RaveVlog

Hours after matching his best score on the PGA Tour in 660 career rounds, Jonas Blixt planned to enjoy his Thursday afternoon in the Quad Cities with a trip to Niabi Zoo. 

“I’m a big fan of zoos,” he said. 

For about the past four years, Blixt’s golf game has been extinct. 

Between back surgery, swing changes and 29 missed cuts in his last 44 tournaments, Blixt has struggled to land playing opportunities on the Tour and plummeted to 842nd in the Official World Golf Rankings.

His game came back to life, at least for a day, in the opening round of the John Deere Classic at TPC Deere Run.

Propelled by two eagles and six birdies, Blixt fired a 9-under 62 and had a three-stroke cushion over a quartet of players after the morning wave. 

“At this point when you don’t have that much confidence in your game and you find something, you just kind of go out and see where you swing at it, and that’s what happened,” said Blixt, whose odds of winning the tournament were 1,000-to-1 at the start of the week. 

“I’m very happy about it. Extremely happy about it.”

Since his top-five finish at the Charles Schwab Challenge in 2019, he’s had only one top-25 finish. He missed 15 of 21 cuts last season and has played in only eight events this year.

He spent last week on the Korn Ferry Tour and missed the 36-hole cut by three strokes in Springfield, Ill.  

Challenges aside, the 39-year-old Blixt has kept a positive outlook. 

“Sometimes you just have to be grateful for what you have and what you experience as well and not always think about what could have been,” he said. “So I kind of lean on that a little bit. 

“Obviously I’m still hungry. I’m not saying that I’m quitting, but you know, sometimes when you talk to a friend and you hear him say I’m really happy about what I’m doing in life and how my life is right now, that’s the best thing you want to hear as a friend. I’m not too stressed.”

The Swede teamed with Cameron Smith for a win at the 2017 Zurich Classic. His last individual win on Tour was 10 years ago at The Greenbrier Classic. After a runner-up finish at the Masters in 2014, he reached as high as No. 33 in the OWGR. 

Blixt, who shot a 62 in the third round of the 2015 Wyndham Championship, is seeking to play the weekend on the Tour for the first time since the Mexico Open in late April. 

“Elite sports is very competitive, and if you don’t perform, you shouldn’t be playing,” Blixt said. “If you don’t play well enough, people don’t want to see you play. 

“I haven’t played well enough, and I don’t think people want to see that. … I just have been really working to get better so I can be that guy that people want to see on TV.”

Blixt had a pedestrian 2-under round at the turn. The back nine featured birdies at Nos. 11, 13, 15, 16 and 18 coupled with draining a 43-foot eagle putt at the drivable par-4 14th. 

The former Florida State standout has spent considerable time working with his swing coach back home for the last month. He said something clicked Tuesday, but realizes there are still three more rounds to conquer. 

“Golf is weird,” he noted. “Tomorrow I can shoot 100 I feel like, but today was a great day.

“When you go through swing changes, sometimes there’s a little bit of doubt in there. Today, I got into a really good rhythm.”

After heading back to the practice area for a couple hours following his round, Blixt planned on visiting the zoo with fellow Tour pro Henrik Norlander.

“(Henrik) came up on the third hole, and he is like, ‘Hey, I’m going to the zoo today. Do you want to go?’” Blixt said. “I was like, ‘Yeah, let’s go.’”

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