Beau Hossler has won plenty of money on the PGA Tour.
He’s won more than $10.75 million, in fact, in 188 events.
That places the 29-year-old 15th all-time in career PGA Tour earnings among players who have never won a tour event. He’s one of eight active PGA Tour players who have earned more than $10 million as non-winners.
The non-winner category – therein lies the problem for Hossler, who was a teenage phenom and has been on tour since 2018.
“We’re really blessed to do what we love to do and make a lot of money, but you don’t lay your head on the pillow thinking about money,” Hossler said. “You think about winning golf tournaments and what you’re trying to work towards and stuff like that.”
Hossler hopes to pull himself from the statistic on Sunday, and is off to a good start with a 7-under-par 64 Thursday in the first round of the inaugural $4 million Myrtle Beach Classic at The Dunes Golf and Beach Club.
That has him tied for the lead with Robert MacIntyre of Scotland in the 132-player field, and one shot ahead of four players – Davis Thompson, Alistair Docherty, Zecheng ‘Marty’ Dou of China and Alejandro Tosti of Argentina.
Though it’s an opposite field event being played concurrently with the more prestigious Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte, a win still carries a lot of weight on tour.
The winner will receive $720,000, a two-year PGA Tour exemption, 300 FedExCup points, and exemptions into the 2025 season-opening The Sentry and Players Championship, and will be in a strong position to get into the final two $20 million Signature Events of the year.
The winner also earns a spot in next week’s PGA Championship, though Hossler is already qualified.
“A win is a win. It’s what we play for,” Hossler said. “I’m trying to win every week that I play no matter where I play.”
Hossler wasn’t exceptional from tee to green Thursday.
He hit just five of 14 fairways off the tee and half of the 18 greens in regulation, but he scrambled amazingly well. He got up and down from off the green for par eight of nine times and holed out a 75-foot bunker shot for an eagle on the par-5 13th hole.
“It was a bit of a grind,” Hossler said. “I don’t feel like I hit that many greens, but I feel like I hit the ball well. I struggled judging the wind. It seemed like it swirled kind of with the storms, and my chipping and putting was excellent. All in all, obviously really happy with it.”
Hossler has been in contention for a win several times with three runner-up and two third-place finishes.
Perhaps his best chance to earn a PGA Tour victory came in his rookie season in the 2018 Houston Open, where Ian Poulter birdied the tournament’s 72nd hole to tie Hossler and won in a playoff.
Hossler has also finished second in last October’s ZOZO Championship, though he was six strokes behind winner Collin Morikawa, and the 1017 Traveler’s Championship, three strokes behind Bubba Watson.
Hossler is 75th on this season’s FedExCup points standings on the strength of a good start. He began the season with six straight made cuts and four top-30s among them, including a tie for sixth in the Farmers Insurance Open.
But he’s missed three of his past six cuts with a tie for 52nd his best finish.
”It’s been a good start and then very mediocre the last couple months,” he said. “The game just hasn’t felt great. Wasn’t hitting it great, wasn’t putting great. Felt a bit out of it. Now I feel like I’m trending, got some stuff that I’m working on that I feel pretty excited about.”
Hossler was all but a can’t-miss kid in his youth, twice qualifying for the U.S. Open before his 18th birthday and recording a top-30 finish as a 17-year-old in 2012 at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. He won the Haskins Award as the top collegiate player at Texas, and qualified for the PGA Tour in less than a year with a win on the Web.com Tour.
“It’s a hard sport,” Hossler said. “It’s peaks and valleys in this sport. It’s really frustrating. I think it’s like that for pretty much every player in the world except for one at the moment, and I’m trying to just accept the fact that it is what it is and try and have a little better attitude when it’s down because it’s tough to ride that emotional roller coaster for a career.”
MacIntyre, a three-time winner on the DP World Tour and member of the victorious 2023 European Ryder Cup Team, made 117 feet of putts Thursday. That included a 35-foot birdie putt on his final hole – the par-3 ninth – to rebound from a bogey on the eighth hole and give him a share of the lead late in the day.
“I’ve been rolling the ball really nice on the greens. The greens are absolutely perfect out there on the course,” MacIntyre said.
Tosti made eight birdies Thursday, while Dou’s round was powered by eagles on the par-5 13th and 15th holes. He hit a 290-yard second shot on the 616-yard 13th to 15 feet and holed a 28-foot putt on the 534-yard 15th.
Thompson began his round on the back nine and birdied his first three holes as well as 14, 15 and 18 to shoot a 6-under 30, then made nine pars to complete his round.
“I got off to a great start. Just hit the first nine greens, had great birdie looks and was able to make a few,” Thompson said. “I just kind of cruised on the back. I had to get up-and-down a few times, but it was a good start.”
Thompson, 24, is a University of Georgia alumnus who won four college tournaments including two NCAA regionals, won a couple significant amateur titles and graduated to the PGA Tour after just one year on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2022. He has earned nearly $3 million in his first year-plus on the PGA Tour.
“I’ve just had a lot of different learning experiences so far. It’s hard to win out here,” Thompson said. “It’s hard to play well. But you’ve just got to keep trying to get better each and every year. I feel like I’ve been more consistent this year as opposed to last year. But yeah, I’m just trying to put it all together.”
Thompson is playing in his fourth straight event and eighth in nine weeks as he makes a hopeful push for entry into next week’s PGA Championship.
“I’m definitely fatigued,” he said. “. . . Seeing if I can play my way into the PGA, and if not it’ll be a much-needed week off of rest.”
Docherty, 30, is a two-year Korn Ferry Tour member who is sponsored by Barstool Sports and received a sponsor exemption into the Myrtle Beach Classic.
He learned of his spot in the tournament on his 30th birthday on March 20 while playing a round with friends at Grayhawk in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he lives. This is just his second PGA Tour start.
“It was very, very special, with a bunch of very close friends and Sean Riley and Riggs from Barstool,” Docherty said. “They mean the world to me. I’m so happy to be here and just trying to take advantage of the opportunity.”
The Dunes Club played 0.67 strokes under par on average in the opening round, as players dealt with intermittent light rain and wind gusts of more than 20 mph throughout the day, particularly after noon when scores were higher. Winds are expected to be between 6 and 11 mph throughout Friday’s second round.
“It’s obviously fairly gettable, but you’ve got to put the ball in the right place off the tee to have a shot to the green,” Hossler said. “The greens are pretty severe. If you can just make sure that even if you hit it a little farther from the pin but you’re in the right spot, it seems like it’s generally a little bit easier to get up-and-down.”
