Martin Laird awoke Monday morning at his home in Denver to text messages from friends, and shortly thereafter one from his caddie Sean McBride.
Well down the list of alternates for the $4 million ONEflight Myrtle Beach Classic on the weekend, he went to bed Sunday resigned to spending the week at home with his wife and two children.
But things changed overnight and early Monday.
“The guy that’s caddying for me texted saying, ‘Hey, you’re in, are you coming?’ “ Laird said. “I was still half asleep, and I kind of laid there going, ‘I think I’m coming. I’ve got to figure this out.’ ”
Laird caught a late flight Monday, was stuck in Atlanta overnight and arrived in Myrtle Beach on Tuesday. “It’s not ideal, but I still was more than happy to change some plans,” Laird said.
Laird made the most of his unexpected opportunity Thursday, shooting a 7-under-par 64 at The Dunes Golf and Beach Club to take one-shot lead over Aaron Rai and Keita Nakajima of Japan through the first round.
He made eight birdies, three bogeys and an eagle on the par-5 15th hole with a 277-yard second shot to 15 feet.
Three players – Mark Hubbard, Paul Peterson and John VanDerLaan – are two shots back, and five-time major champion Brooks Koepka shot a 3-under 68 and is tied for 17th in the 123-player event.
It’s Koepka’s first under-par score in an opening round this year in nine events, and he has shot under par in the previous eight second rounds.
Ryan Ruffels, who won The Q Myrtle Beach qualifier featuring eight YouTube golf creators and influencers to make the field, is tied for seventh after a 4-under 67.
Laird and Koepka played under overcast skies in the morning, before sporadic light rain impacted the afternoon wave of players and play was suspended for 48 minutes later in the afternoon due to lightning being detected in the area.
A rare result
Laird, 43, a Scotland native who came to the U.S to attend Colorado State University, has four victories since joining the PGA Tour in 2008, the most recent being the 2020 Shriners Hospitals for Children Open outside Las Vegas.
Mired in poor results over the past season-plus, which has relegated him largely to Korn Ferry Tour status, Laird has made wholesale changes over the past month with a new instructor, new putter and new caddie.
Laird has missed four of six cuts on the Korn Ferry Tour without a top-50 finish, and tied for 57th in his one PGA Tour start this season in the dual-field Puerto Rico Open. In 2025, he had just one top-30 in 13 PGA Tour starts, though he had a runner-up finish among three Korn Ferry starts.
“I’ll be honest, the last couple of years have been tough,” Laird said. “I have thoughts of, ‘Do I even want to play anymore, do I want to do this anymore, do I want to do the grind of traveling and being away from family a lot and all that?’ ”
Laird said he has committed to playing the rest of this year, at least.
“I know I can still play. That’s the thing,” Laird said. “That was kind of the hard thing was I knew I can still play, but, you know, it wasn’t always coming out.”
Putting was a key component to Laird’s 64. He put a new putter in the bag this week that is a different style than the one he’s been using, and took a que from his casual rounds with friends at home, when he gets a quick read of the green and wastes little time before putting.
“I kind of came this week with the mentality of what I’ve been doing has not been working,” Laird said.
Laird ranks 148th on the Nationwide Tour this season in putts per round at nearly 32. He needed only 24 Thursday covering 151 feet.
“I feel like I’ve been telling people I’m playing better than my scores just because of my putting recently,” Laird said. “. . . They kept going in, which was nice.”
Laird is coming off four straight weeks at home and began working with instructor Pat Coyner at his home club in Denver, who has helped him elongate his swing over a few weeks of practice.
“It’s nice when you do that and you come out and have a good result,” Laird said. Coyner is at The Dunes Club this week.
Laird is trying to replicate the results of a similar circumstance in 2020, when he got into the Las Vegas event on a sponsor exemption and won. “I’m at that stage where I’m totally happy where I’m at,” Laird said. “If I get in any event, I’m going to jump at the chance and come play.”
Laird played in the inaugural Myrtle Beach Classic in 2024 and made a bogey on the final hole of his second round to miss the cut by a shot at 1-under 141. He recalled the fairway bunkers and challenging rough being in play on nearly every hole.
“I remember really liking it and feeling like this is a place I could play well because if you drive it in the fairway around here, you can have some good looks,” Laird said. “Generally I play better on courses where if you drive it straight, you can play well. I’m not the longest hitter anymore.”
Living up to his ranking
Rai, 31, is the highest ranked player in the field this week at 42nd in the Official World Golf Ranking after the withdrawal Wednesday of No. 39 Marco Penge.
He was beset by injuries to his lower back and neck early this season that stalled the momentum he built over the past two years.
He recorded 23 top-25 finishes on tour between 2024-25, including a win in the 2024 Wyndham Championship for his lone PGA Tour victory and three other top-five finishes in 2024.
The Englishman has made six of eight PGA Tour cuts this season with a pair of top-25 finishes but no top-20s, and is 127th in FedExCup points.
“It started to feel really good pretty much since just before the Masters, and I just tried to slowly increase practice, increase training over the last three or four weeks,” Rai said. “It feels really positive overall. Just looking forward to playing a good stretch of events now over the next four weeks.”
Making his Myrtle Beach Classic debut, Rai birdied the first four holes and made four birdies on the back nine before a bogey on the 18th.
