Tour pro clears quad bogey with two eagle holes in wild round
David Ford’s final score on Thursday at the 2026 Cognizant Classic, aged 72, was not surprising, or perhaps a little higher than he would have liked. His scorecard from Day 1 at PGA National, however, tells a very different story.
That’s because Ford’s score hides that in the opening round he made eight pars, four bogeys, three birdies, two eagle-outs and a nasty quadruple-bogey.
Here’s what happened in one of the toughest rounds of the year, along with video highlights of Ford’s rollercoaster day at PGA National.
David Ford shot a very unimpressive 72 at the Cognizant Classic
Ford is a 23-year-old fresh out of college and just starting his professional golf career. He made 13 PGA Tour starts last season, making four cuts, including a T3 finish at the Bank of Utah Championship in October.
More importantly, Ford finished first in the 2025 PGA Tour University rankings while playing at the University of North Carolina. That earned him his 2026 PGA Tour card.
In three starts before this week’s Cognizant Classic, Ford ran well, cutting two out of three and earning a T13 at American Express, won by Scottie Scheffler.
But even though his PGA Tour career is just getting started, he may not have another round like he did Thursday at PGA National.
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Ford started his day on the Champion Course on the back nine at 1:35 pm ET on Thursday, and promptly birdied the 10th to start with red numbers.
When he birdied the second at 12 to move to two under, things started to look good for the young pro. But five holes later Ford sat at five over after dropping seven shots.
His first bogey came at 13, but it was the infamous Bear Trap – a difficult length from 15-17 – that got the best of Ford.
He stayed dry on 15 but made bogey. At 16, he hit his tee shot in the water and made another bogey.
But the real disaster struck on the watery par-3 17th. Ford’s first tee shot landed short of the water and to the right of the green. As his ball only dipped, he decided to try to hit it from there rather than take the penalty.
Ford hit the ground on his second shot, sending his ball uphill in front of him before it bounced back into the water. He decided to try the same shot as the third one, and got the same result.
At that point, Ford made the smart choice to take a penalty stroke and hit his fifth shot on the draw.
Two putts later and he had a quadruple-bogey 7, falling to five over the round.
But the rollercoaster of David Ford was about to rise dramatically.
David Ford bounces back from the quad with back-to-back, hole-out eagles at the Cognizant Classic
In the opening round of the 2026 Cognizant Classic, 2025 PGA Tour University No. 1 David Ford experiences a crazy sequence of events. Ford made a quadruple-bogey 7 on the par-3 17th hole at the tricky Bear Trap after he couldn’t get the ball out of danger. Then, Ford cards back hole-out eagles on Nos. 2-3.
At 18, Ford made a birdie to complete his first nine in four over. After par 1, Ford hit his drive on the par-4 2nd into the fairway, then holed out 144 yards for eagle.
Suddenly his score has increased to two overs. But Ford was far from done. He missed his second shot on the par-5 3rd, leaving 90 feet with his third shot. Amazingly, Ford deflected that wedge to hole out for a straight eagle the second time.
And just like that, in the matter of four holes Ford had erased his quadruple-bogey and advanced from four over to par.
The rest of his round was largely unchanged, with Ford making five pars and one bogey to cap his one-over 72.
That left him in the middle of the pack on the leaderboard, approaching the cut heading into Round 2. Despite the mess he made through his first eight holes, Ford has a fighting chance to make the cut at PGA National.
You can watch video highlights of Ford’s extraordinary opening round on Cognizant Classic above.
