Brendon Todd and Webb Simpson, together again, after Todd’s improbable resurgence
It could have been any Thursday morning from childhood. Or high school. Or college. Or at any point over the past 20 years. Webb Simpson and Brendon Todd, friends and rivals from the Triangle, making their way around Sedgefield Country Club like they had so many times before.
It’s exactly what they imagined as kids, maybe even more. Both multiple PGA Tour winners, Simpson with a major to his credit. Both in the top 10 in FedEx Cup points this season going into the Wyndham Championship, with realistic designs on the top spot.
Simpson posted a 4-under-par 66 on Thursday and Todd a 2-under 68, perfectly respectable but not on the same pace as another North Carolinian, Harold Varner III, who rocketed to the lead with an 8-under 62. Raleigh’s Doc Redman was in that group, too, with a 3-under 67.
It was another battle in the same war Simpson and Todd have fought for more than two decades. Only the stakes have changed.
“I think we could have imagined it then,” Todd said. “But to go on to professional golf and have the success that we’ve had, especially his success, we would have pinched ourselves and signed right up for that career, for sure.”
And yet there was still something improbable about it, not because of where they came from but how far Todd had fallen. A couple summers ago, he’d gotten the yips so bad off the tee he missed the cut in 34 of 39 tournaments over a three-year span, a recurrence of a problem he’d had, to a lesser degree, earlier in his career before recovering to post his first PGA Tour win in 2014.
Pros have quit the game over less.
With a new teacher and retooled swing, Todd has put together a season for the ages, winning twice in back-to-back weeks in November to springboard a summer of rejuvenated, competitive golf. He came into the Wyndham off a tie for 17th at the PGA Championship, his best finish in a major since 2014. Then again, he’d only played in one other since then.
“It’s really rewarding,” Todd said. “I probably appreciate it more than I ever would have after going through some struggles, but this is the golf I’ve kind of always thought I should be playing and I feel comfortable out there. I’m pushing myself and trying to get the most out of my game to try to win tournaments.”
There was something inexorably human about Todd’s slump, absent any injury or other wound. He merely lost the ability to play at an elite level. It happens. Rarely does such an athlete find that ability again, let alone to the degree Todd has.
“To see a guy go through what he went through, I feel like that’s a story that isn’t talked about enough out here or really in sports,” Simpson said. “It’s hard to go from where he was to now on top of the world in the game of golf, or close to it.”
So this was more what Simpson has come to know from Todd, since way back in their childhoods. Simpson, from Raleigh, played at Broughton and Wake Forest; Todd from Cary, at Green Hope and Georgia, born 17 days apart and always in the same age group, the same tournaments, the same invitationals.
“We’ve had some good ones,” Simpson said. “I would say growing up, he definitely beat me more than I beat him, but even in amateur and college golf there were some good battles. It was fun to think back. We’ve known each other for 20 years, 22 years, and we’re still playing together, trying to beat each other.”
This story was originally published August 13, 2020 at 2:21 PM.
