Martin Laird was half-awake this Monday morning when he got the call from his caddie, Sean McBride, that he had made the field for the ONEflight Myrtle Beach Classic. Good news, right?
Still, after Thursday’s first round, where he shot 7-under par 64 at The Dunes Golf and Beach Club, good for a one-shot lead over Aaron Rai and Keita Nakajima, he confessed he had briefly — very briefly — wondered if it was worth making a last-minute flight here from his home in Colorado.
After all, Laird at 43 isn’t your up-and-coming PGA Tour hopeful. Over a 22-year Tour career, he owns four victories, including in 2011 at the now-signature Arnold Palmer Invitational and, most recently, the 2020 Shriners Hospital for Children Open — which he also got into late, on a sponsor’s exemption.
More than a few 40-somethings with that record would be content to await age 50 and the PGA Tour Champions, but the native of Glasgow, Scotland continues to play both the PGA Tour and the Korn Ferry Tour, albeit with limited success. This year, he’s made two cuts in six KFT starts in 2026 and tied for 57th at the Puerto Rico Open, his lone previous PGA Tour start.
But the urge to play and compete is still there.
“So this is obviously a huge opportunity,” Laird said. “Any time you get to play in a PGA Tour event, even at my age, is still great. Now I’m going to play two Korn Ferry and two Tour events, (and) that’s a nice run coming up.”
Not that this first step was easy.
“Sunday, I was like, no, I’m not going to be going (to Myrtle Beach),” he said. But while getting his kids ready for school on Monday, Laird learned he’d moved up to first alternate. Once he knew he was in, he hopped a flight — with the requisite delay in Atlanta — and arrived at Myrtle Beach on Tuesday.
Laird laughed.
“I was still half asleep (Monday), and I kind of laid there going, ‘I think I’m coming,’” he said laughing. “I got to figure this out. It’s not ideal, but I still was more than happy to change some plans. It was a scramble, but well worth it.”
Thursday assured him that was the case.
Starting on The Dunes’ back nine, Laird fired a crisp 30 that included an eagle and two birdies in a four-hole stretch. He added three more birdies on his second nine and leads Rai at 6-under, with three others at 5-under. Play was delayed briefly Thursday afternoon by rain.
Rai, a PGA Tour member since 2023, had nine birdies and three bogeys in his debut visit to Myrtle Beach.
“I heard a lot of really good things (about The Dunes) the last two years,” he said. “I watched the highlights when Chris Gotterup won (in 2024) and just really liked the way that it looked.”
“It fits the schedule really well with playing ahead of the PGA Championship next week (at Aronomink, near Philadelphia), so it was a really simple decision to play.”
Rai, a European Tour (now DP World Tour) member since 2018, won three times there before joining the PGA Tour, and recorded his lone title at the 2024 Wyndham Championship. Like Laird, Rai struggled early this year, in part due to injuries to his lower back and neck.
“That’s definitely affected the amount of tournaments (and) the amount of prep going into them,” he said. “But (I’m) feeling healthy and able to practice now, just looking forward to playing a good stretch of events now over the next four weeks (and) the rest of the season.”
For Laird, The Dunes was a favorable place to jump back into the Tour. In his only previous visit in 2024, he missed the cut but liked the course.
“I remember feeling like this is a place I could play very well because if you drive it in the fairway, you can have some good looks. I like that kind of golf course (and) I’m not the longest hitter anymore.”
A key to Laird’s Thursday round was his play on The Dunes’ three par-5 holes, where he was 4-under par, including the eagle at No. 15, where his 3-wood approach left him with a 15-foot putt.
“It’s always nice when you hit a shot like that and then take advantage of it (by making the putt),” he said.
There were a lot of holes like that in Laird’s round, which included eight birdies along with that eagle. Much of his success he attributed to a new putter and, he admitted, a new attitude on putting.
“I’ve been putting bad (on the two tours), then I’ll go home, play my (home) course with friends and make putts for fun,” Laird said. He tried that same approach on Thursday — “one quick read for a lot of putts, and just go” — and it paid off.
In all, he made 151 feet of putts, including one mammoth 40-footer.
“I’ve not really been putting great for a while,” he said. “I’ve been telling people I’m playing better than my score, so it was nice to finally have a day where I made some putts.”
In addition to the new putter, Laird has a new caddie in McBride and a new coach in Pat Conyer, the teaching pro at his home club in Colorado, with whom he’s worked since the end of 2025. Conyer is on hand at The Dunes this week, having decided to come Tuesday after seeing 8-9 inches of snow in Denver.
With all that going for him, Laird likes his chances this week. Experience that comes with age is a benefit, as is the realization that such weeks aren’t the norm
anymore — and when one comes along, it’s best to go for it.
“I’ll be honest; the last couple of years have been tough,” he said. “I have thoughts: do I even want to play anymore, do I want to do this anymore, do I want to do the grind of traveling and being away from family a lot and all that?”
“When you’re my age, been doing it 20-odd years, you kind of start thinking, is it worth it?”
For this week, at least, Laird has his answer.
“I kind of decided I’m going to go the rest of this year and play,” he said. “The mindset is a little more like my putting. Let’s stop trying so hard. Let’s just go and play.”
“I think I finally maybe came at peace with either way it goes.”
So far this week, it’s going very well.
Click Here for Round 1 Photo Gallery
Photos from MyrtleBeachGolfTrips Instagram Account
