Steph Curry‘s first round at the Ellie Mae Classic was a career-best, but playing well in a professional tournament takes more than one good outing on the links.
After shooting a 71 in the opening round of the Ellie Mae, Curry shot an 86 on Friday, failing to make the cut of the tournament as it entered its third day. Curry is obviously a pro in the NBA, but he’s still an amateur golfer on the Web.com Tour. Though he had an impressive start to his second ever pro golf event, things got rough in his second outing on TPC Stonebrae,
Curry finished with a 17-over 157 after opening the tournament with a 71 on Thursday.
“I couldn’t hit a driver to save my life today, so that’s how golf goes,” Curry told ESPN on Friday. “One day you have it, or at least in the amateur world, one day you have it and one day you completely lose it and you have no idea what you’re doing over the top of the ball.”
According to the four-letter, Curry started rough and it didn’t get much better, dropping 11 strokes to erase all the good work he’d put in on the tournament’s first day.
Playing as an amateur, Curry bogeyed the par-3 second, made a quadruple-bogey 9 on the par-5 third after hitting consecutive drives out of bounds, bogeyed the par-4 fifth, made a triple on the par-4 seventh and a double on the par-4 eighth.
There were some birdies on the back nine, but also a few more shots over par. Overall, it’s not the most encouraging result, but Curry seemed to take the result in stride.
“It’s the same way I do on the court when I’m not making shots,” Curry said. “You just find something to focus on that you can do. For me, it was just trying to take each shot and just have fun with it and trying to hit a good shot and not really get too down about the result if it wasn’t what I was expecting.”
Curry finished in last place in the tournament. Having three NBA titles and a league MVP under your belt tends to make these things sting a bit less.
