Ryan Ruffels overcomes elements to make cut, excited for ‘two more cracks’ at Myrtle Beach

Stay aggressive, pedal down.

Ryan Ruffels and his caddie, Duane Smith, were at an intersection coming off a birdie on the par-5 15th at Dunes Golf and Beach Club during the front nine of Friday’s second round of the ONEfight Myrtle Beach Classic and had a decision to make off the next tee: lay back or pull out the driver.

It might have been unfamiliar territory for the YouTube golf star whose last Tour event was the 2022 Shriners Children’s Open that was met with the correct decision.

“We’ve got to stay aggressive. If I’m out here, we’re here for one week, may as well try to win it and make a ton of birdies and see where that leaves us,” Ruffels recounted the conversation with Smith to reporters after his 1-under 70 that left him T-15 on the leaderboard heading into Saturday’s third round.

“I’m proud of myself sending driver down 16 and giving myself a real good look at birdie and then converting birdie from there,” he added.

ONEflight Myrtle Beach Classic - Rd 3

Don’t miss the third round of the ONEflight Myrtle Beach Classic at The Dunes Golf and Beach Club in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

The back-to-back birdies offset a sluggish start that saw the 28-year-old Australian bogey two of his first five holes.

Earlier in the week, Ruffels noted he was “not much of a tinkerer” and said he was confident in his short game but admitted switching to a mallet putter at the start of the year — breaking of a 10-year stretch with his previous shortstick.

“This putter seems to just give me a little bit better speed on mis-hits, so just keeps the speed up a little bit,” he said.

That change also seemed like a prudent, vital choice for Ruffels during the round Friday. He ended the front nine with another birdie, and at one point a share of the lead with five other players.

“It’s a weird position that I’m in, where I feel like I’ve got YouTube Golf on my back or something like that, proving that we’re good players and we can play good golf,” he explained. “Grant [Horvat] nearly beat me to get here, and here I am in a good position after two days.

“There’s a lot of good players in YouTube golf,” he added. “I feel a lot of the fans that watch us are really in my corner and want me to do well, which is awesome to see. ... I’m just proud of myself that I played two good rounds on the PGA Tour. I get two more cracks at it to see if I’m any good or not.”

Even in the down moments when he had to work the hardest, the putter seemed to save Ruffels: He was able to save bogey on the par-4 seventh thanks to his work on the greens.

Getting there wasn’t easy, though. He called his lie off his approach shot “as bad as you can do.”

“The ball must have plugged. I actually with Jackson [Suber] called him over to check if it was plugged. The ball was sitting so far down you could barely see it and then surrounded by a nest of grass,” Ruffels described the scene on No. 7. “One of the worst lies I’ve seen, and this rough is usually pretty playable.

“I swung at it real hard, but there was so much grass there, the club just stopped,” he added. “The ball barely moved. Then I had my work cut out for me just to make bogey. I managed to save bogey [thank, which I was actually quite happy about.

Overcoming nerves — and rain

Ruffels said after Thursday’s opening round that he had been thinking about the tournament since qualifying for it via The Q weeks ago, and that there was some anxiety stemming from that wait.

“I’ve been thinking about what it’s going to be like when I finally get there,” he said after Round 1. “When The Q is finally announced and once The Q is announced, what it’s going to be like with all the extra subscribers and followers and fans that are out here. Yeah, it’s been on my mind.”

He called the 4-under 67 first round a “big confidence boost” — which included a bogey-free back nine while facing heavy winds.

“It happens in outdoor sports but we kind of got a bit of a rough draw, to be honest,” he said of starting in the rain Thursday before getting dried by the breezy conditions later in the round.

“This morning it was really cold and we had the opposite wind direction, blowing 15 to 20 miles an hour,” Ruffels said.