Is the 59 Watch dead? Should we no longer be refreshing our phones to follow who in pro golf is on the verge of reaching what has been the game\u2019s mystical number for 49 years?<\/p>\n
Then, on Friday, Korn Ferry Tour rookie Chris Francoeur completed the treble by firing 11-under 59 in the second round of the Utah Championship at Ogden Golf & Country Club. After starting with a birdie on his opening hole, the 10th, the 27-year-old Massachusetts native made six birdies in a seven-hole stretch in the middle of the round. He then went birdie-eagle-birdie at Nos. 3 through 5 and had birdie chances over the last four holes to go much lower before ending at 59.<\/p>\n
This scorching run of 59s is remarkable, and to put it into perspective, there were three scored in the previous two seasons on the PGA Tour, and three on the KFT in 2025.<\/p>\n
After Al Geiberger notched the first 59 in PGA Tour history in 1977, it was 14 years before Chip Beck became the second to do so. Eight more years passed before David Duval, and then another 11 years went by for Paul Goydos to pull it off. That’s four 59s in 33 years.<\/p>\n
But over the last 16 years, reaching 59 has been far more common, yet still impressive, of course. Eleven players have shot 59 since 2013, and Jim Furyk became the only man to go sub-60 twice. He knocked the magic number down by one with his 12-under 58 in the Travelers Championship in 2016.<\/p>\n
On the KFT, the all-time low score is the 13-under 57 shot by Cristobal Del Solar in the 2024 Astara Golf Championship in Colombia. There have been 16 total sub-60s rounds on the developmental tour. On the Americas, Stevens\u2019 59 was the fifth on that circuit.<\/p>\n
Curiously, only one 59 has ever been shot on the DP World Tour\u2014by Oliver Fisher in the 2018 Portugal Masters.<\/p>\n
We can look at Francoeur and wonder: Can anybody shoot 59 now? He is, after all, a mildly decorated golfer who played collegiately at the University of Rhode Island and is a PGA Tour Americas alum who\u2019s currently ranked 583rd in the world. This season, Francoeur\u2019s best finish on the KFT is T-29 in Knoxville.<\/p>\n
But the guy has going low in his blood. As evidenced by his posts on X, in October 2022 while playing a casual round, Francoeur made 14 birdies and a bogey to shoot 58. And in another non-competitive round last June, he hit two shots in the water for bogeys but also had an eagle and made an albatross on the closing hole to score 59.<\/p>\n
On Friday, Francoeur said he first began thinking about a sub-60 round when he chipped in for eagle on his 14th hole to get to 10 under. \u201cI knew I had a couple of short holes coming in,\u201d he said. \u201cI was trying not to think about it, but it was still creeping in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Francoeur also birdied the next hole, but admitted the nerves may have gotten to him a bit after that. Over the next four holes, he had birdie putts of 17, 10, 35 and 23 feet, but settled for pars.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t feel my hands on the last hole,\u201d Francoeur recalled with a grin.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not often on a Friday, unless you\u2019re trying to make the cut, that you feel those nerves. Thankfully, I\u2019ve had lot of weeks this season where I\u2019ve had to make par on the last hole to make the cut. So I just tried to go back to those experiences and make a good stroke on the next one.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are no worries for playing the weekend this time, with the 59 vaulting Francoeur into the lead with a 17-under total. He\u2019s three shots up on Mason Andersen and Kevin Dougherty, who each shot 63.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Is the 59 Watch dead? Should we no longer be refreshing our phones to follow who in pro…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[11416,17708,17707,44,4110,82],"class_list":["post-44989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-59-watch","tag-after-third-59-in-8-days-is-golfs-mystical-number-losing-its-luster","tag-chris-francoeur-59","tag-golf","tag-korn-ferry-tour","tag-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}