After rough start to PGA Tour season, Coloradan Martin Laird notches first top-10 since July
By Gary Baines – 3/4/2024
Denver-area resident Martin Laird gladly worked overtime for just his third top-10 finish in the last three-plus years on the PGA Tour.
The former Colorado State University golfer, a four-time winner on Tour, tied for ninth place in a Monday finish at the Cognizant Classic in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., after posting four straight rounds in the 60s.
It was an impressive showing for the 41-year-old after a tough start to the 2024 season, where Laird previous had gone missed cut, missed cut, missed cut and 53rd place.
The only bogey of the 11 holes Laird played on Monday — after 1.72 inches of rain and a 3.5-hour weather delay on Sunday had forced a fifth day of competition — came on his first shot of the day as he missed a 5-foot par putt on No. 8. The Scotsman then played his final 10 holes in 2 under.
For the week, Laird went 68-69-66-69 for a 12-under-par total, which left him five strokes behind champion Austin Eckroat.
Since posting his fourth PGA Tour victory — at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in October 2020 — Laird has rarely been in contention down the stretch of a PGA Tour event. He placed third in the Barracuda Championship in July 2022 and second at the 3M Open in July of last year. His only other top 10 in the last three years and four months came on Monday.
Laird came into the week ranked No. 194 in the world. The showing at PGA National earned him $210,536.
For all the scores from the Cognizant Classic, CLICK HERE.
About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com