Who was Bart Bryant? He beat Tiger Woods twice on a Sunday and was a dogged PGA Tour player
A casual PGA Tour fan may or may not recognize the name of Bart Bryant.
More often than not, some fans might confuse him with his older brother, Brad, eight years his senior, who was given the distinctive nickname “Dr. Dirt” by CBS golf analyst Gary McCord for his disheveled look on the golf course.
The Bryants were, in a golf sense, kindred spirits and one of 12 pairs of brothers to have won on the PGA Tour.
But their family’s lives have taken another tragic turn.
Bart Bryant, 59, was killed on Tuesday in a horrific car accident in Polk County as he was driving him with his wife Donna to their home in Auburndale. Bryant had to stop his car in a line of vehicles held up because of road construction, and according to the Polk County Sheriff’s Department, a truck came from behind and plowed into Bryant’s car.
His death comes five years after his first wife, Cathy, died of brain cancer in 2017. They had been married for 34 years and had two daughters.
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How he defeated Tiger Woods
”(Brad and Bart) had the same qualities in their blood,” said two-time PGA Tour winner Len Mattiace, who was often paired with both brothers. “They were hard workers. They were competitors. They were really nice guys. Bart was maybe too nice. But when he got it going, he was fierce. He wouldn’t back down. And he got Tiger a couple of times, didn’t he?”
Yes he did, most notably in the 2005 Tour Championship at the East Lake Club in Atlanta. Bryant fired a 62 in the first round to break the course record. He then beat Woods by six shots, to this day, the largest margin anyone has beaten the greatest golfer of this generation when he was in the runner-up spot.
Bryant also won The Memorial earlier that year in Murifield Village in Dublin, Ohio. He beat Fred Couples by one shot and Woods by four. That tournament is being played this week.
“Broke my heart when I saw the news,” said Mark McCumber, who won 10 times on the PGA Tour and once fended off Brad Bryant to get to a playoff and then win the 1994 Tour Championship. “Bart was very talented and then having to fight off all kinds of injuries. … it took him a long time to win but two of the ones he did win were unbelievable, just huge tournaments.”
Bart Bryant's back story
Bart Bryant was the classic example of a man who loved golf, without the love being returned nearly as much.
He and his brother were natives of the small Texas town of Gatesville and sons of a Baptist minister. Both were stars at the junior and high school level after the family moved to New Mexico and Bart was a two-time All-American at New Mexico State.
He took a different path from his brother, who played at the University of New Mexico.
Bart Bryan then began a long, arduous life of chasing the PGA Tour dream, interrupted frequently by shoulder and elbow injuries.
For years he prowled the country in search of competition, anywhere he could tee it up and make a buck. Among his professional titles were Florida and North Dakota Opens.
No one ever heard him complain. He was playing golf, wasn’t he?
”As long as I could feed my family on what I was making on mini-tours, I was okay,” he once said.
On-again off-again Tour player
Bart Bryant got his Tour card five times. He had to return to the Tour’s national qualifying tournament six times before he got to the Tour to stay — and even then nothing was guaranteed until a magical fall week in San Antonio at the 2004 Texas Open.
With another trip to the qualifying tournament in the balance, Bryant shot 60 in the third round at the La Cantera Country Club and went on to win, earning his PGA Tour card for two years at the age of 41.
”You have to have a real passion for competing and playing,” said McCumber, who needed eight turns at the qualifying process to secure his Tour card. “I felt more pressure in those tournaments than I ever did trying to win The Players or playing in the Ryder Cup and when Bart finally got on the Tour to stay and then won a few, I was very happy for him.”
Bart Bryant won his first Tour title in his 187th start. His brother won the 1995 Disney World Classic, his only Tour title, in his 475th start.
They both had success on the PGA Tour Champions. Brad won four times, including the 2007 U.S. Senior Open and Bart won twice, as recently as 2018.
Bart Bryant, in recent years
Bart Bryant last played in 2020, getting four starts with one top-20 finish.
He had $14,399,779 in career earnings from both the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions, covering 459 starts — $31,372 per event. Woods, by comparison, has won an average of $326,743 per start, nearly 10 times what Bryant has made.
But on two Sundays in particular in 2005, Bryant got the best of the best.
“I certainly don’t put myself in the same category,” Bryant once said of the elite players on the PGA Tour such as Woods. “But I have found out, that if I’m at the top of my game, under the right conditions, I definitely can compete with these guys.”
And his fellow players say he squeezed every ounce out of his ability and earned every penny.
”To stay at it the way he did, and win the way he did, that late in his career was an amazing accomplishment,” Mattiace said. “I think a lot of people can relate to that.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Bart Bryant beat Tiger Woods twice, carved out respectable PGA Tour career
