Two former major champions break up at Zurich Classic 2023
Daly is 56 years old, has won the majors The Open 1995 and PGA Championship 1991. Duval is five years younger than Daly, also holding The Open in 2001. Both have moved to the PGA Tour Champions branch since the age of 50, but competed in Zurich. Classic according to the sponsor's guest stream.
This event was born in 1938, individual stroke play from the opening year to the end of 2016 and then changed to team stroke play from 2017 to present. According to the new format, the tournament has 80 pairs, playing four-ball in rounds 1 and 3, foursomes for rounds 2 and 4.
In the opening leg, Daly-Duval hit 75 strokes (+3) when choosing the best hole to calculate the overall score.
In the second round, the two veterans hit 83 strokes (+11) while taking turns handling the hole. This is the worst foursome performance of the Zurich Classic in the past six years, while the old record at 82 was set by Cameron Percy - Greg Chalmers in 2021.
During these two periods, Daly - Duval went from the par4 hole 1, 389 yards long. Daly took charge of the opening match, only 196 yards, and the ball hit the rough on the right side of the fairway, leading to bogey. At the 4th hole, 441 yards long, it was Daly who helped the home team get the right match for the first time since the start but ended up with a double bogey.
As for the standard green, they reached the par4 8 hole, when Daly put the ball about nine meters from the hole. From that distance, Duval missed the birdie so the responsibility of keeping par belonged to Daly with a position of putting more than half a meter from the target. And Daly succeeds.
Up to that time, the two generals still had no birdies.
And with the third double bogey, at hole 9, the points of the two former major champions were +12.
On the 226-yard par3 14, they scored a fourth double bogey, after Daly hit for 163 yards and sent his teammate to pull the ball out of the bunker on the second shot. However, considering the following nine holes and not counting the 14th hole, they played better, as shown by the birdie on the 10th hole, the late bogey, the rest were par.
At the end of the second round, Daly-Duval was at the bottom of the table with a score of +14. This achievement is 24 strokes below the cut while the top of the table is at -16, belonging to the Wyndham Clark – Beau Hossler pair.
During his time on the PGA Tour, Daly was the first player to hit 300 yards, in 1997. Since then, he has always exceeded that milestone and continuously holds the title of "farthest player in the US first-class golf system".
