Bulldogs having their day on PGA Tour

Bubba Watson; 12; 7; $2.9 million; W, Northern Trust Open

Harris English; 38; 12; $2.4 million; W, OHL Classic Mayakoba

Russell Henley; 47; 11; $1.3 million; W, Honda Classic

Chris Kirk; 49; 10; $2 million; W, McGladrey Classic

Brian Harman; 126; 11; $784,000; T3 Northern Trust Open

Brendon Todd; 146; 11; $609,000; T6 Humana Challenge

Erik Compton; 324; 11; $199,000; T19 Farmers Insurance Open

Kevin Kisner; 391; 10; $143,000; T20 McGladrey Classic

Hudson Swafford; 457; 11; $221,000; T8 Sony Open

Last week as the Florida swing of the PGA Tour did its Tampa Bay thing, something didn’t feel quite right.

There were gaps on the leaderboard, beyond the lack of a single galvanizing name among a lineup of lesser lights. There was not a former Georgia Bulldog up there, anywhere. And that qualified as a shift in the tectonic plates of professional golf.

“One of the few weekends when I was kind of uninterested because we didn’t have anybody in it,” said Georgia’s long-serving golf coach, Chris Haack. “Had four guys make the cut, but nobody got themselves into contention like they usually have. Made it a little more of a boring weekend for us.”

Georgia and Georgia Tech both have put many gentlemen behind the wheel of a PGA Tour courtesy car. Little Georgia Regents (formerly Augusta State) now has Patrick Reed out here making quite a racket. There is a cyclical nature to which state program has the right to claim golfing superiority. Currently, it is the Bulldogs turn to throw out their sweater-vested chests.

The Georgia gang announced its intentions at the end of last season, when six of them made the FedEx Cup playoffs. Then, as the new schedule wrapped around the end of 2013 to the beginning of 2014, four different former Bulldogs won events.

Those four — Bubba Watson, Harris English, Chris Kirk and Russell Henley — are all ranked among the world’s top 50 and already have money winnings in seven figures. Five others are playing full schedules on tour.

The run would be truly ridiculous if only they could count Reed, who played for a semester at Georgia before being asked to relocate. So, no, he doesn’t count.

You can’t visit a tour-stop practice tee without tripping over a G-themed golf bag or a bulldog head cover. Throw that many from one school into a field — it is the largest group Haack can remember in his 18 years at Georgia — and chances are somebody will contend. It’s not likely they will account for more wins this season than will the Bulldogs football team, but at the current pace that can’t be completely laughed off.

“Must be something in the water in Athens,” English said.

Or at least something in the attitude.

“I won the McGladrey (on Sea Island) this fall, then Harris won the next week (at an event in Mexico),” Kirk said. “It probably fired him up a little bit. It was like: Man, if he can win I can. And he goes and does it the next week.”

“We all knew that we wanted to be on the PGA Tour some day and we made each other better,” English said. “I don’t know what it is but we’ve had a lot of success and it’s good to see all these guys out here.”

An explanation for this Bulldog surge may be as simple as the one offered by Brian Harman, who came along in 2006, one year after Georgia won its second of two national championships: “You know we had some pretty good teams there, so I don’t think it’s any surprise some guys are having success out here. It’s a pretty good program there, a leaping point out to here.”

But another reason, many believe, lives in the competitive tension Haack installs at Georgia. The first couple months of the golf season the coach requires all those players who didn’t finish at least 10th in the previous tournament to qualify for one of the five spots in the next event.

No one is spared from the strop that Haack breaks out to sharpen his team’s edge.

Currently the top-ranked player in college golf, Georgia’s Joey Garber, was left home for one tournament last fall when he failed to qualify.

Even before Haack committed fully to the intrasquad qualifying process, it was a bear to make the cut. Watson, the 2012 Masters champion, played in only one tournament his senior year (’01) at Georgia. It took years for that rift to heal.

Said Kirk, class of 2007: “It was one of those deals we had so many good players and we were so competitive with each other and pushed each other every day, that going to a tournament was almost like a relief.

“I had four years of great competition day in and day out, not just in tournament golf.”

“Any time you’re competing you’re making yourself a little tougher,” Haack said. “You’re resilience becomes better. It made them all grow up and become better players maybe a little faster.”

So, there you have the golfing equivalent of Erk Russell head-butting his guys until the blood flows.

Herding the individualists of this game into any kind of group is a formidable challenge. They are so prone to scattering, looking for their own little patch of clover.

College golf at least gave them some sense of belonging to a group. “I love to compete with the guys I went to college with and really, that was our fraternity at Georgia,” English said.

“They all want to beat each other’s brains out like they always have,” Haack said. “At the same time if it’s not them winning, I’m sure they’d just as soon see a Bulldog up there.”

They’ll do well to enjoy the frat party now because this is the most fickle of games, and someday soon it will be someone else’s turn to bark.