Where do we start with the fantastical tale of one Muzzy Donohue, who shot a eight-under 63 on Friday in the 3M Open, near his Minnesota hometown, to be tied for 24th and make the cut in his very first PGA Tour event.
We should probably begin with the nickname, which Donohue was given at a young age by family members after the fuzzy, green lead character in the BBC-made cartoon, “Muzzy in Gondoland.”
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He was Muzzy throughout school and athletics, where he became at two-sport star in hockey and golf at St. Thomas Academy before he ultimately decided to hit balls instead of pucks in college, playing most of his career at Boston College before getting in a final year at Santa Clara in California.
Now 25 and before getting a sponsor exemption this week, Donohue had played in one PGA Tour-sanctioned event, on the Latinoamerica circuit, and he’d missed out getting a card on that tour for this year when he played a bad final round in Q School. Since then, he said he’s played poorly in mini-tour events.
But Donohue’s confidence was boosted when he won the Minnesota State Open two weeks ago, and with a cousin who doesn’t know much about golf on his bag this week at TPC Twin Cities, they’ve got an otherworldly source of support driving them: Their grandmother, Marcey, passed away on Monday.
Is that enough to jump on the Muzzy bandwagon for at least the weekend?
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On Thursday, Donohue shot 73 and looked headed for a missed cut, but he responded by making nine birdies in the second round, including four in a row on his front nine after he started on No. 10. On a day that Michael Kim shot 59, Donohue was eight under through 13 holes and four more birdies would get him to the magic number. But he could only add on one, at 17, and then bogeyed the 18th by missing a three-foot putt. “Woke up from my blackout and missed the putt,” Donohue said.
He got rousing cheers from the hometown crowd and family members who came out to watch.
“It was unreal. It’s hard to put words to it,” Donohue said. “I’ve never really experienced this before. This is my first PGA Tour event. The most fans I’ve had watching are probably 50 at the State Open a few weeks ago. I just kind of tried to stay between the ropes and focus on what I could control. My caddie did a really good job of kind of keeping me present.
“Yeah, my grandma was definitely with me this week, too. Or today. Yesterday, she left me for the first 10 holes or so, then she kind of came into play. Yeah, she’s looking down on me and looking out for me. It was a good day.”
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Donohue admitted to feeling the nerves when he arrived this week for a tournament that includes World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who is only one shot ahead of Donohue after 36 holes. He was awed by the players on the range who’d he watched so often on TV. But he got some encouraging words from a tour pro and friend from home in Sea Island, Ga.
“Steven Fisk is a big one,” Donohue said. “He kind of sat me down on Wednesday and gave me a little pep talk and told me that I belong here, and that they’re just normal guys out there. I felt like I was getting pretty intimidated by all of the big names … but he really calmed me down. He gave me some advice to stay in the ropes, too, which is pretty cool.”
One might think that Donohue would have chosen a professional caddie for his major-league debut, but he went with the more comfortable pick in cousin Harrison, who knows little bit golf and more about keeping things light.
“He tells you he knows a little bit [about golf], but he knows even less than that. He’s been purely just like the vibes guy,” Donohue said. “I’ve been getting my yardages and stuff, which is a little adjustment. I haven’t been super comfortable trusting my yardages, particularly on holes like 17 and 18 where there’s water short. I’ve been clubbing up probably a little bit more than I should and playing it a little safer. But it’s been great having him on the bag. He just gets my mind off golf. I can kind of be a little bit of an over-analyzer, so the less I think about golf the better for me.”
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Donohue grew up in a home on the private North Oaks Golf Club in suburban Minneapolis and played the game from a young age during the long days of summer. Come winter, though, he was back on the ice for hockey. Whatever he was playing at the time was his favorite sport.
“I think that probably stunted my development a little bit in terms of golf skill,” Donohue said, “but I think it also built a lot of other skills and maybe made me a little bit more well-rounded. Then come college I really started to focus on golf.”
Donohue was asked what his expectations were heading into this week, and he had an interesting answer about his mental approach.
“I think if I tried to put like an outcome-based goal in my mind, then if it is to make the cut, then a lot of the time I teeter right around it,” he said. “It kind of limits myself. Like, I would hypothesize that if I thought, ‘OK, let’s make the cut this week,’ I would have been thinking about the cut being at three or four under and once I got there, maybe I make the turn and start to get a little nervous and a little fearful, then make a couple bogeys instead of making a couple more birdies.”
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As for calming himself in what could be both a thrilling and terrifying position, Donohue keeps thinking back to his grandmother, for whom he’s honoring this week by having “Grandma” on his ball and ball marker.
“Hopefully,” he said, “she’s not sick of me and will stick around the next couple days.”
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