South African Els, whose most recent PGA Tour victory came at the 2012 British Open, holed out from 157 yards to eagle the par-four 12th, then sank a 24-foot birdie putt at the par-four 14th to surge up the leaderboard.
“I enjoyed it,” Els, 46, told CBS Sports. “I’m not the straightest driver but I kept it in play for the most part. The misses I did have weren’t too far off and the putter was hot for most of the round.
“I missed those short ones on 15 and 16,” he said, referring to a six-footer and a four-footer, “but just overall solid golf and that’s what you’ve got to do at Congressional.”
Els has recorded just one top-25 in 15 starts on the 2015-16 PGA Tour, a tie for 14th at the RBC Heritage in April, but has come a long way since his mind-boggling six-putt on the first green at the Masters in April.
“Obviously when we’ve played this game long enough, there’s a lot of things that’s going to happen to you,” he said. “Playing the game for 25 years as a professional, everything just about has happened.
“And obviously that happened at the first hole of the Masters which is not great, so it’s been a kind of a re-set since then and I’m enjoying putting.”
(Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes- Editing by Steve Keating)
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