships and begin a PGA Tour career that seemed preordained. Then came the injury.
A torn labrum in his left shoulder during the NCAA semifinals put Hossler on the sidelines for five months and sent him on a grueling journey to get back to the top level of competitive golf.
Thursday during the first round of the CareerBuilder Challenge, Hossler shot an eight-under-par 64 at La Quinta Country Club, with seven birdies and an eagle, to stand in a four-way tie for fifth.
Hossler, 22, is two shots behind leader Jon Rahm, who is ranked No. 3 in the world. Rahm’s bogey-free 62, two strokes better than his previous best score on the PGA Tour, also came at La Quinta.
“I’m still not swinging my best; even today I felt like I was guiding it a little bit,” Hossler said. “But I feel like I can win out here if I play really well.”
Austin Cook, Jason Kokrak and Andrew Landry are a stroke off the lead at 63. Three others — Brandon Harkins, Martin Piller and Hossler’s playing partner, Aaron Wise — are tied with Hossler.
Defending champion Hudson Swafford shot a 66 at La Quinta. Phil Mickelson was at 70 and tied for 88th. Of 156 players in the field, 124 were under par. Cook’s 63 was the low score on the Nicklaus Tournament Course and Nick Watney’s 65 was the low score on the Stadium Course at PGA West.
Charlie Reiter, an 18-year-old senior at Palm Desert High granted a sponsor’s exemption and the only amateur in the field, shot a 68 at La Quinta.
Players will compete on each of the three courses through Saturday before the final round Sunday on the Stadium Course.
Hossler’s odyssey to gain his tour card began early last year shortly after his recovery from shoulder surgery. But after missing the cut in four of eight PGA Tour events in the first half of 2017, he ran out of exemptions and saw the Web.com Tour as his only option.
He earned a spot in the minor league tour’s event in Wichita in a playoff during a Monday qualifier, then finished second in the tournament to earn a spot on that tour for the rest of the year.
He then played in nine consecutive events, hoping to finish in the top 25 on the money list, which would guarantee him a PGA Tour card for this season.
In his ninth consecutive event, his 19th-place finish left him 23rd on the money list … and exhausted. With only a few breaks, he had essentially been competing for 16 straight weeks.
“I was sweating it out until that last tournament,” he said. “It was a big-time grind.”
His nine weeks of consecutive tournaments after Wichita included stops in Tennessee (twice), New York, Utah, Nebraska, Kansas, California, Missouri and Oregon.
“You go to tournaments and you don’t really have time to practice, you just try to rest and get mentally prepared to play,” Hossler said.
“That’s tough to do when you’re playing that much, especially when it’s summer, when it’s hot. It’s challenging.
“The thing is a lot of guys on the Web.com Tour do that. And you can tell, everybody’s jolly the first couple of weeks, and by Week 12 everybody’s grumpy and wanting to get their card.”
In Hossler’s case, mission accomplished.
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