It’s a one-minute and -47-second video clip that Cory Renfrew will treasure for the rest of his life.
The 28-year-old Victoria resident chipped in from off the famous 16th green of the Waste Management Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale on Sunday, one of six birdies carded in his 5-under 66 round that left him tied for 59th overall, along with Nick Taylor of Abbotsford and six others.
The chip not only brought the house down on the rowdiest hole in golf, it sent a cascade of beer flowing in a waterfall setting just to Renfrew’s left as he fist-pumped after the feat — a slow-rolling chip that eventually took the break and dropped side door on the flagstick.
“It was a great way to start your week, Monday qualifying, and what a way to finish it,” the announcer exclaimed on the pgatour.com clip. “A birdie at 16 for Cory Renfrew. They get some great crowd support out there on PGA Tour Canada, but nothing like this.
“Nice fist pump,” the announcer added, like an exclamation point.
The smile on Renfrew’s face was on display to the masses and it’s a memory that will last forever, he said.
“Chipping in on 16 today was the coolest golf experience of my life. Hopefully, there’s more where that came from,” Renfrew said. “I was hoping to be in that moment and to do something special and it worked out.
“I took one less club on the tee [because of the adrenalin] and I still fired it over the back,” he said of his 8-iron that he intended on flying 165 yards.
It went 180 and left him with a bump-and-run shot with his 60-degree wedge from below the stands on the loudest hole on the PGA Tour, where fans were well lubricated.
“That chip was everything I could imagine. I bumped it. I knew it was fast and breaking hard,” he described.
It slowly ran into the hole and set off the frenzy and what might be forever known by Vancouver Island golf fans who know him as the ’Frew Fister. The beer immediately began to fall from the stands, a tradition that began on a Tiger Woods hole-in-one there in 1997.
“Brian Davis had to go through it on Francesco [Molinari’s] hole-in-one [on Saturday],” said Renfrew. “It’s mayhem.”
But it was also a week he will soon not forget.
“I was still kind of nervous,” admitted Renfrew, who had an easier time on his back nine (actually the front as he started on No. 10) where he made birdies at Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 6 for the 66. That was the third-lowest score of the day. He finished at 1-under 283 and earned $13,734 US for his week.
“There was no one really out there so I felt freer,” he said of the front nine. “It’s easier when there’s no one around — less stressful.”
Which led to the question, what did he learn from the experience?
“Obviously, these guys are good,” said Renfrew, who was playing in his second PGA Tour event, missing the cut at the 2012 Canadian Open by a shot. “But it’s golf, if you can just get around the pressure and just play. I feel like I can play, but I also feel like I need the work.
“It was like my first Canadian Tour event, stressful, but the more you do it you feel like, ‘I’ve done this before.’ ”
Renfrew, who resides in the Scottsdale area in the winter, will now continue to play the Gateway Tour, but will attempt to Monday qualify again for the PGA Tour’s Northern Trust Open at Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California, that runs Feb. 18-22.
