PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — By the time Wesley Bryan’s tee shot on the eighth hole at the Honda Classic came to rest, the ball was well right of the fairway, on the wrong side of a thick row of trees, laying on a patch of pine straw with only a scant look at the green.
This left Bryan with a critical choice to make: Take the safe route or the risky route?
Back at his home in Aiken, S.C., older brother George Bryan IV, with whom Wesley became a YouTube sensation trick-shot artist and a contestant on the Golf Channel’s “Big Break,’’ knew exactly what his younger brother was going to do.
“I was watching with some buddies and I said, ‘There ain’t no way he’s chipping out sideways,’ ’’ George IV told The Post by phone Friday night. “I said, ‘It’s too big of a gap for him not to try it.’ And when he pulled it off, it was just like another shot for him. He’s not afraid to pull those shots off, because he’s not scared of failing.’’
Sure enough, and of course, Wesley opted for the trick shot that delivered a treat — hitting a perfect line-drive cut shot through an opening in the trees, over the water and onto green, where he would two-putt for a key par save to keep his round intact.
It was the signature moment of the 3-under 67 Bryan shot in Friday’s second round at PGA National to earn a share of the lead with Ryan Palmer at 9-under entering the weekend. Rickie Fowler is one shot back at 8-under and Anirban Lahiri is 7-under.
“I think the reason he’s so good at trick shots is when we were growing up, there was a stretch in college where he would make more birdies from the woods than he would from the fairways,’’ George IV said. “Tiger Woods was the gold standard of pulling off those shots out of trouble. I can’t compare Wesley with Tiger, but he would hit these shots and I would say, ‘Dude, you can hit these shots just as good as Tiger.’ ’’
The elder Bryan told The Post by phone, as his son was negotiating the back nine, that he was watching from a rental car counter at the airport ready to change his plans and drive 12 hours to PGA National to watch his son try to win his first PGA Tour event.
“If Wesley gets into the last four or five [Saturday] groups, I’m going,’’ he said. “I want to make sure he’s in the Top 10 before I take off.’’
Needless to say, when George Bryan III — who owns the George Bryan Golf Academy in Chapin, S.C., and who played in the 1999 PGA Championship at Medinah — got off the phone with The Post, he had rental car keys in hand and was off to make the 12-hour drive from Mississippi to Florida.
The dad conceded he didn’t approve of his boys’ trick-shot fame, and because of that he called Wesley’s development into a PGA Tour player “divine intervention.’’
“I wasn’t a fan of it to start with,’’ he said. “I was like, ‘What the heck are they doing?’ That’s how smart I am. I felt they had too much time on their hands. I told them, ‘If you’ve got that much time on your hands, apparently you’re bored so you probably ought to get a job.’ ’’
Bryan’s job now is to seize this opportunity and win is first PGA Tour event — a year after he qualified for the Tour by winning three Web.com events.
“Guys are good out here,’’ Wesley Bryan said. “They don’t stop making birdies, so I’ve got to make sure I keep my foot on the gas pedal.’’
Years removed from having more than a million views on his YouTube channel, Bryan was asked if there is a particular “dream’’ trick shot he’d like to hit.
“Yeah,’’ he said. “A putt to win the Masters.’’
A win at this week’s Honda Classic will do — if for nothing else because it would qualify him for the Masters in April.
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