On Thursday, O'Hair, 26, lived up to Kim's billing with a 1-under 69 that made him the best of under-30 Americans in the first round of the PGA Championship. He was in a group of four with Sergio Garcia and tour veterans Billy Mayfair and Ken Duke at 1 under.

And they were only one shot removed from the co-leaders at 2-under 68: Sweden's Robert Karlsson and India's Jeev Milkha Singh. Argentina's Andres Romero, a PGA Tour rookie and winner this year, was also at 2 under, but with two holes left to play this morning.

The clear winner Thursday was Oakland Hills, which challenged the 156 players with length, rough, wind and firm greens, and then tossed in a late-afternoon rain delay of 85 minutes to make the long day complete.

O'Hair teed off early and was long back in his lodging by the time play finished with 18 players still on the course. His status as a first-round contender in the year's last major is another twist in a strange 2008 season.

He had a victory and a tie for third in back-to-back tournaments in Florida. He had a tie for 14th at the Masters. He was in the PGA Tour's top 10 in earnings and primed to stay there.

And then came three missed cuts in a row, followed by a tie for 26th and a tie for 39th. Explanation? "My ball striking was terrible," O'Hair said.

So was his driving -- in a brand-new Shelby Mustang with its powerful engine.

O'Hair took delivery of the machine after returning from a 39th place at the Memorial in early June. He was off that week before heading to California for the U.S. Open.

He never made it to Torrey Pines. He withdrew after a car accident.

It wasn't until last week at the Bridgestone Invitational when O'Hair was willing to share the embarrassing details with the media.

"I just pulled out of my driveway and I was going down kind of a cul-de-sac road that I live on," he said. "It had rained all night and it was slick. It was a manual car and I just shifted maybe a little too quick and hit a pole going about 35 miles an hour."

O'Hair also sheepishly admitted the Mustang was his first experience with a manual transmission. He suffered a chest injury from the yank of the seat belt and missed a month of tournaments. And his wife, Jackie, ordered him to sell the car.

"I'm now driving an Escalade," he said.

O'Hair returned from injury to finish 75th in the AT&T National, miss the cut in the John Deere Classic and finish 82nd in the British Open.

And then he made a change that might turn out to be more dramatic than in his transportation. He dropped his longtime instructor, Steve Dahlby, and signed on with Sean Foley, best known as the swing doctor for Stephen Ames.

O'Hair arrived here coming off a tie for third in the Canadian Open and a tie for 12th at the Bridgestone Invitational after the switch to Foley.

"Today, I didn't feel like I hit the ball very well, but I was able to get it around the course," he said. "If I had hit it like this a month ago, I probably would've finished a few over."

O'Hair was on target for a place on the Ryder Cup team after that burst of success in early spring. Now he stands 13th in the player standings and would need to finish in the top few here to gain one of the guaranteed eight places.

The odds were much longer for O'Hair to reach any level of success on the PGA Tour than they are for claiming a Ryder Cup spot this weekend.

Growing up in Lubbock, Texas, he had to deal with the ultimate in obsessive sports fathers. Marc O'Hair had his son turn pro after his junior year in high school. He started entering him in PGA Qualifying School in 1999, when Sean was 17.

O'Hair got away from his father a couple of years later, finally made it through Q School in 2004 and was the PGA Tour's Rookie of the Year in 2005.

The old man is long out of the picture. Sean's married with kids, his ball striking is on the comeback, and he's also back where he belongs on the road -- in a large SUV with automatic transmission.

Patrick Reusse can be heard weekdays on AM-1500 KSTP at 6:45 and 7:45 a.m. and 4:40 p.m. • preusse@startribune.com