Justin Lower Joins Matt Adams on Golf Channel
Following his career best 3rd place finish at The Mexico Open, Justin Lower joined Matt Adams’ show Fairways of Life to discuss life on Tour and what is next for him.
Following his career best 3rd place finish at The Mexico Open, Justin Lower joined Matt Adams’ show Fairways of Life to discuss life on Tour and what is next for him.
Justin Lower keeps grinding, and now it’s getting him somewhere.
Lower, Stark County’s rooting interest on the PGA Tour, is among a handful of players to have played five events and made all five cuts in 2024.
On Sunday, the former Northwest High School and Malone University golfer who lives in Green logged his first top-three finish on the Tour.
Playing in the Mexican Open on a resort course near the Pacific Ocean, Lower shot 14-under par to tie for third place, trailing only Jake Knapp of the United States (19-under) and Sami Valamaki of Finland (17-under).
On No. 18 Sunday in Nuevo Vallarta, Lower came close to having an eagle putt that could have put him at 16-under. His 247-yard second shot rolled past the flag and into the rough. He chipped to 8 feet and putted to within 9 inches, tapping in for par.
A birdie would have left Lower alone in third place for a $558,900 payout. Tying Stephan Jaeger and C.T. Pan for third dropped his winnings to $429,300, but that’s life on Tour.
He wouldn’t have finished so high without such moments as a 52-foot birdie putt on a water hole on the second day of the tournament. He birdied No. 14 and No. 15 in his last round to set up the third-place tie.
The 34-year-old Lower’s best previous Tour finish was a tie for fourth at the Fortinet Championship in mid-September 2022. This is his third season on Tour after a long battle to get there.
He didn’t even play in the 2023 Mexican Open, two months after his wife, Janise, gave birth to their first child.
The 2024 trip to Mexico proved fortuitous, especially after he finished his third-round pairing with Tony Finau. He shot 5-under 66 to Finau’s 69 and finished the tournament three shots ahead of Finau, who won the event in 2023 in a duel with Jon Rahm.
Making a cut can be a limited satisfaction.
In the Hawaiian Open in January, for example, Lower made the cut with no room to spare. He then was so-so in the final two rounds and finished in a tie for 74th place at 1-under par, leaving Honolulu with a check for $16,019. Grayson Murray won the tournament at 17-under and walked away with $1.5 million.
In his next three tournaments, Lower tied for 39th ($34,020), tied for 43rd ($28,530), and tied for 53rd ($20,529).
Continuing to make cuts keeps a guy in the hunt for real money.
In four events since the Hawaiian Open, Lower has made all four cuts and earned $512,379. Hawaiian champion Murray has missed three of four cuts and won $35,313.
Lower pushed himself with a busy schedule last year and is at it again. He played tournaments in Hawaii, California (two), Phoenix and Mexico within the last seven weeks. He is back at it this week at a tournament in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, headlined by Rory McIlroy.
Packing the schedule equates to survival, chasing the FedEx Cup points necessary to stay on Tour. Lower is in his third season since earning a Tour card.
He was running on fumes last July when he missed a cut in an event at Tahoe Mountain Country Club in California.
“I probably should have skipped that one, in hindsight,” he told The Repository late last year. “I wasn’t really listening to my body. I needed some rest.”
Lower caught some rest late in the year and finished strong, ending the 2022-23 season at No. 100 in the rankings used to determine Tour eligibility.
The revised PGA Tour format has the current season confined to calendar year 2024. Lower’s third place in Mexico vaulted him to No. 57 in the rankings.
Making the cut is a big deal to golfers fighting to establish turf. In the Mexican Open, 65 players made the cut; 67 did not. Tying for third place from that crowd stands as a milestone in Lower’s career thus far.
Lower has spoken of bigger goals than just making cuts, including winning reaching The Masters and other major tournaments.
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (October 19, 2023) – Jack and Barbara Nicklaus, together with the PGA TOUR and Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, are proud to celebrate the 5th anniversary of Play Yellow, a program dedicated to supporting pediatric patients treated at member hospitals.
Play Yellow, a heartfelt initiative close to the Nicklaus’s hearts, traces its origins back to a young man and friend of the Nicklaus family, Craig Smith, who was diagnosed with a rare bone cancer, Ewing Sarcoma, in 1968. This program is a tribute to Craig, who had a penchant for wearing a lucky yellow shirt to cheer on Jack when he was competing, and his remarkable friendship with golf’s greatest champion.
The 5th-anniversary celebration of Play Yellow took place earlier this week at the annual Play Yellow Invitational in West Palm Beach, FL, from October 15 to 17, 2023. The event was a testament to the enduring legacy of Jack and Barbara Nicklaus’s commitment to children’s hospitals, with the aim of helping the 12 million children treated at local member hospitals each year.
At the 2023 event, celebrating the spirit of giving back and championing the cause of children’s hospitals, professional golfer Brandon Matthews was honored with the prestigious Play Yellow Ambassador of the Year award.
Matthews has a strong affinity for children’s hospitals and the impact they have on local communities. His annual Play Yellow golf tournament, the NEPA Invitational, supports the Geisinger Janet Weis Children’s Hospital, a member hospital of Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. Since 2021, the event has distributed over $350,000 to benefit the hospital and provide care for kids across Northeast Pennsylvania, where Matthews was born and raised.
“I’m truly honored to be an ambassador for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals’ Play Yellow campaign. I’ve seen firsthand the impact of our fundraising efforts on kids and their communities,” Matthews said. “I am just so thankful to have the opportunity to be involved with Mr. and Mrs. Nicklaus, and playing a small part in a very important endeavor.”
In addition, the 2023 Corporate Partner of the Year award was given to the PGA TOUR Superstore, and the 2023 Best Play Yellow Event was given to the Drew Neville Charity Classic.
The Nicklaus’ have devoted their lives to supporting philanthropy, including children’s hospitals. The Play Yellow program is already leaving an indelible mark on member hospitals in the U.S., including:
“Play Yellow was born out of our love for children and our passion for making a difference,” said Jack and Barbara Nicklaus. “We’re deeply grateful for the support this program has received, and we look forward to making a continued positive impact in children’s healthcare for many years to come.”
Play Yellow allows the golf community to give back to the areas in which they play and support. Funds raised benefit local member hospitals and are used where they are needed most, making a significant and encouraging effect on patients and their families.
To further their vision, the Nicklaus’s are calling on the entire golf community to step up and join them in raising funds to support member children’s hospitals across the U.S. and Canada.
Join Play Yellow to change kids’ health to change the future. Visit Play Yellow to learn more and make a difference today.
About Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals:
Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals was founded more than 40 years ago with the vision to Change Kids’ Health, Change the Future. We’ve raised over $8.5 billion for 170 children’s hospitals by empowering and engaging with local communities and businesses – and we’re not done yet. All donations benefit local member hospitals to fund what’s needed most, like critical life-saving treatments and healthcare services, innovative research, vital pediatric medical equipment, child life services that put kids’ and families’ minds at ease during difficult hospital stays, and financial assistance for families who could not otherwise afford these health services.
Together, we can change kids’ health. Together, we can change the future. To learn about Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals and your local member children’s hospital, visit cmnhospitals.org.
The third annual NEPA Invitational, hosted by PGA Tour player Brandon Matthews, unfolded at the picturesque Country Club of Scranton. This charity pro-am golf event attracted current and former PGA Tour pros, amateurs, and supporters, all united by a shared mission: to raise funds for the Janet Weis Children’s Hospital, and Jack Nicklaus’ Play Yellow Campaign benefiting the Children’s Miracle Network. Signature partners for the event included Equitrans Midstream, Diaz Companies and Rutter’s.
The festivities began Friday evening for Dinner with the Pros, graced by the presence of pediatric patient ambassadors from the Janet Weis Children’s Hospital and Foundation.. It was a heartwarming occasion, setting the tone for a weekend filled with camaraderie and compassion.
One of the highlights of this exceptional evening was the Live Auction, where guests had the opportunity to bid on exclusive items, with all proceeds benefiting the hospital. The NEPA Invitational proudly announced a remarkable donation of $200,000 to the Janet Weis Children’s Hospital, raised through sponsors, tournament participants, live auction, and donations, a testament to the event’s unwavering commitment to making a positive impact in the communities of Northeast Pennsylvania
The NEPA Invitational proudly supported the “Play Yellow” program, a noble initiative of the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, founded by the legendary Jack and Barbara Nicklaus. This program aligns perfectly with the event’s core values of giving back and making a difference in the lives of children facing health challenges.
“Expanding this event and witnessing its transformative impact on the children of Janet Weis Children’s Hospital has been an incredible privilege. We’re profoundly grateful for the opportunity to make a difference” said event host and PGA TOUR player Brandon Matthews, “On behalf of the entire NEPA Invitational board, my wife and I, and the Country Club of Scranton, we extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who has contributed to the growth and success of this event year after year. Looking ahead, we’re excited to further expand our contributions, nurture the growth of this event, and continue to showcase the remarkable spirit of North East Pennsylvania as a community. Together, we’ll make a lasting impact and ensure that this region remains a beacon of hope and support.”
The event attracted a stellar lineup of golfing talent, with current and former PGA Tour pros including Brandon Matthews, Ben Griffin, Tano Goya, Eric Barnes, Ted Tryba, Fran Quinn, Andrew Novak, Brad Adamonis, and Rick Lamb. Their participation not only showcased their exceptional skills but also their dedication to the cause.
While the relentless Tropical Storm Ophelia, brought torrential downpours and unrelenting winds to the region, the pros and supporting amateurs persevered for the two day tournament at Country Club of Scranton.. Their determination mirrored the spirit of the event itself – undeterred by adversity, resolute in their mission to support the Janet Weis Children’s Hospital.
Congratulations to Andrew Novak for winning the Lowro honors and Michael Miller and Michael Vassil for winning the Pro-Am Format..
This remarkable event marked the third annual NEPA Invitational, solidifying its place as a beloved tradition that unites the community in support of a noble cause. In total, the NEPA Invitational has donated $350,000 in three years in partnership with the Scranton Area Community Foundation.
The NEPA Invitational is a celebration of resilience, generosity, and the enduring spirit of the community. It reaffirms the power of coming together to make a difference in the lives of those who need it most.
PGA Tour player and proud native of North East Pennsylvania, Brandon Matthews, continues to be deeply honored to host this event annually and give back to his community.
When Davis Lamb was hot this year, he was real hot.
Lamb, a Notre Dame alum, won the ATB Classic after getting into the field as a Monday Qualifier. He also captured the Quebec Open powered by Videotron Business the very next week, becoming the first golfer on PGA TOUR Canada to win back-to-back events since Tyler McCumber in 2018.
Lamb fired a sizzing Sunday 64 at the Fortinet Cup Championship for his sixth top-25 finish in eight events this season.
By virtue of finishing third on the Fortinet Cup standings, Lamb’s conditional status on the Korn Ferry Tour next season is elevated to the first conditional category (subject to the first reshuffle). He is also exempt into the Final Stage of PGA TOUR Qualifying School.
The day after he turned 57, Tim Petrovic turned around his 2023 season.
He said there was no panic when he arrived in Calgary earlier in August for the PGA TOUR Champions Shaw Charity Classic. No, his results so far this year hadn’t been great, but he never felt like he was hitting it poorly. He felt like he was hitting it in practice sessions as well as he maybe ever had. It just hadn’t translated to the course.
Petrovic already had made a call to a sports psychologist two weeks before the Shaw Charity Classic. He’d had only one top-25 finish on the season to date – a tie for fourth at the Principal Charity Classic in Des Moines, Iowa, at the beginning of June.
He said the psychologist told him something he never expected to hear.
“He told me a couple of things that clicked and took a little weight off my back,” Petrovic said Tuesday while driving his RV to St. Louis, Missouri, for next week’s Ascension Charity Classic. “He told me I was trying to be too perfect. He just told me you have to give yourself permission to play badly.
“That’s not what I thought he was gonna tell me,” added Petrovic, who’s planning to drop his RV in St. Louis, fly home to Austin, Texas, and fly back to St. Louis next week. “He was just saying, ‘Don’t try to control the whole situation. You’re a good player. It’s gonna work itself out. You’ll play your way through it.’”
Petrovic celebrated his birthday, which is Aug. 16, the day before the Shaw Charity Classic began and promptly went out and shot his lowest round of the year by three strokes, posting an 8-under 62. It gave him the first-round lead, and it was a lead he wouldn’t relinquish until late on Sunday.
Petrovic, who has yet to win in 145 Champions Tour starts, admits he didn’t finish the Shaw Charity Classic like he intended. He ended up in a tie for second behind eventual champion Ken Duke, who picked up his first Champions Tour win in 100 starts. Still, it was Petrovic’s best finish since the 2022 Chubb Classic, and it gave him a huge boost of confidence. He carried the belief over to last week at The Ally Challenge outside Detroit.
Petrovic fired a final-round 66 at Warwick Hills Golf & Country Club to move from off the pace into a tie for third. It meant that since the beginning of June, he now had three top-five finishes and had rocketed from 70th in the Charles Schwab Cup Money standings to a tidy 32nd. The top 36 in the standings advance to play in the season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Championship in Phoenix, which Petrovic hasn’t missed since 2017.
“Petro,” as he’s commonly known by his Champions Tour peers, has never had a season like 2023. He’s usually more consistent. He had managed at least a top-25 finish in half of his tournaments from 2018 through 2022. This year, his three top-five finishes are his only top-25s through 19 events.
Petrovic mostly blames a “tennis elbow” for his woes. He said it started before the U.S. Senior Open and that he aggravated it at The Senior Open Championship because of the high, thick rough. He labeled it the only serious injury he’s had to deal with since turning 50.
He’s been on the mend since. He also picked up a new caddie before the Boeing Classic outside Seattle, which was the tournament right before the Shaw Charity Classic. Kyle Kolenda is a veteran caddie who’s worked for several pros on the PGA TOUR and PGA TOUR Champions.
“Sometimes a new caddie, a new dynamic, can change things around,” Petrovic said. “I was bouncing around among a few caddies, but I think I have a guy I’m gonna keep for the rest of the year.
“I said I’d give him two or three events and we’ll go from there. He’s learning me and I’m learning him. He got to see some good golf. He said he enjoyed staying out of the way and just watching the show. It’s important for a caddie to know when to say something and when not to say something. That’s been a big part of it.”
Petrovic isn’t sure what it will take to win, only that he’s eager to get one under his belt. But he said he still was happy for Duke.
“We’re good friends,” Petrovic said. “We had a lot of fun chit-chatting during the round, but nobody said anything the last two holes. That was business time, and we knew one of us was gonna win it.
“It came down to a layup (on the par-5 18th). I laid it up in the rough and left myself in a tough spot. There was a 1-in-50 chance to get it close. I played it left just to give myself a chance. Thirty feet is better than not having a chance at it or hitting it in the water or the bunker.”
Petrovic said it came down to execution. He didn’t do what he needed to do, while Duke laid up perfectly and hit a wedge below the hole to 6 feet. When Petrovic missed his long birdie putt, Duke knew his putt was for the win.
0:52
Ken Duke’s emotion-filled closing birdie to win at Shaw Charity
“What I was thinking, … I told him after. … I really like the guy,” Petrovic said. “If he makes the putt, I’m gonna be happy for him. If we have a playoff, great. If he makes it, great. I gave him a big hug, and I was really happy for him.”
Petrovic isn’t quite sure what it will take for him to get his first win, only that he’ll keep trying and believing it will happen.
“I feel really settled,” Petrovic said. “A buddy of mine said that the announcers said during the telecast (at the Shaw) that I looked really comfortable over the putter. That was a good observation.
“I wasn’t backing off shots. I backed off maybe only one or two the past two weeks. You’re not hearing the baby cry or the Port-a-Potty door slam or whatever. If you can just stay calm and you have a game plan, it’s just gonna happen.”
BROMONT, Québec— Three weeks ago Davis Lamb had to fight his way into the field. Now, after winning back-to-back events on PGA TOUR Canada, he’s one win away from automatic membership on the Korn Ferry Tour.
Lamb handled the bad weather that temporarily beset Golf Château Bromont on Sunday to shoot a 7-under 63 and win the Québec Open powered by Videotron Business. Lamb finished at 22-under 258, one shot ahead of David Kim, who fired a closing round of 62.
It’s been only two weeks since Lamb became the first Monday qualifier to win a PGA TOUR Canada event, which earned him exempt status for the rest of the season. This week, after the TOUR took a week off, he became the first back-to-back winner since Tyler McCumber in 2018. A third win this season means an instant promotion to the Korn Ferry Tour.
“I’ve just been trusting my game,” Lamb said. “I think both these courses (where he’s won) have suited me very well. It’s a premium hitting the fairway and controlling my spin into the greens. I didn’t overcomplicate things. I kind of took advantage when I had the opportunity and just made pars when I had to.”
Lamb, of Bethesda, Maryland, also took over first place in the Fortinet Cup standings. The winner of that season-long points race receives a $25,000 bonus and full status on the Korn Ferry Tour for 2024. He leads Canada’s Étienne Papineau by 407 points.
Lamb offset two bogeys on the front nine with five birdies and made the turn in 32. He added four more birdies on the finishing nine and two-putted for par on 18 for the victory.
“Foot on the gas all day,” Lamb said. “I knew nobody was going to stop chasing, so it was a matter of making as many birdies as I possibly could, waiting out the rain delay and coming out and making more birdies. It was a full sprint with a little stop in the middle, but it was a lot of fun.”
Kim, of Los Angeles, carded the fourth 62 on PGA TOUR Canada this season. He shot 32 on the front and finished with a 30 on the back, which included an eagle at the drivable par-4 15th hole and a birdie at 18.
Lamb was playing in the group behind Kim but was never sure of where he stood.
“I had no idea,” Lamb said. “I figured I was in the lead by at least one, and I thought it might be two, but I guess David birdied 18. I had 25 feet and two putts to win, and I thank God I did it because I wasn’t sure where I stood.”
Lamb is trying to remain focused on the task at hand, even though he is close to Korn Ferry Tour status.
“I don’t expect anything,” he said “I’m just going to go out there and keep playing my game, and if it happens, it happens. If you would have told me that I’m standing here after two wins under my belt and three weeks before I didn’t really have any status and any guaranteed starts, I would be shocked. It’s given me a tremendous amount of confidence, and I’m just excited to keep it rolling. We’ve got a long season ahead.”
Brian Richey of Lakeland, Florida, closed with a 65 and finished third, at 15-under 261. Carr Vernon of Poplar Bluff, Missouri, finished with a 63 and moved up three spots to finish four, at 17-under 263.
The low Canadian was Chris R. Wilson of Toronto. He closed with a 69 and took solo fifth (16-under 264).
Tied for sixth were Australian Jason Hong, Sam Choi of Malibu, California, and Derek Hitchner of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Key Information
Thirty Canadians entered this week’s Québec Open powered by Videotron Business, with 11 making the cut. Chris R. Wilson led the way with his fifth-place finish. Here are how all the Canadians fared, who completed 72 holes.
Tyler McCumber, son of 10-time PGA TOUR champion Mark McCumber, was the last back-to-back PGA TOUR Canada winner. He won the 2018 Osprey Valley Open by one stroke over Michael Gellerman and then, after the TOUR observed an off week, he won the Syncrude Oil Country Championship by two shots ahead of Ian Holt.
Anyone who wins three tournaments in a season earns an automatic promotion to the Korn Ferry Tour. The last player to do so was TylerMcCumber, in 2018. Dan McCarthy won four times in 2016. Those joining DavisLamb with two wins in a season are JoelDahmen (2014), C.T. Pan (2015), AaronWise (2016), PatrickNewcomb and KramerHickok (2017), JakeKnapp, PaulBarjon and TaylorPendrith (2019) and NoahGoodwin and WilBateman (2022).
Canadian Étienne Papineau, who has led the Fortinet Cup standings all season since his opening-week victory at the Royal Beach Victoria Open, shot a 63 Sunday and vaulted 18 spots to tie for 16th. Papineau, of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, dropped to second in the points standings.
Michael Blair and Brandon Lacasse, both of Quebec, made their sponsor’s exemptions pay off. Lacasse finished with a 67 and Blair closed with a 69, leaving the duo tied for 36th.
Because of a threatening weather forecast, officials pushed the starting times for the final rounds to earlier in the morning. Despite a one-hour, 40-minute suspension because of rain and lightning danger, the round resumed and ended with no further issue.
Quotable
“This is kind of like the grass I grew up putting on, which is a huge advantage at any golf course. I had a couple of great reads that I just kind of stood over and was confident and made a good stroke.” – Davis Lamb on his putting round
“It hadn’t been my best six, eight months leading up to these two events. (I) struggled a little bit with some swing stuff over the winter and, unfortunately, that led right into Q-school, where I played good enough to get a card but not good enough to guarantee any starts. But you know, I never quit.” – Davis Lamb
“It was kind of a relentless effort from my coaches to get my swing back to where it needed to be. And we’ve been building off momentum for a while now, although the results haven’t shown. I’m just glad it’s paying off now in a big way.” – Davis Lamb
Final-Round Weather: Mostly cloudy and warm. High of 27. Wind S at 5-7 kph. There was a one-hour, 40-minute rain and weather delay in the middle of the round.
Maxwell Moldovan is off to another PGA Tour event.
The Green High School graduate and Ohio State senior earned one of four open berths to this week’s Barbasol Championship during Monday’s qualifier in Kentucky. Moldovan shot 7-under 65 to finish second overall.
The Barbasol Championship will be Moldovan’s second PGA Tour event of the season and the third of his career. He qualified for the last two U.S. Opens and made the cut in this year’s event in Los Angeles.
Moldovan had six birdies and an eagle in Monday’s qualifier.
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Green’s Maxwell Moldovan is heading to a PGA Tour event this week
Justin Lower’s was in contention all week at the Rocket Mortgage Classic.
The PGA TOUR event is hosted at famed Detroit Golf Club, and Lower fired rounds of 68-65-67-69 to finish 8th place. It was his third Top 10 finish of the 2022-2023 season but his first of calendar year 2023.
After his second round 65, Justin met with the media
As he entered the final round inside the Top 10, Lower sported the DraftKings logo on the front of his hat for the final round’s television coverage and anticipation of large exposure.
SHERWOOD PARK, Alberta—Davis Lamb had to Monday qualify just to get into the field for this week’s ATB Classic. He had no idea that he was about to make history.
Lamb, of Bethesda, Maryland, shot a 2-under 70 Sunday to finish at 18-under 270 at Northern Bear Golf Course and become the first Monday qualifier to win on PGA TOUR Canada. After his first PGA TOUR-sanctioned win, Lamb is now exempt for the remainder of the season.
“It’s kind of surreal to be standing here right now,” Lamb said. “My game was in a good spot. I was ready to come up here and compete. But to start Monday morning, teeing off with kind of a play-well-or-go-home scenario, and to make it all the way to Sunday and be standing here … It’s pretty surreal.”
The Notre Dame graduate overcame two double bogeys on the front nine during a cool, windy day to beat Eric McCardle of Oak Harbor, Washington—another Monday qualifier—by two shots and Nicolo Galletti of Berkeley, California, by three.
“Today is about the hardest I’ve ever had to work on the golf course, so for it to pay off the way it did, it feels amazing,” Lamb said.
Lamb also moved into a tie for second place on the Fortinet Cup points list, 42 points behind leader Étienne Papineau.
Lamb shared the 54-hole lead with Eric Lilleboe after players completed the delayed third round Sunday morning. Dangerous weather conditions forced suspension of play Saturday and the fourth round’s weather didn’t really improve.
Lamb stumbled with his first double bogey of the day, on the par-5 sixth hole, and took another double on the par-4 ninth hole. But he somehow regained his momentum with an eagle at No. 10, a 540-yard par-5, and added three more birdies, the last coming on the par-3 17th that gave him a three-shot lead entering the 72nd hole.
“I doubled my sixth hole, hitting the ball in the trees, which you just can’t do out here, and then doubled No. 9 again,” Lamb said. “At that point I’m just hanging on for dear life. Luckily, I hit a good drive on 10, and I just told my caddie, ‘It’s time to hit a golf shot right now.’ And we did from 235 (yards) to about three feet, made eagle and from there we just played great coming in.”
Lamb said it was “easily the best golf shot I’ve hit in my entire life and to do it in that situation was amazing.”
The long birdie putt on the 17th hole certainly made it an easier finish for Lamb, who punctuated his win with an emphatic fist pump when the final putt dropped.
“It’s never done. I was still working hard,” Lamb said. “But to take a three-shot lead going into 18 was, in my mind, a can’t-lose scenario. I knew I was driving. I knew I could hit the green. So, to give myself a chance to win with a five-putt, it’s comfortable for me.”
McCardle had three birdies on the back nine but never got closer than a stroke. He shot 69 and finished at 15-under 273. Galletti also found himself in contention late in the round, recording his fifth birdie on No. 15, but a bogey on the 17th hole would see him finish with a 4-under 68 and in third.
Sudarshan Yellamarajuwas the low Canadian. He shot 66, the best round of the day, and finished fourth, at 13-under 275. He moved up 26 spots on the leaderboard the final day.
“I’m happy with the way I played today, especially under these conditions. I wouldn’t say anything clicked. I just feel like I did my job,” Yellamaraju said.
There was a four-way tie for fifth place, at 12-under 276—Canadian Noah Steele, Sam Choi of Malibu, California, Chase Sienkiewicz of Sacramento, California, and Australian Jack Trent.
Key Information
Fortinet Cup Standings
(Through ATB Classic)
Pos. | Player | Points |
1 | Étienne Papineau (Canada) | 542 |
T2 | John Pak (United States) | 500 |
T2 | Davis Lamb (United States) | 500 |
4 | Chris Korte (United States) | 490 |
5 | Connor Howe (United States) | 339 |
6 | Sam Choi (United States) | 328 |
7 | George Kneiser (United States) | 302 |
8 | Eric McCardle (United States) | 300 |
9 | Nicolo Galletti (United States) | 248 |
10 | Chase Sienkiewicz (United States) | 176 |
Twenty-eight Canadians started this week at the ATB Classic. Ten made the cut, with Sudarshan Yellamaraju the low performer. Noah Steele was the only other player with a top-10 finish, a tie for fifth. Here are all the players’ results from those who played 72 holes:
Pos. | Player | Score |
4 | Sudarshan Yellamaraju | 275 (13-under) |
T5 | Noah Steele | 276 (12-under) |
T13 | Matthew Anderson | 278 (10-under) |
T16 | A.J. Ewart | 279 (9-under) |
T30 | Étienne Papineau | 282 (6-under) |
T40 | Chris Crisologo | 284 (4-under) |
T47 | Jared du Toit | 286 (2-under) |
T50 | Aidan Goodfellow | 287 (1-under) |
T56 | Jimmy Jones | 289 (1-over) |
62 | Chris Wilson | 294 (6-over) |
Davis Lamb’s victory means he is exempt on PGA TOUR Canada for the rest of the 2023 season and for the first six events of the 2024 PGA TOUR Americas season. Lamb said he had received more than 100 congratulatory texts shortly after his win. “It’s going to be a while to get through all of those. I’ve a got an incredible support system behind me,” he said.
Canadian Sudarshan Yellamaraju, who lives in Toronto, finished with his third top 10 in 11 PGA TOUR Canada starts. He had missed the cut in the first two events.
Fortinet Cup points leader Etienne Papineau closed with a 2-over 74 and tied for 30th. Papineau remains in first place in the race for the $25,000 bonus prize that goes to the overall winner. The Quebec resident won the season-opening Royal Beach Victoria Open and has made the cut in each of the last two tournaments. John Pak missed the cut this week and is tied for second with DavisLamb.
Eric Lilleboe was tied for the fourth-round lead but skied to a 77 and wound up tied for ninth at 11-under. His triple bogey on the 13th hole, a 200-yard par-3, combined with Davis Lamb’s birdie, was a four-shot swing that gave Lamb the lead for keeps.
PGA TOUR Canada does not have a tournament next week. The circuit moves east on July 13-16 for the Quebec Open powered by Videotron Business.
Quotable
“I’ve never been in a position in a tournament like this to win. I’d say I proved to myself that I can make the shots I need to. But this week there was different kind of pressure.” – Davis Lamb
“There were times I found myself getting ahead of myself, whether in a good way or bad way. Coming down those last four or five holes, I was thinking about what it’s going to be like to win and all that. I had to snap myself back into it. But once that ball hit the green (at 18), I gave my caddie a huge fist bump. And it was just a lot of exhaling on the way up there.” – Davis Lamb
“I’ve played in 40 to 50-kilometer wind like this, even colder than this. Experience helps a little bit, but it’s not something that’s new. At the end of the day, you’ve got to play the shot in front of you no matter what the conditions are. Even if you’ve played it before or not, you’ve just got to do it.” – Sudarshan Yellamaraju
Final-Round Weather: Mostly cloudy and cool. High of 15. Wind variable at 35-45 kph, with gusts to 51 kph.
Ohio State men’s golf rising senior Maxwell Moldovan is one of four remaining amateurs in the U.S. Open. After shooting back-to-back rounds of 71 at the Los Angeles Country Club, Moldovan survived the cut.
A week ago, he earned one of the three final spots in the field as an alternate. Now, entering Sunday, he’s in the running for Low Amateur at a major.
That said, Moldovan will have to enjoy a bounce-back final round to surpass Gordon Sargent, who currently leads all amateurs at +5.
Moldovan is three strokes back at +8 after posting a 75 Saturday.
Here’s where the remaining four amateurs stand:
Still, regardless of Sunday’s results, the Buckeyes standout has already one-upped his performance from last year’s U.S. Open, where the missed the cut by four shots in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Rising @OhioStateMGOLF senior Maxwell Moldovan earned a spot in this week's US Open at the LA Country Club.
— Andy Backstrom (@andybackstrom) June 13, 2023
Moldovan missed the cut by 4 shots in last year's US Open. He had 10 top-10 finishes for OSU this year.
"This is the best experience in golf."
Video via @TIM_MAYsports: pic.twitter.com/0D4Lj6bsXm
“It’s awesome,” Moldovan told Lettermen Row’s Tim May Monday, less than 24 hours after he learned he made the U.S. Open for the second year in a row. “In my opinion, this is the best experience in golf. Just the whole week itself. Really thankful I was able to get in the field.”
Moldovan not only got in the field, but he’s proceeded to hold his own.
He led Ohio State in scoring average (70.64) for the third consecutive season this year. In the process, he recorded 10 top-10 finishes over the span of 13 events.
Here’s the complete U.S. Open leaderboard heading into Sunday. Rickie Fowler and Wyndham Clark are tied for the lead at 10 under par.
I held the solo lead after two rounds of the 2016 Henan Open in China. I didn’t know much about one of the guys who was chasing me, but then I heard the sound of the ball coming off Charlie Saxon’s driver and saw the soaring trajectory of his tee shots.
I might be in trouble today.
Riding high from a T-12 the week before at a South Korean major, the Maekyung Open, I dissected menacingly narrow St. Andrews Golf Club during the first two rounds of the opening event of the PGA Tour China season. As the wind blew in a hazy drizzle on this early Saturday afternoon, I saw Saxon’s towering driver flight. Each shot was an unwavering, tight fade. I knew it would be a different day.
I went backwards almost immediately, and Saxon took the lead within a few holes. I wish I could blame it on the weather or the golf course, but the truth was that I was intimidated.
Saxon confidently strode the fairways looking bulletproof: wide shoulders, arms that few shirts could contain, a barrel chest, and a solid base. When he stepped on the course, his boyish face with the endearing smile hardened and became intense. He would remove his glove between shots, lugging it in his mouth like a tigress carrying her cub. He seemed hungry to devour the field.
I thought I was a bomber until I faced golf’s Incredible Hulk. Saxon’s golf game took him to China and back and fueled a promising rise, which would be hindered time and again by injury.
I first met Saxon at PGA Tour China Qualifying School months earlier. After being the co-medalist, he hustled to the airport to catch a flight, crossing dozens of time zones to get to Buenos Aires for PGA Tour Latinoamerica Q school. Kunming to Beijing, Beijing to Chicago, Chicago to Dallas, Dallas to Buenos Aires. The trip took about 46 hours, and after an understandably disoriented nine-hole practice round, he played well enough to earn status.
Saxon’s professional golf career was off and running. His well-traveled mother, Jan, tagged along to visit China for the first time, perhaps in part to soften the culture shock for a kid who had grown up in Oklahoma and attended college there. Like most of us at the start of our careers, Saxon was enthusiastic, naive, and aloof, but once his name was called on the first tee, he looked unstoppable.
When he thinks back to those early days, he can only laugh. He’s 30 now, and these days, a short flight and car ride to a tournament ages him. Back then, crossing a dozen time zones between qualifiers was nothing.
“It sounded fun,” he says. “It’s like we’re living the dream playing professional golf. “If there’s an opportunity, let’s go do it and make the most of each and every opportunity.”
Saxon grew up in Tulsa with Southern Hills Country Club as his backyard. Beyond the backyard gate, his world changed. On weekends and in the summers, he would swing that gate open early in the mornings and close it late at night. He became obsessed with the game.
In 2001, the U.S. Open came to Southern Hills, and that meant the best player in the world, Tiger Woods, would be playing in Charlie’s backyard. He was 8 years old, and he and his three younger siblings excitedly held onto the ropes as Tiger stood in front of them on the 10th tee.
“Tiger hit a shot off 10 tee and Charlie yelled out after he hit in a little baby voice, good shot Tiger!” Jan recalls. “Tiger turned to him and I was like, oh my gosh, is he gonna be mad? And Tiger flashes this big toothy smile. Charlie never forgot it.”
At Oklahoma, Saxon was a teammate who could be counted on, though rarely a tournament contender. He was an early recruit of Coach Ryan Hybl, and under Hybl’s tutelage, he steadily improved each year until an injury derailed the beginning of his senior year. His career in Norman ended leaving little doubt his game needed refinement before he could even think about playing on the PGA Tour. So he chose to play the development circuits in China and Latin America.
For Saxon, chipping and pitching have always been his nemeses. The scale of his chipping challenges ranged from problematic to the full-blown yips. He wasn’t averse to putting from the high grass or hitting a flop shot when the proper play was a pitch-and-run. The chipping demons were easily hidden in China because Saxon struck his approach shots so solidly.
“The bomb-fadesman was pretty much Charlie in a nutshell,” says Callum Tarren, a PGA Tour member who was on that journey with us through China. “He hit the driver so well. It was flushery through the bag.”
That first season, Saxon built momentum through the year before a late-season charge produced his first win. He did it with a scorching 22-under-par total at Beijing’s Topwin Golf Club, former home of the European Tour’s Volvo China Open. That win bred confidence, and three events later, he won another PGA Tour China event, locking up his Korn Ferry Tour card for the following season.
“You’re in the most foreign environments as you can be with crazy travel, and you either take ownership of it and play well, or you don’t,” Saxon says. “I was able to get a lot better through competition in crazy places in the world and figure out what works for me.”
Most of us who faced Saxon that season or watched the momentum he was building assumed he was an unstoppable force. Good luck finding a competitor with anything negative to say about him. He lets his game do the talking, makes friends easily, and radiates positivity — a sponsor’s dream. We all knew his play would translate to any course in any country.
“He dominated up in China,” says Tarren. “He was always the man to beat, pretty much every week.”
What we didn’t know was that he was playing through pain.
When the season ended, Saxon realized the growing discomfort in his left hip might lead to something more serious. The diagnosis was Femoroacetabular Impingement, a common injury among longtime professional golfers, where the bones of the hip joint are so close they pinch tissue and tear the labrum. A lifetime of swinging a golf club can cause this injury. Some people are more predisposed to it than others. Saxon, only 23, had surgery at the end of 2016, before he made his debut as a Korn Ferry Tour member.
“No golfer wants to have surgery and be out and then worry, am I going to get it back?” says Jan. “Thankfully, the first hip surgery worked perfectly. He just got back on the horse and kept going.”
Thanks to an aggressive rehab plan, Saxon was swinging a club 11 weeks after surgery. He didn’t change anything in his swing, and with the hip pain gone, his swing speed returned.
Still, he didn’t make his first Korn Ferry Tour start until April. He missed nine of 15 cuts and never cracked the top 10, earning a fraction of the money he had pocketed playing in China the previous year. After six consecutive missed cuts to finish the season, he headed back to the development circuit in China.
Saxon competed on PGA Tour China and the China Tour, which awarded European Tour membership to the winner of its Order of Merit. He took the country by storm. He won four events across the two tours, topped the Order of Merit and narrowly finished second to Tarren on the PGA Tour China points list. Not only did he have status again, but he also had options.
“I was just so consistent,” Saxon says. “It didn’t matter where I was playing. I was so confident. I was shooting good number after good number. I had a five-month stretch there where it was just really consistent and pretty easy.”
Having climbed to 204th in the world rankings, Saxon was playing so well he faced a dilemma: how to navigate all the playing opportunities he had created for himself. He was now a member of both the Korn Ferry Tour and the European Tour, and the exhaustive travel was beginning to wear on him.
“The decision I made was to prioritize the Korn Ferry Tour instead of playing mostly on the European Tour,” Saxon says. “The thought was, I’m an American, my home is in the United States and my ultimate goal is to play the PGA Tour. There’s 50 cards available between the regular season and the playoffs, and with the European Tour, it’s a convoluted pathway to get back to the PGA Tour.”
Still, he felt the temptation to explore some events that offered larger purses. One week the Korn Ferry Tour stopped at Peek n’ Peak resort in the southwestern corner of New York. It’s in a remote area without much to do outside the ski and golf resort. Charlie’s caddie wouldn’t let him forget that they could have been playing for significantly more money, in a far more desirable location. The Korn Ferry event had a $700,000 purse. Saxon was also exempt that week into a tournament across the Atlantic: the Irish Open at Lahinch, whose purse was $7 million.
Importantly, his golf game was beginning to shine on the larger stage. Toward the end of the season, the Korn Ferry Tour stopped outside Salt Lake City for the Utah Championship, where the mountain air and elevation aided his already prodigious length.
With six holes left, Saxon was 4 under par in the final round and 14 under for the tournament, the score that would play off for the title. He made back-to-back bogeys on the 13th and 14th, before arriving at the 15th, a short par-5. He was 10 yards short of the green after his second shot, but with 100 feet of green between his ball and hole. The chipping demons popped into his head.
He pulled out his putter. The TV commentators were dumbfounded, and when Saxon hit the ball off the green, they were merciless. He saved par and then made a 15-foot par save on 16. When he buried another putt on 17, this time for birdie, he was back in contention.
Two nearly perfect shots at the short par-4 18th hole gave him a chance to tie the clubhouse lead. All that remained between Saxon’s ball and the hole were nine feet and a severe right-to-left slope. One of the top players on the tour that season, Harry Higgs, sat in the grandstands watching his friend attempt to secure his PGA Tour card. Higgs had finished earlier and had seen this putt a few times. Every player he watched missed the putt on the low side. He later told Saxon he was tempted to shout, “Breaks more than you think!”
The points awarded on the Korn Ferry Tour, much like the prize money, are top heavy. A second- or third-place finish is an admirable achievement, but to get to the PGA Tour, you usually have to win. This was Charlie’s chance. But Higgs was right. The putt came up short and low, as did Saxon in the season-ending points ranking.
That meant another season in the top minor league.
“Yes, I expected to get a PGA Tour card and I didn’t, so it was disappointing,” Saxon says. “But at the same time, in 2017, I played some horrific golf on the Korn Ferry Tour, and to come back in 2019 and be competitive, and really give myself a chance coming down the stretch, was validating.”
When the Tour suspended play due to the pandemic in early 2020, Saxon was living in Dallas with Scottie Scheffler and former college teammates Max McGreevy and Grant Hirschman. The four set up a gym and a hitting area in the garage, and they went to the course to play matches as frequently as restrictions allowed.
Scheffler, who was relatively new to the PGA Tour, didn’t lose much over the course of those four months, and when the Tour resumed play, Saxon bet some of his fellow players that Scheffler would be a top-five player in the world in six months. He won the bet.
Saxon’s play picked up as well. He had a handful of top 10s across the 2020-21 megaseason — a combined season due to COVID — and his best play came at the end of 2020. As the season wound down, his results became more inconsistent. Something more sinister than missed cuts nagged him: another hip injury, which led to another surgery.
Saxon went through 11 weeks of rehab before he could swing a club, and it was 16 weeks before he could compete. He chose not to take a medical leave from the Korn Ferry Tour in 2022, but when he returned to competition, his hip didn’t feel better. His mobility remained limited, he lost speed, and his swing suffered.
“It didn’t feel like the hip I had before,” Saxon says. “It’s just hard when you’re not healthy. It’s hard showing up. Golf’s hard enough as it is. You’re trying to make it to the highest level of golf against the best players in the world. Doing that healthy is difficult as it is. But doing it when you can’t quite put in the practice you want, or the hip’s nagging, it’s definitely frustrating.”
“The light kind of went out for him when he didn’t get his card back, but he’s so determined and he’s such a positive person, that he doesn’t dwell there,” says Jan. “He’s just going to work as hard as he can to get it back.”
Off the golf course, Saxon got married and moved from Dallas back to Tulsa. He and his wife, Lauren, became new parents when McArthur Paul came into the world last year. They call the little guy “Mac.” It’s a family name that goes back centuries to Scotland, a fitting connection to the home of golf. Mac’s arrival has also given the new father a new outlook.
“It’s definitely a full life-changer in a good way,” Saxon says. “It puts a whole bunch of things in perspective. Whether I play poor golf or great golf, it’s pretty frivolous now. You’ve got a little kid at home who loves me regardless of what I shoot. It’s been hard; you do something your whole life and get used to your routines, and the little guy comes in, and he’s the priority. It’s been the coolest 10 months of my life, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
Saxon is home now. He knows how much work he has ahead to elevate his game. He and Lauren are learning the ropes of parenthood, and he is becoming more efficient with his time. Earlier this year, he won a two-day North Texas PGA event by four shots, a victory that was a big step in rebuilding his confidence.
He hasn’t forgotten how to win. He knows he has to continue building momentum one day at a time. He also has his sights set on Q school at the end of the year, which is awarding PGA Tour cards to the top five finishers.
“This year is pretty nuts,” Saxon says. “You can go from Joe Schmoe with absolutely no status, to the PGA Tour. There’s a lot to play for. But it doesn’t happen out of thin air. It requires putting in the work incrementally day after day.”
The Charlie Saxon I chased on a weekly basis on PGA Tour China was destined for success at the highest level of professional golf. He has experienced more highs and lows in the professional game than most players, but those early days on foreign fairways prepared him for the road ahead.
“I’ve known that when I’m playing good golf, that golf transfers at any level,” Saxon says. “I’m trying to rediscover that again. I’m trying to play Charlie golf, the golf I’ve played before, the golf that competes and has contended, and the golf that will contend again.”
Few ball flights have left an impression on me the way Saxon’s did on the driving range at the Henan Open. He’s not the same player he was back then. He has been through too much. I hope his opponents soon discover he’s more formidable because of it.
Brandon Matthews is true to where he’s from because it has galvanized him for where he is.
Growing up in Dupont, Pa., the PGA Tour member honed his game, starting at age six, at Emanon Country Club, a place he called “one of the most blue-collar, down-to- earth fun clubs” that cost $50 per year for a youth membership. In fact, when brainstorming for a name the founders came up with No Name that they spelled backwards and proudly christened Emanon.
“That place has shaped me into what I am today,” said Matthews. “For morals, values, and how to handle myself. I got my butt busted from the time I was six years old.”
Applying those life lessons with some diligent practice, Matthews became the 2010 Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association individual champion, playing for Pittston High School. He followed that with a victory in the GAP (Golf Association of Philadelphia) Junior Boys Championship in 2011.
Matthews credits his ‘local’ golf association for providing the best laboratory to grow his game from a successful player at Temple University to eventual promotion through its hierarchy to the PGA Tour in 2022. Even closer to home but as important in his development was the Anthracite Golf Association, which was absorbed by GAP in the last few years.
“It’s hard to put it into words how instrumental into my development as a golfer GAP was,” Matthews said.. “The talent that was around while I was developing was absolutely unbelievable from the time I was a junior in GAP all the way until I turned pro.”
He also cites the clubs and facilities that host tournaments, always in impeccable shape, as another benefit to his career. Matthews will never forget playing in the Philadelphia Open at Pine Valley (“the greatest golf course on the planet”) in 2012 as a high school junior.
“Every event that I played in there was always a high level of competition,” Matthews said. “You couldn’t play average and win a golf tournament, no matter how good you were. GAP is the one of the premier golf associations in the country as far as golf courses, the staff they have on hand, and players. Being able to win a few times in that association and have some trophies from my time playing in those events is very, very special to me.”
Among his many GAP successes is winning the 2013 Player of the Year Award, when he became the only player to record victories in the Philadelphia Open and the Patterson Cup as well earning GAP’s Silver Cross. He had earned an alternate’s spot at the U.S. Open at Merion and practiced alongside the field but did not make the final field. Later that summer, he advanced to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Amateur at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass.
At that point he was a Temple sophomore en route to eight wins as Owl, tying the school’s career mark.
“2013 was a big steppingstone in propelling me to get to that next level,” said the 28-year-old. “I realized I was able to compete with some of the best amateurs in the world. That was the year I realized that 100 percent I can do this.”
Matthews’ college coach Brian Quinn calls him the best player in Temple history and pointed out critical reasons for that success.
“He would outwork everyone,” Quinn said. “Everything was in preparation for where he is now. He has the physical attributes that guys on the Tour would like to have but he was always a standout because of his work ethic and his desire. And his mind is so strong.”
In addition winning the 2014 Dixie Amateur and adding a second Philadelphia Open title in 2015, Matthews was named an honorable mention All-America honors in 2016. He credits Quinn for an uptick in his development as both a player and as a man.
Following graduation from Temple in 2016, Matthews turned pro and played on the developmental PGA Tour Latinoamerica and won twice in 2020-21 to win the Tour’s Order of Merit and Player of the Year. That performance earned him a promotion to the Korn Ferry Tour in 2022, where he won the Astara Golf Championship and made the cut in the U.S. Open, his first major championship.
“It’s definitely a learning curve,” Matthews said of his time on PGA Tour Latinoamerica. “You learn how to travel, your finances, your this, your that. Everything that tour taught me prepared me for the next level.”
Known as a long-ball hitter, the 6’4”, 210-pound Matthews has battled back issues but keeps that in perspective on a daily basis. He stamps himself as ready after a stretch of 6-8 months of troubles. Married in late 2022 and residing in Jupiter, Fla., Matthews mentioned his support system: “The people in my corner have been incredibly supportive in the ups and downs.”
Matthews’ wife, Danielle, grew up in the GAP area, in Saucon Valley, and also plays golf. She was introduced to the game by Matthews. They met while students at Temple, and she interviewed him for OwlSports Update, at weekly university-run broadcast, after his first college victory.
Recently, he and fellow GAP alum Sean O’Hair finished T7 at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. Matthews’ best finish in 23 career starts entering last week’s AT&T Byron Nelson.
Matthews knows his schedule is based on performance and he will attempt to qualify for a second straight U.S. Open at Final Qualifying at Pine Tree Golf Club in Boynton Beach, Fla. on June 5.
“A win takes care of a lot of problems in my life,” Matthews said. “A great week changes my life in many ways. I have to keep my head down and have perspective that I am living a reality that was once a dream. I also have to realize I am not done yet. Even though I am where I dreamed I would be there is still a hell of a lot more to be achieved.”
This Story Originally Written By Pete Kowalski for Global Golf Post
QUITO, Ecuador—Garett Reband of the U.S. fired a moving-day-low 64 to take control at the PGA TOUR Latinoamérica’s 2023 Kia Open. The PGA TOUR University alum from the University of Oklahoma moved to 15-under 201 to open a three-shot lead over fellow U.S. player Beau Breault, who carded a 66 to stand solo second, at 12-under.
Armando Favela of Mexico, the 36-hole leader by one shot, carded a 70 to slip into a tie for third with countryman Alvaro Ortiz, who posted a 67, and first-round leader Toni Hakula of Finland, who moved back into contention by firing a 65.
Making a costly double bogey on his last hole left Alex Scott of the U.S. in solo-sixth, at 10-under. Seven other players share the seventh spot, six strokes behind Reband’s leading pace, including Ecuador’s Juan Moncayo. He recorded his third consecutive 69 in front of a cheerful crowd that provided its support at the Quito Tennis & Golf Club.
“It was a great day. I found a little something on the range earlier before I went off and teed, and I stuck with that same feeling all day and it worked out really well,” said Reband, 23, who entered the day trailing by two shots in a tie for third.
Although there’s nothing boring in a bogey-free 64, Reband called his eight-birdie performance boring. “It’s funny how those boring rounds turn into that sometimes. A lot of fairways, a lot of greens and then (I) made a few putts in there, which turned into 8-under,” said Reband.
After making his first birdie of the day at the third, one that settled him down early, Reband caught fire halfway through the round. A streak of four consecutive birdies, starting on No. 7, took him to the top of the leaderboard as he moved to 12-under.
“I knew I had to stay patient. I hit a lot of good shots, (Nos.) 4 through 6, but I didn’t get rewarded for them,” said Reband, who followed an easy birdie on No. 7 with a chip-in birdie a hole later after a poor third shot to keep the momentum going. He added birdies on 12 and 14 to pull away and had a huge break at the par-5 17th.
“I’ve been hitting a draw all week, and it should have set me up pretty well, but I haven’t felt really comfortable over the 17th tee shot. I pulled a 5-wood in the trees early, and it happened to kick out in the fairway, which was a huge relief, and then I got it out in the fairway and gave me a chance for birdie. I didn’t make it, but I had that chance,” he explained right after he closed the day with a birdie at the par-4 18th.
The player from York, South Carolina, came into this week having missed the cut in all four of his starts this PGA TOUR Latinoamérica season.
“I could see the game finally starting to move in the right direction last week, even though I didn’t play that well. Then this week I felt comfortable as soon as I stepped on the course on Monday,” added Reband, who indicated he hasn’t had any issues with the significant altitude here, a city in the middle of the mountains, at 9,350 feet above sea level.
In Sunday’s last group, Reband will play with Breault and Hakula. They are scheduled to start at 11:48 a.m. local time at the Quito Tennis & Golf Club.
Did you know Garett Reband spent a year and a half on the Korn Ferry Tour before joining PGA TOUR Latinoamérica this season? Coming out of the University of Oklahoma, he finished fifth on the PGA TOUR University to earn status on the Korn Ferry Tour halfway through the 2021 season. He tied for 19th at Final Stage of Q-School to secure his card for the 2022 season but made only nine cuts in 22 starts, eventually losing lost his card at the next level. Reband has made 29 career Korn Ferry Tour starts.
Santa Barbara, CA – April 5, 2023 – Kate Farms® the market leader bringing plant-based nutrition into healthcare, today announced a partnership with PGA TOUR players Hank Lebioda and Brandon Matthews, to spotlight professional athletes with unique health conditions who use Kate Farms as part of their wellness and nutrition routines.
“Hank and Brandon have both overcome health challenges that could have ended their golf careers prematurely had they not sought treatment and nutrition guidance,” said Kate Farms’ Chief Commercial Officer Catherine Hayden. “We are thrilled to be partnering with them and sharing their story so that others might benefit from learning about the power of plant-based, high quality nutrition products.”
This season on the PGA TOUR is Lebioda’s fifth, after a stand-out career at Florida State University where he was an All-American, ACC Conference Freshman of the Year, ACC Conference Player of the Year and set several University records. Lebioda’s success required him to overcame difficulties in his freshman year at FSU, when he was bedridden with intense abdominal pain and digestion issues. After a diagnosis of Crohn’s disease, Hank became diligent about his sleep, fitness, stress management and nutrition to avoid inflammation and flare-ups, earning his way onto the PGA TOUR in 2018 after strong showings on the Korn Ferry Tour, PGA TOUR Canada and PGA TOUR Latin America.
“Finding Kate Farms is a game-changer for me,” said Lebioda. “I can throw a few of the shakes into my golf bag and know with confidence that I can nourish my body on the course, on the road or at home with my Crohn’s disease.”
For Brandon Matthews, the 2022/2023 PGA TOUR season is his first, after multiple top-three finishes and one victory in Colombia on the Korn Ferry Tour last year to secure his PGA TOUR membership for the 2022/2023 season. In 2021 Matthews was the Player of the Year on PGA TOUR Latin America. Only recently has Matthews addressed seriously his sensitive digestive system that has troubled him since childhood. While now being treated for colitis and IBD, Matthews undergoes additional testing while fine-tuning his exercise and nutrition routines.
“Playing 18 holes of golf day in and day out is tough on any body,” added Matthews. “When you’re playing at the professional level, any competitive advantage is important, and that includes what you put into your body to fuel it. Kate Farms is an excellent addition to my daily meal plan.”
Both Lebioda and Matthews have become active advocates and fundraisers to support additional research into Crohn’s, Colitis and related disorders. Since 2019, Hank and his family have helped to raise more than $400,000 for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation with the local CCF chapter in Central Florida. Matthews created his own charity golf tournament in 2021 called the NEPA Invitational , and the 2022 event benefited Geisinger’s Janet Weis Children’s Hospital in Scranton. In total, the NEPA Invitational has raised $150,000 in its first two years.
–end—
About Kate Farms
Kate Farms was founded when a little girl named Kate Laver was failing to thrive because she couldn’t tolerate any of the available tube feeding formulas. Her determined parents, Richard and Michelle, had the transformative idea to develop a better formula using the highest quality, organic, plant-based ingredients without the synthetic ingredients and common allergens found in traditional formulas. Today Kate is thriving, and Kate Farms is now the #1 recommended plant-based formula.**
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PONTE VEDRA BEACH — Justin Lower has so many stories to tell it’s difficult to pick just one. Some golf fans may recall the awful tragedy the Ohio native experienced as a teenager when he lost his father and brother in a single-car accident. Just last season Lower three-putted the 72nd hole of the Wyndham Championship from 61 feet to lose his PGA Tour status by one shot last season. Then there’s the fact that he is the equivalent of a scratch handicap at bowling, and once scored 269, which he says is like shooting 62 in golf.
But then there is this Tiger Woods story. Lower, now 33, grew up in the Akron area of Ohio and was 11 when Woods hit his famous “shot in the dark” at the 2000 NEC Invitational at Firestone. A storm delay forced Woods and Hal Sutton to finish the final round in near-darkness at 8:30 p.m. Woods, fresh off beating Bob May to win the PGA Championship, hit an 8-iron from 168 yards in darkness on Firestone’s 18th hole that settled to two feet. He tapped that in for birdie and recorded an 11-shot win.
Lower was in the gallery. Sort of.
“He hit the shot as I was leaving the course, but I heard the roar,” Lower told Golf Digest at the Players Championship, where he is making his event debut.
Did he kick himself for leaving early?
“A little bit, but I was 11 at the time,” he said.
Lower received a mulligan. The following day, Woods conducted a junior clinic at Firestone’s course across the road at 7 a.m. “I got to witness the clinic that next morning with Tiger and Butch Harmon [Woods’ coach at the time],” Lower said. “Butch was like, ‘What kind of shot do you play when you’re really swinging it great?’ Tiger was like, ‘A two-yard draw every time.’ Butch then asked him to hit it and, with a 6-iron, he hit the tightest little two-yard draws over and over again. It was perfect.
“It just kind of tells you how Tiger was built. He won that tournament by 11 shots. The next morning he was up at 7 a.m. doing a clinic for everyone. It’s wild because most guys win a tournament you’re going out to celebrate, you’re not waking up that early.”
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Lower then pivots the interview at TPC Sawgrass to talking about the recreational sport of bowling, which is huge in the Midwest.
“Off the golf course, I’m a pretty good bowler,” Lower said. “I was in a formal league when I was 15 and I averaged 200 which was decent.
“I’ve never gotten a perfect game [300], 269 is my highest. I had an open frame, which means I didn’t get a strike or a spare, and then I had 10 strikes. Then got a nine at the end of that. 10 strikes in a row is huge. Twelve strikes is a perfect game. As I got the eighth and ninth strike I started thinking, ‘Wow, this is like getting real.’”
Courtney Culbreath
Then there is the aforementioned story of tragedy in the Lower family. When he was 15, before playing college golf for Malone University, he was waiting to be picked up at Lyons Den Golf Course, in Canal Fulton, Ohio, when his father, Tim, and brother Chris, were killed in a single-car accident. Lower used the Lyons Den course to overcome the grief. Staffers gave him a key to the shed so he could have unlimited access to range balls.
“I wasn’t working on anything,” Lower has said previously. “It was just therapeutic.”
But the story does have a happy ending. Lower still lives in the Akron area and in 2014, Lower struck up a relationship with a cheerleader from his high school, Janise Sandrock. They married in 2019 and in December last year, the couple welcomed a baby girl, Ariana Lynn. Last week at Bay Hill was the first tournament where they travelled with the baby.
“That’s been amazing,” he said. “Maybe a few restless nights, but it’s more for my wife than me. I sleep through anything. It’s been amazing having [Ariana] here. My perspective has definitely changed since she’s been born because it wasn’t the easiest delivery process. So, she’s definitely just a huge blessing in both of our lives.”
The baby came just before Christmas and months after a stroke of good fortune on the course for Lower. Weeks after the three-putt at the Wyndham Championship kept him from a tour card and playing in the FedEx Cup Playoffs, Lower was given his card back thanks to the removal of six LIV Golf recruits from within the top 125 in the FedEx Cup. That’s how he earned his way to a debut at the Players Championship,
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“I circled the Players in my calendar right away,” he said. “I’m pumped to be here. It’s a $25 million purse. You can’t really ask for much more, on a great golf course and with good weather.”
Lower was at the 2022-23 season-opening Fortinet Championship in Napa, where he held the lead after the first and third rounds en route to a T-4—the first top-five of his PGA Tour career.
He recorded another top-10 for the season at the Bermuda Championship but has struggled leading into the Players with four missed cuts from his past five starts. But Lower feels ready to turn it around.
“I think my best golf is still in front of me, which is nice to think of and I think I’m a lot better than what my performances show,” he said. “I would say, don’t be surprised if I make some noise at some point.”
Playing professional golf requires, more than anything, concentration and avoiding distractions.
Distractions come in many forms. Some are on the course while others seep in from off the course and no matter how hard a pro might try, they make the task difficult.
Hank Lebioda’s distractions began 18 months ago when he withdrew from the 2021 3M Open after the second round.
Lebioda had not only made the cut, but was on a pretty significant run of three consecutive top 10s: a T5 at the Travelers Championship, T4 at the Rocket Mortgage and a T8 at the John Deere Classic.
So, the WD was a surprise.
“I had a family incident,” Lebioda said after his second-round 72 at Pebble Beach. “Not super ready to talk about it. I withdrew from the 3M Open in 2021. Dad was really sick. That’s about all I really want to get into at the moment. But it’s been a long year-and-a-half since then.”
When Lebioda did make it back to the Tour he missed the cut in the last two events of his season and the next four cuts of the new 2021-22 season before a T15 at the Houston Open. Then he missed his next two cuts after Houston.
Lebioda has not recorded a top 10 in his last 37 events and he came to the Monterey Peninsula on a run of seven missed cuts, making his current position, tied for second at the halfway point, seem somewhat miraculous.
“I know the work that I put in. I trust my team around me,” Leboida said. “The way that we saw it is that it was just going to be a matter of time. If I kept working our plan that we had made that good things would come. Yes, the beginning of the season hasn’t been good. It’s been a kind of a rough last 18 months almost. So, I’m very fortunate to be in this position today and this week. I know it’s just part of a long climb back.”
(November 13, 2022)–We are proud to welcome LPGA Tour player Amanda Doherty to the Fidelity Sports Group family. Amanda has signed with FSG for worldwide representation, marketing and career management.
2022 has been a successful season for Amanda as a rookie on the LPGA TOUR. Amanda’s season was highlighted by 8th place finish at the ISPS Honda World Invitational, a 13th place finish at the MEDIHEAL Championship and a 14th place finish DIO Implant LA Open. Additionally Amanda played in her first major championships, making the cut at both the US Women’s Open and Evian Championship. Notably, Amanda is in the Top 20 on the LPGA Tour in driving distance, putting average and total eagles.
2021 marked Amanda’s first full season as a professional golfer. As a member of the LPGA’s Epson Tour, Amanda was a model of consistently as she recorded eight Top 6 finishes in 19 events. The consistent performance at the top of the leaderboards earned Amanda a spot in the Top 10 of the Epson Tour Money List, her LPGA Tour membership for 2022 and 2021 Rookie of the Year Honors on the Epson Tour.
A graduate of Florida State University, Amanda was a multiple time All-American and leader of the Seminole’s women’s golf program. While in Tallahassee, Amanda posted one victory, and twelve Top 10 finishes in 41 events. She also competed in the inaugural Augusta Women’s Amateur, making the cut and finishing in a tie for 21st place. She graduated from FSU in the spring of 2020 with a degree in sports management.
“We are very excited to be joining Amanda’s team. She has quickly progressed to the LPGA Tour and claimed her spot as one of the Tour’s rising stars”, said Drew Carr, Partner at Fidelity Sports, “it is a rare combination in professional golf for an athlete to be top ranked amongst their peers in both distance and putting. That combination will allow Amanda to consistently compete for trophies on Sunday afternoons. She has a very bright future and we are humbled to be in her corner.”
Amanda will be co-managed and represented by FSG partners David Moorman and Drew Carr.
Scranton, PA – The second annual NEPA Invitational charity event, hosted by PGA TOUR player Brandon Matthews was held at the Country Club of Scranton on October 14 – 16, 2022 and raised $100,000. The NEPA Invitational is a pro-am golf tournament that brought together professionals, high-level amateurs, and golf aficionados alike. Proceeds from the 2022 NEPA Invitational will support Geisinger Janet Weis Children’s Hospital and the William Lawler Scholarship Fund through the Scranton Area Community Foundation.
Matthews was born and raised in Northeastern Pennsylvania. A Pittston Area graduate, he established the NEPA Invitational Fund with a desire to give back to the community he grew up in. He partnered with the Scranton Area Community Foundation to help allocate the funds raised to local organizations in need.
“The Scranton Area Community Foundation is honored that Brandon and the NEPA Invitational have partnered with us to carry out the charitable goals of this event,” stated Laura Ducceschi, President and CEO of the Scranton Area Community Foundation. “His desire to give back is truly making a difference right here in our communities.”
“Being able to give back to the community that shaped me is something that I have always dreamed of and for that dream to currently be in the process of being realized is truly amazing. The support from the Northeastern Pennsylvania community for my career and this event is incredibly humbling and I will never forget where I came from,” stated Matthews.
The 2nd Annual NEPA Invitational kicked off Friday, October 14, with a ‘Dinner with the Pros’ event at the Country Club of Scranton. Dinner, live entertainment, and a live auction were included. Forty-seven teams competed in a two-day event.
“We rely on community partners to help us respond to the evolving needs of families across the region, and we’re grateful to Brandon Matthews and all the leadership and supporters of the NEPA Invitational,” stated Frank Maffei, MD, Geisinger Chair of Pediatrics. “This support helps Geisinger Pediatrics and the Janet Weis Children’s Hospital to deliver family-centered pediatric care that is driven by best practice, innovation and compassion.”
To date, the NEPA Invitational Fund at the Scranton Area Community Foundation has provided $150,000 to support a variety of charities including the Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeastern Pennsylvania, Children’s Advocacy Center of NEPA, Meals on Wheels of NEPA, Inc., Outreach, and United Way of Lackawanna and Wayne Counties, in addition to Geisinger Janet Weis Children’s Hospital. Additionally, the NEPA Invitational and Matthews have worked closely with the Scranton Area Community Foundation to establish to William Lawler Scholarship, awarded to a NEPA area junior golfer who is going on to play collegiate golf.
For more information on the NEPA Invitational Fund or the event, please contact Brittany Pagnotti, Communications Manager at the Scranton Area Community Foundation.
Photo credit: The Country Club of Scranton
PHOTO: PGA TOUR player Brandon Matthews presents Brittany Pagnotti of the Scranton Area Community Foundation with a $100,000 donation during the NEPA Invitational. The donation will provide support to Geisinger Janet Weis Children’s Hospital through the NEPA Invitational Fund at the Scranton Area Community Foundation.
About Brandon Matthews
Brandon Matthews, professional golfer on the PGA Tour was born and raised in Northeast Pennsylvania. Throughout his career, he has always held the area of Northeastern Pennsylvania close to his heart and has always had the desire to give back to the area as much as possible. The area has shaped him throughout his life and has made him who he is today, for which he is incredibly grateful. The NEPA Invitational was created as the first step in Brandon’s philanthropic efforts and goals. For more information on Brandon Matthews or to be in touch please contact Drew Carr at Fidelity Sports Group. drew@fidelitysportsgroup.com
About Geisinger Janet Weis Children’s Hospital
Geisinger Janet Weis Children’s Hospital is committed to the health and well-being of children, adolescents and families. Today, Geisinger pediatrics serves 45 counties and their specialty-trained pediatric doctors and nurses provide expertise in more than 30 medical and surgical disciplines, treating common to the most complex pediatric health conditions. That commitment includes Northeast Pennsylvania where Geisinger serves approximately 60,000 young patients each year. It extends to children of all ages and includes the 2,583 babies that were delivered at Geisinger Community Medical Center and Geisinger Wyoming Valley in 2021. And for newborns that require additional care, the Level III Tambur Family Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is ready to serve.
About the Scranton Area Community Foundation
The Scranton Area Community Foundation is on a mission to enhance the quality of life for all people in Northeastern Pennsylvania through the development of organized philanthropy. With nearly $95 million in assets under management and more than 275 charitable funds, the Scranton Area Community Foundation has served as a steward, grantmaker, charitable resource, and catalyst for change since 1954.
The Foundation leads various initiatives including Women in Philanthropy, the Center for Community Leadership and Nonprofit Excellence, NEPA Moves, and the NEPA Animal Welfare Collaborative. Additionally, the Foundation hosts and facilitates NEPA Gives and the NEPA Learning Conference.
The Scranton Area Community Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, tax-exempt organization confirmed in compliance with National Standards of U.S. Community Foundations. More information about the Scranton Area Community Foundation can be found at www.safdn.org.
JACKSON, Miss. – Brandon Matthews does not necessarily enjoy dancing.
Last Saturday was an occasion for such activities, though. The TOUR rookie married his college sweetheart Danielle in a ceremony outside Philadelphia – the two met in college at Temple; Danielle, a reporter for the school’s OwlSports Update show, covered Matthews’ first collegiate victory.
The off-week brought an opportune time for nuptials, with the first dance set to Dave Matthews Band’s “You and Me” ballad.
“He hates dancing, and we were going to take a dance lesson, but both of our schedules are crazy, so we weren’t able to,” Danielle laughed. “So we just went with it, and the crowd seemed to like it.”
“For me, I think it was a 10 out of 10,” Brandon added.
“10 out of 10,” Danielle confirmed.
The wedding vibes carried into this week’s Sanderson Farms Championship, where the newlyweds arrived on a honeymoon of sorts. Matthews opened in 5-under 67 at the Country Club of Jackson for a share of the morning-wave lead in just his second TOUR start as a member.
There’s only one chance for a debut competitive round as a newlywed, and Matthews delivered.
“Just a big smile on my face, watching him do what he loves,” Danielle said on a crisp Thursday afternoon, “on our honeymoon.”
The journey has made the destination all the sweeter. Matthews earned his first TOUR card via the 2022 Korn Ferry Tour Regular Season, highlighted by a victory at the Astara Golf Championship presented by Mastercard in Bogota in February.
Matthews, long regarded as one of the game’s longest hitters, faced adversity early in his career – largely brought on by injury – before finding his groove.
The Pennsylvania native developed his power from a young age, where he would tee up a driver with his sole focus on carrying a creek, then move back a few yards upon succeeding. This developed an instinctive power move that has carried to his professional career; Matthews ranked No. 4 on the 2022 Korn Ferry Tour in driving distance. He ranked No. 2 in the category as a Korn Ferry Tour rookie in 2018 behind only Cameron Champ, then finished the 2019 season atop the list.
That trying 2019 season provoked a vicious cycle of injuries and bad habits, though. He fell into a rut and eventually lost his card.
Ever the optimist, with a consistent appreciation for the opportunity to play professional golf for a living, Matthews fought his way back. He gained notoriety for his grace after missing a putt to extend a playoff on PGA TOUR Latinoamerica in fall 2019. A fan with Down syndrome yelled during his birdie try, but rather than cast blame, Matthews tracked down the fan post-round and spent some time with him.
“Some things in life are just bigger than golf,” Matthews said at the time.
He returned to PGA TOUR Latinoamerica and didn’t miss a beat, finishing atop the 2020-21 Order of Merit to earn full 2022 Korn Ferry Tour status. He concluded his time on that circuit in dramatic fashion. At the Korn Ferry Tour Championship presented by United Leasing & Finance, Matthews drove the green on the 432-yard, par-4 18th at Victoria National GC – 368 yards on a direct line – needing eagle to make the cut. He just missed, but the golf world had been put on notice. Matthews’ prodigious game was soon to hit the biggest stage.
“It’s a superpower,” fellow Korn Ferry Tour graduate Philip Knowles said of Matthews’ length off the tee. “You can’t teach that kind of stuff.”
Matthews might not say the same about his dancing ability – aside from on his wedding night, that is – but in his interactions with Danielle after the opening round at the Sanderson Farms Championship, the honeymoon vibe was alive and well.
His first month as a TOUR pro brings similar sentiments.
“I love doing this for a living,” Matthews said Thursday at the Country Club of Jackson. “I’m fortunate enough to do it for a living. Every day I get to play golf in competition for a living is pretty special to me, and I’m very fortunate to do it.
“I consider myself one of the luckiest guys in the world to be able to do this for a living, because I love it so much.”
And he sports a 67.00 stroke average as a married man.
“I told her when I walked off,” Matthews laughed, “we should have gotten married sooner.”
Janise and Justin Lower are expecting. The due date for their first child is Christmas Eve. It will be a much bigger moment than Justin’s arrival as a hot PGA Tour prospect, but for the record, the date for that arrival is now.
Lower, from Northwest High School and Malone University, headed for this week’s Sanderson Farms Championship in Mississippi coming off his best finish.
At his previous Tour outing, in Napa, California, he opened with a career-best 63. He led an eight-man logjam after three rounds, and, in the end, tied for fourth place.
Sure, he would like to have won the Fortinet Championship, as opposed to finishing four shots behind five-time Tour winner Max Homa, who earned $1,440,000 with the win. Second place, paying $872,000, would have been nice, but 2016 Masters champ Danny Willett took that spot.
Third place would have been his had Taylor Montgomery not shot the round of his life, 64, on the final day.
Still, Lower made Stark County history. No one from the county ever finished so high in a PGA Tour event, unless you count Tom Weiskopf, who was born in Massillon but moved to Bedford before he was in grade school.
Weiskopf won the 1973 British Open and was runner-up in four Masters. Fun fact: Weiskopf’s total money from those five Majors was $95,000; Lower’s payday for his fourth place was $360,000.
“If you count Weiskopf, I would say Justin is No. 2 on the list of the best golfers to come out of Stark County,” Mike Emery said. “Other than that, there hasn’t been anything close to what Justin has done, and you would need to get into a discussion of the county’s accomplished women.”
Emery, who launched his long golf career at Canton Central Catholic High School, has been Lower’s swing coach the last five years.
“Justin is getting better by leaps and bounds,” Emery said. “His practice ethics are awesome, and it’s really paying off.”
Ken Hyland, Malone’s 76-year-old golf coach, weighed in on the best-in-county-history question by excluding Weiskopf and saying, “I’ve seen ’em all, and probably played with most of them. I would say, it’s early, but, yeah, Justin is.”
Lower, 33, has been around, having turned pro in 2011. Turning pro is nowhere close to the same thing as earning a PGA Tour card, which is the ticket to entering Tour events.
It took him 10 years and a marathon grind on the Korn Ferry Tour to get his hands on that elusive PGA Tour card.Next came the pressure of keeping the card for more than the 2021-22 season.
In April of 2022, in the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, Lower tied for 10th place. In July, he posted the best score for the final 36 holes of the Barbasol Classic in Kentucky and finished eighth overall.
He made 15 of 24 cuts and won $700,545. It wasn’t enough.
In late August, he three-putted on the final hole of the last event of the 2021-22 season, the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, N.C.
Long story short: He would have kept his card had he two-putted. Tearful and exasperated on camera after three-putting, he stammered out the words, “This really sucks.”
The reprieve came when enough Tour qualifiers defected to LIV Golf to restore a card to Lower’s wallet. He responded with the best finish of his life in the first event of the 2022-23 season.
PGA vs. LIV is a complicated story. This is not: Golf is as deep in talent as it has ever been. The PGA Tour remains linked with the Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open and the PGA Championship. To many thousands of scratch golfers, a PGA Tour card is a wildest dream.
More on Justin Lower:Nicklaus Award winner Justin Lower grinding to fulfill dream of playing on PGA Tour
Lower is thankful for his.
“I still haven’t done a lot in this game,” he said. “There’s still a lot I want to do and need to do.
“I’ve never even played in a Major. There’s guys my age who have played in 20-plus already.
“I used to compare myself to a lot of people from Stark County, but I’ve kind of broadened that now. I want to be one of the best in the world if I can.”
Lower sill lives fairly close to where he grew up. He and Janise have a Uniontown mailing address near Prestwick Country Club. He trains at Prestwick.
“The whole neighborhood watches him on TV,” Prestwick pro John Moldovan said on a Tuesday. “He started off the new season awesome, then he was right back here working on his game. Today he was on the range for a good long while and he was also on the putting green.
“He’s worked his way up the ladder and now he’s in the biggest show there is. We love having him out here.”
On a worldwide scale, being in the the discussion of “best golfer in Stark County history” doesn’t much move the needle.
He intends to add substantially to the story. It is quite a story already, one Andy Lyons of Lyons Den Golf Course knows well.
“He was maybe 8 years old the first time I saw him,” Lyons said. “I was working on No. 9, changing a cup, and I saw him on the No. 1 tee with his dad and his uncle.
“I saw him take a swing and I was amazed. ‘What on earth was THAT?'”
“That” was a heavenly natural swing.
“I talked to his dad and said the door is always open,” Lyons said. “His dad said he was playing baseball and playing some golf at Chippewa. He started coming out, and we put him in a program.”
The Lower family lived in a Firestone Park neighborhood in Akron at the time and moved to Canal Fulton as he progressed through school.
Lyons Den is Lower’s field of dreams.
“I love that place,” he said. “I’ve played more rounds there than anywhere else. Andy gave me an opportunity, as well as some other kids, to work for golf. The work basically was just cleaning up the driving range.
“There were some days in the summer when we sneaked in 54 holes. I remember being 13 and actually playing 63 holes with my friend Richie Schembechler.”
Schembechler lives in Memphis, Tennessee now. Lower planned to visit his old pal on the way to this week’s Tour stop in Mississippi.
“Justin has a better memory than I do if we played 63 holes,” Schembechler said. “One thing I remember clearly is our putting contests on the Lyons Den practice green.
“We would pretend our putts were to win a championship in one of the Majors. We would see who could win the most Majors in a day.”
By high school, Lower had spent countless days at Lyons Den. He did the Den proud as a Northwest sophomore in the autumn of 2004, when he qualified for the OHSAA Division II state tournament at Ohio State’s famed Scarlet Course. Joe Frustaci, a Canton Central Catholic senior, finished second with a two-day total of 150. Lower placed 19th at 164.
Several months later, on March 26, 2005, his dad dropped him off at Lyons Den at about 10:30 a.m. It was the Saturday before Easter,
They agreed Tim would return to pick him up at 5:30 or 6. The day passed. Those times came and went. Justin and Andy Lyons were the only two people left on the course when Justin’s mom, Debbie, picked him up, worried but hoping there had been a miscommunication.
Tim, 46, spent most of the day with another son, 10-year-old Chris, in Marshallville.
Tim worked for the village of Marshallville and had a side job with an excavation company, which included, that day, operating a machine to dig a grave at a cemetery not far from Marshallville American Legion Post 718.
Tim was a commander of the Sons of the American Legion and was a familiar face at Post 718. He and Chris spent some of the day there. Tim did some drinking.
Tim and Chris were on their way from Post 718 to Lyons Den when their Ford station wagon lost control on Fulton Road, went airborne, and hit a utility pole.
The crash took both of their lives. Tim’s blood-alcohol level was past the legal limit, compounding the psychology of the tragedy.
The obituary said of Tim, “He was very kind to everyone he met and was well loved by everyone.”
Justin lost focus for a while. A year and a half later, as a Northwest senior, he won a 2006 OHSAA state championship. Seventeen years later, he carries two ball markers that say “Dad, Chris, 3-26-05.”
Andy Lyons is moved by Justin’s resilience.
“He’s a true Phoenix,” Lyons said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve seen it from the accident and all the way to now. It’s just his story. Something deep within him.”
Lyons says it was “God’s plan” that Lower wound up at Malone, rather than in a major-college golf program.
“Ken Hyland is a beautiful man,” said Lyons, who was Malone’s top player for a stretch of the 1990s. “He certainly was the guy Justin needed to be under.”
Hyland held off on recruiting Lower.
“I knew he wanted to go D-I,” Hyland said. “Justin finally came in with Andy. We had a long talk.
“One D-I coach told him, ‘You won’t make it through one semester.’ Another told him, ‘You’re not good enough to play D-I.
“The coach who told him he wasn’t good enough for D-I … we played in their tournament. Justin won. Our team won. We played in the tournament the next year and won it again.
“The third year, we weren’t invited back.”
Lower won an NAIA national championship in 2010 and turned pro in 2011. Hyland gets emotional when he converses about Justin growing up.
“I really believe this is just the start of the story with him,” Hyland said. “We don’t know how it’s going to finish, but I think God still has plans for him.
“He has willpower, concentration, determination. He is the most positive person I’ve ever coached. I tell him, ‘Good luck today, play well,’ and he tells me, ‘I will.’
“It’s exciting to see how he’s matured and what he’s done. I look at him as a sophomore on the PGA Tour. I know personally what’s going to happen when he’s a senior. I think he’s going to be a dominant factor.”
Whatever is next, Schembechler says Justin will be his best friend. Years after spending sunup to sundown at Lyons Den, they were Malone teammates.
“Maybe it’s in his head that he would have liked to play D-I, but I doubt it could have worked out any better for him than going to Malone,” Schembechler said. “The year he won the national title the tournament was at TPC Deere Run. It was rainy and crazy windy. He shot a 70, which was the lowest round of the tournament by four shots.
“It came down to the last hole. We were all watching from a hill. He had a really tough chip.
“I was like … he’s going to chip it in. He chipped it in. Everybody laughed.”
Before shifting careers from golf to financial planning, Schembechler played in the 2016 U.S. Open. One of Lower’s immediate goals is to play in his first Major.
“That would be a pretty low bar for him, just trying to play in a major,” Schembechler said. “The first one he plays in will be very exciting, but I think it will be the first of many.”
This story originally written by Steve Doerschuk for the Canton Repository
(Napa, California)–The 2022/2023 PGA TOUR Season kicked off at the Fortinet Championship at the Silverado Resort in Napa, California and Justin Lower’s name sat atop the leaderboard for the entire tournament.
Justin held the lead after a first round score of 9-Under Par 63 on Thursday, which included two chip-ins.
Friday/Saturday rounds of 71-69 left Lower atop the leaderboard thru 54 holes with a one shot lead to start the final round.
Sunday’s final round presented difficult conditions with blustery winds and frequent rain throughout the round as temperatures did not climb above the mid-60s. Lower hung tough and was tied for the lead thru 10 holes. He ended the event at 12 under par, in a tie for 4th place.
NAPA, Calif. – When Justin Lower chipped in for the second time of the day at Silverado Resort’s North Course, his new caddie, Chad Gonzales, turned to the other caddies in his threesome and said, “Time to go buy a lottery ticket.”
It was that type of day for Lower, who holed out on Nos. 5 and 7 en route to making birdie on the half the holes and opening a three-stroke lead when was play was suspended due to darkness in the first round of the Fortinet Championship.
Lower was the hard-luck loser, who three-jacked the 72nd hole of the regular season-ending Wyndham Championship from 61 feet to miss out on the FedEx Cup playoffs and, even worse, lose his status. In the aftermath, he gave an emotional interview.
Lower was exiled to the Korn Ferry Tour Finals to try to earn his card back. He had competed in the first two events and likely had locked up his Tour card for the new season with good finishes, but none of that mattered when six players defected to LIV Golf and Lower was suddenly full-exempt for the coming season for the first time in his career.
“It’s been kind of a whirlwind,” he said. “It sucked but it turned out for the better. … I’m just happy to be here.”
And taking advantage of his opportunity he did. Lower’s 63 was a career low for him on the PGA Tour and it marks the first time he’s held the lead after any round out a Tour event.
NEWBURGH, Ind. – The dogleg-right, par-4 18th hole at Victoria National GC plays to 432 yards on the scorecard.
The club’s famed finishing hole bends around a visually intimidating pond, with players picking their proverbial poison when determining an angle of attack off the tee.
The Korn Ferry Tour has competed at Victoria National since 2012, with no record of a player driving the green on No. 18.
That changed Friday at the Korn Ferry Tour Championship presented by United Leasing & Finance, as Brandon Matthews played boldly on his final hole. After a double bogey at the par-4 17th hole, Matthews needed eagle to advance to the weekend. The hole measured 368 yards on a direct line, with a carry of “somewhere around 330 to 340” yards over the water.
Matthews took the line and executed the shot. The ball landed on the front of the green and released to 15 feet.
Had he attempted such a shot in a practice round?
“Not directly at it … that’s a little crazy,” remarked Matthews. “Our line was … there are some red umbrellas on the clubhouse that we saw. That was kind of our line, if we had any bit of help at all.
“If I wasn’t in that position, I wouldn’t be hitting driver at the green … I love doing stuff like that. It’s fun.”
Matthews couldn’t convert the eagle; the ball slid just right of the hole. He made birdie to miss the cut by a shot, but he departs the 2022 Korn Ferry Tour with the ultimate prize: a PGA TOUR card for next season. The Temple alum won the Astara Golf Championship presented by Mastercard in Bogota in February en route to a spot in the top 25 on the Korn Ferry Tour Regular Season Eligibility Points List and his first TOUR card. He’ll debut on TOUR as a member at the Fortinet Championship later this month.
After Matthews’ playing partner Thomas Detry took an aggressive line off No. 18 tee, a patron remarked as such.
Matthews then turned around and upped the ante.
“Thomas Detry takes an aggressive line off 18 tee, and the guy behind us says, ‘That’s an aggressive line,’ and then Brandon turns to the guy and says, ‘You want to see an aggressive line? Watch this,’” remarked the group’s third member, Ben Martin, who matched a course-record 62 on Friday.
“We thought it might go in, when it was in the air, and then walking off the tee, he said he needed to make eagle to make the cut. We were all pulling for him; that was pretty cool. I said, ‘I don’t think Fazio had this in mind when he designed the 18th hole.’”
“The guy might’ve had a couple cocktails,” laughed Matthews. “He’s like, ‘Well that’s an aggressive line.’ I’m like, ‘You want to see an aggressive line, buddy? I’ll show you an aggressive line.’ So that was kind of fun.”
Despite falling one shot shy of the cut line, Matthews found a silver lining in the situation. He’ll enjoy a couple extra days at home with his fiancée Danielle and their dog, in advance of the TOUR season.
And he provided a parting message of gratitude for the Korn Ferry Tour.
“I’m beyond grateful for everybody that I’ve met,” Matthews said. “The effort put in is beyond belief. I’m looking forward to representing (the Korn Ferry Tour) well.”
Just as he did on his final hole as a Korn Ferry Tour pro.
Brandon Matthews will begin his rookie season on the PGA TOUR in September for the start of the 2022/2023 season. In the midst of the best year of his young career, Matthews has secured his PGA TOUR membership thanks to excellent performance on the Korn Ferry Tour.
Through the first six months of the year, Matthews notched his first career victory on the KFT circuit in Colombia the week after a runner-up finish in Panama.
Matthews has received sponsor exemption invitations to compete in back-to-back weeks on the PGA TOUR at the 3M Open in Minneapolis, Minnesota and the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit Michigan. Earlier in the season, Matthews qualified for the US OPEN where he made the cut and also received an exemption to the Wells Fargo Championship.
Justin Lower is trending at just the right time of the PGA TOUR season.
In his last twelve starts, dating back to March, the TOUR rookie has made the cut nine times and posted four Top-16 finishes including two Top-10 finishes at 8th place at the Barbasol Championship and 10th place at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.
With three events remaining in the regular season, Lower is “on the bubble” for a birth into the Fed Ex Cup Playoffs in his very first season on TOUR. His schedule to finish the regular season includes:
July 18-24 3M Open. Minneapolis, Minnesota
July 25-31 Rocket Mortgage Classic. Detroit, Michigan
August 1-7 Wyndham Championship. Greensboro, North Carolina
Lower’s diverse portfolio of sponsorships includes: PXG Golf Equipment, Lower.com, Holderness and Bourne Apparel, Titleist, Footjoy, Litehouse Foods, The Emblem Source, No Laying Up and Black Hills IP.
Jun. 13—A whirlwind week for Dupont native Brandon Matthews is over. Another is just beginning.
Six days after securing a spot in this week’s U.S. Open, the 27-year-old golfer locked up his spot on the PGA Tour for the 2022-23 season.
Matthews came into the Korn Ferry Tour’s BMW Championship needing a finish of 36th or better to lock up his PGA Tour card. He placed tied for 15th by putting together four straight rounds in the 60s, including a closing 4-under 67 that featured a pair of eagles in a four-hole stretch.
“It’s great,” Matthews said. “You know, obviously I wasn’t thinking about trying to finish tied for 36th or anything, just trying to continuously have good weeks, play good, trending in the right direction and obviously some good momentum going into this week.”
Playing in the U.S. Open at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, on the heels of a career-changing week might seem like a dream. Matthews views it differently.
“It’s reality now, right?” Matthews said. “It’s something that I’ve wanted to do my entire life. The fact that I officially achieved it today is amazing, but I’ve got to keep my head down here and continue to play some good golf to round out the year because if I can lock up that No. 1 spot by the end of the year, that’s a massive deal.
“It gets me into the U.S. Open next year guaranteed. It gets me into all the invitationals, so it gets me a lot better status than say, finishing fifth or 10th on the money list. Being able to do that is a big deal and that’s where my focus is going to be for the remainder of the year.”
As for right now, that focus will turn toward his first major championship, which will be played at a course he knows and likes. Matthews reached the quarterfinals of the U.S. Amateur at Brookline in 2013.
“It’s not like I’m going to a golf course I’ve never played or I’m very unfamiliar with,” Matthews said. “I’m not only familiar with it, I have very good memories there. So, it’s exciting that my game is heading in the direction it’s heading and I’m going to a place I have very good memories at and a course I feel very comfortable on.”
Sunday’s final round was just the sendoff Mathews needed.
He knocked in an eagle putt on No. 2 and duplicated that on No. 5, followed by a birdie on No. 6 that put him in a great frame of mind.
“One hundred percent,” Matthews said. “I missed a 5-footer for birdie on No. 4. I hit a really good putt but misread it, and left two putts dead in the heart on one and three. I’m standing there on the seventh tee where, if I hit a couple putts harder and make that 5-footer, I’m 8 under and I’m only a couple shots off the lead.
“So, again, everything is trending in the right direction. Whether it’s a couple putts that fall, you’re not making that one little mistake per round. And just being really conscious of everything this week. Obviously, U.S. Opens are a completely different animal than anything else in golf. So, just do the proper preparation, make all the right decisions and I think we’re going to be in good shape come the end of the week.”
Those minor mistakes get magnified in a major way at the U.S. Open, but Matthews is more than optimistic.
“It’s a completely different kind of golf tournament, but it’s just another tournament on the schedule this year that I have an opportunity to win,” Matthews said. “It’s just a little bit of a very, very small mistake here or there. They’re basically once a round. So if we can clean that up and clean it up this week, I think we can have a really big week up there.
“I tell everybody, if I didn’t think I could go into this week and win, I need to go find another job. I think I can be one of the best players in the world and that’s what I’m working toward. For me to go into this week and be incredibly nervous, obviously I’m very excited, but to be incredibly nervous and not totally believe in myself would defeat the purpose of what I’ve been working on and the way I’ve been approaching things for a long time.”
Story Written by Marty Myers for the Scranton Times Tribune
Will Wilcox and Brian Richey have each received a Sponsor Exemption/Invitation to compete on the Korn Ferry Tour at the BMW Charity Pro-Am in Greenville, South Carolina.
The start marks Wilcox’s first of 2022 and his journey back to professional golfer. Earlier this year, Will courageously told his story of opioid and drug addiction, and the success he has had to date in seeking rehabilition and treatment. The FirePit Collective helped Will make the announcement and tell his story. Will has received tremendous support from all over the world since making the announcement. Thanks to his status as a past champion on the Korn Ferry Tour circuit, Wilcox will be able to compete week in and week out with a successful week in Greenville at the BMW.
Korn Ferry Tour member Brian Richey has been posting consistently low scores in 2022, but has had a slow start in KFT events. After multiple successful Monday Qualifiers, Brian has narrowly missed a few KFT cuts to start the season. After a runner-up finish on the G Pro Tour last week where Brian was 19 under par in 54 holes, Tournament Director Michael McGovern was nice enough to extend the invitation allowing Brian to fully focus on his prep for the event and have no Monday Qualifying stress to start the week.
PGA TOUR Rookie Justin Lower has received a Sponsor Invite to compete at The Memorial, one of the PGA TOUR’s most prestigious events.
A past winner of the Jack Nicklaus Award, as the best player in the NAIA division while he competed for Malone University in Canton, Ohio. Lower is a Ohio native and still current resident.
The guy’s so long he voluntarily took driver out of the bag. The holes simply wouldn’t allow for it. It’s part of the deal when your “fairway finder” flies 330 yards.
Brandon Matthews, who’s in the field at this week’s Wells Fargo Championship on a sponsor’s invite, doesn’t yet play full-time on the PGA Tour. But he might just be the longest player in professional golf.
The name might ring a bell, too, for something other than being a bomber. The 27-year-old went viral in 2019 for the way he handled an unfortunate situation—he was in a playoff in a PGA Tour Latinoamerica event when a man with Down’s syndrome made a distracting noise in his backswing. Matthews missed the putt, lost the tournament and gained thousands of fans for the grace he showed, signing a glove for the fan and refusing to blame anyone but himself for the loss.
The gesture caught the eye of the Arnold Palmer family, who extended him an invite to play in the Arnold Palmer Invitational. He missed the cut in his lone previous PGA Tour start and returned to the anonymity of mini-tour life, grinding away until winning the PGA Tour Latinoamerica’s Order of Merit and securing full status for the 2022 Korn Ferry Tour season. He finished T-2 in his third KFT event in February then won his fourth to all but lock up a PGA Tour card for next season.
MORE: Wells Fargo Championship DFS picks—Sergio Garcia’s stats paint a brutal picture
That’s the pertinent background info. Now, time for the fun part: his obscene length. Golf Digest editorial director Max Adler actually played alongside Matthews in the 2013 U.S. Amateur, and while Alder isn’t setting any speed records, he’d never been outdriven by 100-plus yards like he was that week. Repeatedly. And that was when Matthews was a teenager, before added some grown-adult strength. (And a fiancée, who’s on-site this week).
Matthews’ dad taught him the game and did so in a distinctly modern manner. Whereas many teachers previously prioritized accuracy, the growing consensus among modern instructors is to teach speed first. It’s a byproduct of the strokes-gained era, which has underscored how vital distance is in the professional game. By and large, the best players in the world crush the ball. So: Hit it far, then learn how to hit it straight. Matthews’ dad was ahead of his time.
“From a very young age I was just trying to hit it as hard as I can, so I developed power before I developed technique,” Matthews says. “So I think that was one of the main reasons why I hit it so far, because I just learned it at an early age, hit it as hard as you can.”
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As he attempts to flash the guns at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farms, Matthews comes into the week off three straight missed cuts on the Korn Ferry Tour. He also ranks “only” 34th on that circuit in driving distance at 307 yards. That stat can be misleading even on the PGA Tour—only certain holes are measured, and 305 yards on firm turf in Texas is not the same as 305 yards on spongy kikuyu in Southern California. It’s the same story on the Korn Ferry Tour; driving distance simply isn’t a reliable stat for telling you who the longest players are. That’s especially true for Matthews, who has been like Aquaman without his trident in recent weeks.
“Two out of the last three weeks I took driver out of the bag,” Matthews said. “And it’s just so painful to do because for me, I’ve been hitting my driver so well for the past few years. We just looked at golf courses, my caddie and I, Colton [Heisey], the last few weeks and it just doesn’t fit anywhere. There’s not a hole that we can hit it. You know, when I do have driver in the bag, obviously there’s a big advantage there, especially if I’m hitting it well and consistent and I feel good with it. So I do feel good with it this week and it is nice to have that thing back in the bag.”
Per his longtime coach, Dale Gray, Matthews’ clubhead speed with driver is around 135 miles per hour. His 5-iron flies 231 and can carry the d-stick up to 340 when he goes at one.
“Super long arms, wide arc, it’s unlike I’ve seen,” Gray says, his face glowing like a man who knows how lucky he is to be working with that kind of speed.
Hank Lebioda, Brandon Matthews and Tim Petrovic have signed long-term endorsement deals with DemandScience, one of the PGA TOUR’s newest Official Marketing Partners.
Full Press Release:
DANVERS, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–DemandScience, a global B2B data company that partners with customers to upgrade their sales pipelines, today announced new brand ambassador partnerships with eight world-class professional golfers currently playing on the PGA TOUR, PGA TOUR Champions and Korn Ferry Tour.
These new partnerships align with the company’s mission to provide decision-makers with the right information at the right time and are part of DemandScience’s commitment to the sport of golf, which includes being named the “Official B2B Sales Pipeline Generation Sponsor of the PGA TOUR and PGA TOUR Champions” in February.
The talented lineup of DemandScience brand ambassadors includes professional golfers Keegan Bradley, Nick Watney and Hank Lebioda from the PGA TOUR, Tim Petrovic from PGA TOUR Champions, and Brandon Matthews, Trevor Werbylo, Ben Griffin and Rob Oppenheim from the Korn Ferry Tour. Each of these outstanding athletes will use DemandScience-branded yardage books during play as they utilize information and insights to determine their best competitive move.
“It is an honor to be working with DemandScience and I look forward to a great partnership, both on and off the golf course,” said Keegan Bradley, a four-time winner on the PGA TOUR. “This is also the first time I’ve had a yardage book sponsor, which shows that they truly understand everything involved in being a competitor – preparation, data and situational insight are essential to making the best shot possible.”
Bradley has deep New England roots. He went to high school in the Boston area not far from DemandScience offices and was the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association Division 2 individual golf state champion. Bradley has won four professional tournaments, including the PGA Championship, has represented the United States in the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup, and is a former PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year winner.
“Becoming an Official Marketing Partner of the PGA TOUR is just the beginning of our company’s commitment to the sport of golf. We are honored to have such an incredible team of brand ambassadors as we continue to align our B2B data business with the needs of athletes and customers alike,” said DemandScience Chair and CEO Peter Cannone. “Professional golf’s ability to reach B2B sales and marketing professionals, as well as C-suite decision-makers, is the most valuable in sports and through these new relationships we will continue to share our message with millions of fans.”
DemandScience sponsors the Wind Gauge during NBC Sports and Golf Channel coverage, providing viewers with wind speeds and direction which could be a determining factor during player shot selection, and will be seen again in August for PinPoint Greens presented by DemandScience. The company also has a presence in programming throughout PGA TOUR media properties and hosting at select PGA TOUR events.
Click here to learn more about DemandScience’s work with its PGA TOUR brand ambassadors, the PGA TOUR, The Boston Bruins, and the company’s charitable sponsorships of First Tee, GreenLight Fund, and the Boston Bruins Foundation.
BOGOTA, Colombia – As four players held a share of the lead on the final hole of regulation, Brandon Matthews’ eagle-three at the par-5 18th of Country Club de Bogota’s Lagos course capped a birdie-birdie-eagle finish and a one-stroke victory at the Astara Golf Championship presented by Mastercard.
Matthews’ first Korn Ferry Tour victory came in his 50th Tour start. The 2020-21 PGA TOUR Latinoamérica Order of Merit winner, Matthews began the final round in T3 position and reached 19-under par for the week, one stroke ahead of runner-up finishers Ryan McCormick and Ben Griffin, with a 5-under 66 Sunday.
“It’s pretty special,” an emotional Matthews said. “My game has been trending in the right direction for the past few years – been playing really, really good golf. Support system I’ve had is absolutely unbelievable. I can’t thank everyone enough. My fiancée has been unbelievable and she’s supported me through everything. I can’t wait to get home to her, my dog, and I can’t wait to see my dad, share this with him, because without them I wouldn’t be here.
“Growing up as a kid, hitting balls for hours upon hours, dreaming of this, it’s pretty awesome to see it come true.”
Matthews made the turn at 1-under par, as bogeys at Nos. 7 and 9 dampened his birdies from Nos. 3, 5 and 6. The Temple University alum parred the first four holes of the back nine and squandered a birdie at the par-4 14th with a bogey at the par-3 15th. It looked as though Matthews was headed for a second consecutive top-five, but a win appeared out of reach.
Instead, the 27-year-old caught fire and birdied the par-4 16th and 17th, and hit a 9-iron to 5 feet and poured in his eagle putt on the 72nd hole.
“Hit a great drive on No. 16, set up a perfect little pitch in there that I honestly thought I made, which was great to get there, because I knew that I was going to have to do something special down the stretch to either win or get a playoff,” Matthews said. “Hit a great drive on No. 17. Didn’t hit the best pitch shot. Left it about 20 feet short. Such a good putt there. I made that dead center, and that was so big for me, especially with some of the putts I hit in the middle of the round. To be able to get there and really make that putt was awesome.
“And coming down the 18th, I hit three perfect golf shots,” Matthews continued. “Hit a great drive over the trees. Hit a really nice little cut 9-iron in there to about 5 feet behind it, and it was fun going into that putt realizing that this could be the one.”
The win today may have been the first career Korn Ferry Tour victory for Matthews, but he won three times on PGA TOUR Latinoamérica (twice in 2020-21, once in 2017). This week’s win also followed a near-miss at The Panama Championship last week, where Matthews finished T2 and one stroke behind the champion.
Matthews, a native Pennsylvanian, turned professional out of Temple in 2016. He enjoyed immediate success on PGA TOUR Latinoamérica in 2017, winning his second start and adding a solo third three months later. A T42 finish at Final Stage of the 2017 Korn Ferry Tour Qualifying Tournament awarded him conditional status, but Matthews finished 82nd in the 2018 regular season standings and had to retain status via Final Stage at year’s end. Matthews missed 14 cuts in 21 starts on Tour in 2019, bouncing him back to PGA TOUR Latinoamérica.
“If PGA TOUR Latinoamérica didn’t exist, I wouldn’t be here,” Matthews said. “It’s pretty amazing what’s culminated out of all that and where I am now compared to when I first got out here.”
Matthews already had fully exempt status like the Korn Ferry Tour’s tournament winners, but now he is well positioned to earn a PGA TOUR card at season’s end, as he moved to No. 1 in the Regular Season Points Standings. With 766 points, Matthews sits 245-plus points ahead of the other three winners this season.
“In my opinion, I think I should be in contention and be winning golf tournaments all the time,” Matthews said. “My game feels great. My mental has been really, really good over the last few years. If we can continue on this path, I’m pretty excited to see what we can do.”
The 2022 Korn Ferry Tour season continues Thursday, February 17 with the first round of the LECOM Suncoast Classic at Lakewood National Golf Club in Lakewood Ranch, Florida.
For the most part, Korn Ferry Tour pros have a straightforward season-ending goal. The PGA TOUR is in their sights – whether they want to make their debut or return to the biggest stage in the sport.
Brandon Matthews says he’s different. It might even sound weird, he admits. There’s no goal. There’s just living, every day, as a new opportunity.
And now he’s trying to take advantage of the best stretch of golf he’s ever played to reach the TOUR – even though he doesn’t necessarily have that circled on paper or typed in his phone.
“I try not to get ahead of myself and look into the future for what’s ahead. I just think about what I’m doing during that day and that week and my process for that,” said Matthews, fresh off last week’s runner-up finish at The Panama Championship, his career-best Korn Ferry Tour showing.
“I love this game so much. I’m fortunate enough every day to get to play it.”
Matthews entered 2022 on the heels of a two-win season on PGA TOUR Latinoamerica and the No. 1 spot on the Tour’s money list during the combined 2020-21 season, earning fully exempt Korn Ferry Tour status in the process.
Through the early part of the 2022 Korn Ferry Tour slate, he has made the cut in three straight events and was just one shot back of Carson Young’s winning total in Panama.
He had a slight miscommunication with his caddie coming down the stretch Sunday in Panama, he said, and thought his 25-footer on the 72nd hole was to tie the clubhouse lead. It wasn’t the case, but after draining the putt, he said he was “thrilled” with how he was able to handle what he perceived as final-round, final-hole pressure.
That feeling was partly a reflection of how he’s matured in every aspect of golf, and life, over the last few years.
He has a new swing coach, Dale Gray, who is based in New York but frequents Florida to see Matthews and his whip-strong action. Brian Symonds, based in Florida as the owner of Winston Trails GC, has become “instrumental” in getting Matthews to display the type of form he has shown over the past 12 months.
“It’s honestly incredible how good my short game has got in the year since I’ve been going to see (Symonds),” said Matthews. “You can get taught all you want, but you still have to put in the work. I’ve been trying to put in as much work as I possibly can. Treat my body correctly. It’s been a great progression over the last couple of years.”
When asked about the rest of his support system, there’s the briefest of pauses. Not because he doesn’t know who else has been helpful, but it’s almost like Matthews is unable to express how important Danielle Maslany, his fiancée, has been to him.
“There’s no one better,” said Matthews. “She’s unbelievable how she’s supported me throughout with what I want to do. It’s incredible … I’m very lucky to have someone who supports me like that.”
They’re getting married on September 24 back in their home state of Pennsylvania – “I’m going to let her do the planning,” said Matthews, laughing.
Despite his new Floridian residency (Maslany owns a full-service marketing agency in Jupiter – DM Creative House), Matthews had been keen to give back to an area that had given him so much as a golfer.
Last year, he organized a pro-am and charity event that raised $50,000 as a scholarship fund for young golfers in the Scranton, Pennsylvania area. The Country Club of Scranton hosted the day. The professionals played for a $50,000 purse, while Billy Pabst Jr. – a young star who is heading to Penn State to play golf – was the first recipient of the scholarship.
Matthews admits he was running around “like a chicken with its head cut off” trying to make phone calls and managing a type of workflow that he isn’t used to, but he said it was fun.
“Normally I just wake up and all I think about is what kind of shot I need to hit,” said Matthews. “Happy to think about it, obviously, from a different aspect and go on the business side a little bit.
“To raise a lot of money for our area and give such a great kid a scholarship and a membership to The Country Club of Scranton was all worth it.”
That event came at the end of 2021, after Matthews completed his big-time season on PGA TOUR Latinoamerica. His celebrated college years well behind him, there’s one thing that Matthews has been able to bring with him throughout his professional career – his distance.
The 6-foot-4 Matthews admits he never tried to hit the ball far; it has just been a natural asset. The last time he played on the Korn Ferry Tour long enough for the data to be collected – 2019 – he averaged more than 330 yards a pop.
The way he controls that distance has matured alongside every other part of his game. He still describes his length as a difference-maker, though.
“Being able to manage that and reel it back and look at distance as an advantage … I can hit 3-iron off the tee and have the same distance coming in as everyone else does with driver off the tee,” he explained. “There are so many different things that go into that and realize what makes it an advantage and how to use that properly. It’s been a great learning curve.”
That’s what Matthews has been doing as he inches ever closer to earning a PGA TOUR card – learning. About golf, life, and how to balance it all out.
“I’m just trying to do the best I possibly can for the day ahead,” said Matthews, “and if I can do that properly, it’ll create some pretty good results.”
Story Written by Adam Stanley for PGA TOUR. Originally Posted Here.
CLARKS SUMMIT, Pa. — The Country Club of Scranton hosted the inaugural NEPA Invitational this weekend. DuPont-native Brandon Matthews spearheaded this idea – his way of giving back to the community. All the proceeds went to junior golf in the area, the William Lawler Foundation Scholarship, and to local non-profits, through the Scranton Area Foundation.
“It’s been great!” Matthews told Newswatch 16. “People have traveled from all over to come in and play, and the guys love this place. So, I’m really excited that everyone’s having a good time. The response has been great and I think it’s going to grow for the years to come.”
It’s a great starting point for the inaugural event. Matthews helped raise $50,000 for the Scranton Area Foundation.
Grant Hirschman fired a seven under par 65 at the Sanderson Farms Championship Monday Qualifier to earn a spot in the PGA TOUR field for the week.
The 2021 Sanderson Farms Championship marked Hirschman’s second career start on the PGA TOUR. His first start as a professional came at the 2018 Fed Ex St. Jude Classic in his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee after the conclusion of his incredible collegiate career at University of Oklahoma where played in every event for four years, notched three individual victories including the 2018 Big 12 Conference Championship, was captain of the 2017 National Championship Team, and was a Three Time All-American.
Hirschman took full advantage of the opportunity at the Sanderson Farms Championship, firing rounds of 70-67-66-69. His total of 16 under par secured a tie for 17th place finish, and the largest payday of his career. Hirschman was 11th in Strokes Gained Around the Green and 10th in Strokes Gained Putting for the week.
Hirschman is supported by PXG Golf Equipment, Srixon Golf Balls, Veritex Bank, Silver Leaf Wealth Management, Black Quail Apparel, and Nike Shoes
Korn Ferry Tour pro Grant Hirschman fired a seven under par 65 at the Monday Qualifier in Jackson, Mississippi to earn medalist honors and a spot in this week’s PGA TOUR event at the Sanderson Farms Championship.
This will mark Hirschman’s second career PGA TOUR start. He made his professional debut at the PGA TOUR’s Fed Ex St. Jude Classic in his hometown of Memphis in 2018. Grant made the cut in the event, and was in contention through 36 holes. He ended the week in a tie for 63rd with rounds of 68-69-72-74.
Justin Lower was still in doubt when he left the scorer’s tent Sunday at the Korn Ferry Tour Championship presented by United Leasing & Finance. He hadn’t looked at the PGA TOUR app besides to look at the Forme Tour scores throughout the week. He also hadn’t looked at the leaderboard all week, and he didn’t know if the 3-under 33 he’d put together on the back was enough to get him inside the Korn Ferry Tour Finals top 25 and secure his first PGA TOUR card.
He got his answer when he walked down the stairs and was greeted with a champagne and beer shower by his fellow players and caddies. Fittingly for the 11-year-pro, who missed his TOUR card by a single shot in 2018, it once again all came down to a shot – a 30-yard pitch on the 72nd hole. After losing his drive left on the 72nd hole and leaving his second shot 30 yards short, he hit a beautiful nipper to a foot and knocked it in for par and a T15 to send him to the PGA TOUR for the first time.
Choked up with emotion after, Lower struggled to find the words.
“No words really,” Lower said. “It means everything, and I don’t think this is it. I don’t think my journey is over at all. I think it’s just getting started.”
In typical Justin Lower class, though, he wasn’t thinking about himself but rather Taylor Montgomery, his fellow competitor who he’d knocked into the 26th spot. Montgomery had also finished 26th in the Regular Season standings and fallen just shy of his TOUR card.
“Taylor Montgomery, if you’re listening, I’ve been in your spot before and I know it’s not any fun but oh man, you’re a heck of player and just keep grinding. Good things will happen,” Lower said. “To everyone back home, thank you for everything and that’s all I can say.”
Lower admittedly had watched the video of himself missing a putt on the 72nd hole in 2018 to miss his card by a shot “too many times to count” but realized he needed to relive successes not failures. He even started seeing a therapist two to three years ago to work on removing the negative thoughts, and it has helped. He now thinks of the negative thoughts as being like waves at the ocean, coming and going, and all that matters is where his feet are. So, he started watching the video of him 2017 making a birdie on the last hole at Q-School to secure guaranteed starts instead.
During the Korn Ferry Tour Finals, every time he needed to perform, he shined. Whether it was the five birdies in a row to close out the second round at the start of the Korn Ferry Tour Finals in Boise to make the cut on the number or the back nine 33 on the one of the hardest golf courses of the season, Lower brought it. It’s something he can lean on going forward as he makes the jump to the TOUR.
“[I learned] that I can do it,” Lower said. “I told myself this week something I’ve really never told myself on the golf course and that’s just trust yourself. And I told myself that most of today and a lot of this week. And it’s something I’ve never really told myself. So, something that I just have to take into the long run for sure.”
In total, his journey to the TOUR included six trips to Korn Ferry Tour Qualifying School. It took him three trips before he made it to final stage and earned guaranteed starts and countless heartbreaks.
“This is just so gratifying for the hard work and just extremely thankful,” Lower said.
“It’s just amazing what one shot can mean in the long run.”
The marathon that has been the 2020/2021 Korn Ferry Tour Season, a forty-six event wrap around schedule due to COVID-19, comes to a close this weekend in Evansville, Indiana at the Korn Ferry Tour Championship Presented by United Leasing which is played on arguably the most difficult course the Tour sees all year at Victoria National Golf Club.
Through the first two rounds, Justin Lower has positioned himself to be in contention for a PGA TOUR card in the final weekend of the season. Lower’s 2020/2021 season has been highlighted by two second place finishes in 2021 and a 4th place at the 2020 Boise Open. The runner-up finishes came to 4-Time PGA TOUR winner Chris Kirk at The King & Bear Classic at World Golf Village and at the BMW Charity Pro-AM to Mito Pereira who notched three wins on the Korn Ferry Tour in the marathon schedule to earn an immediate promotion to the PGA TOUR.
Lower’s start in Evansville, two rounds of two under par 70, position him in a tie for 13th on the Leaderboard. He is tied for second in the field for most birdies made through 36 holes with 14 and is 5th in the field for putts per green in regulation. However three double bogies, two of which have come on the 17th hole have kept him out of the tournament lead. At the mid-way point of the Tour Championship, Lower is projected 26th on the Points List and the Top 25 at week’s end will earn their PGA TOUR membership.
TULUM, Mexico – Following a solid season of two wins and three top-fives in seven starts, American Brandon Matthews claimed PGA TOUR Latinoamérica Player of the Year honors Sunday to secure full status on the 2022 Korn Ferry Tour.
“Obviously this year has been great. I won twice and played some really good golf,” said Matthews, who won the Puerto Plata Open in December and the Club at Weston Hills Open in June, in a span of three consecutive starts.
The 27-year-old Temple University alum managed to defend the Tour’s top spot through the final stretch of a grueling season that lasted 500-plus days, beginning on March 5, 2020 and finishing on June 25, 2021.
“I’m very thankful for the officials and everybody who runs this Tour. I believe we are the only International Tour to finish a full season,” Matthews said of the challenging, unusual season completed during the COVID-19 pandemic. “To give us the opportunity to succeed is really important and has been amazing for us.”
With a tie for 33rd at the season-ending Bupa Championship, Matthews collected a grand total of 1,191 points to close the year holding a 124-point lead. Money wise, the No. 1 player on Tour earned a paycheck in all seven of his starts, pocketing $74,534 in season earnings for a $7,684 lead.
“I did not miss a single cut on this Tour the entire year, which I’m proud of. I might have had a few bad holes here and there occasionally, but other than that it’s been a solid two years of golf,” says the man who has been on a consistent run since November of 2019.
Coming off a tough season on the 2019 Korn Ferry Tour, where he made only four cuts in 21 starts, Matthews traveled to Argentina to tie for fifth at the Neuquén Argentina Classic and finish second at the VISA Argentina Open, where he caught the golf world’s attention when he gracefully embraced a fan with Down syndrome who distracted him while trying to make an eight-foot birdie putt to extend a playoff he lost to Colombia’s Ricardo Celia.
Matthews reacts after a missed putt during a playoff at the 2019 VISA Open de Argentina at the Jockey Club in Buenos Aires, Argentina. (Enrique Berardi/PGA TOUR)
“I wouldn’t have been able to get here if it wasn’t for the way I finished 2019 out. I had a very tough year on the Korn Ferry Tour, I didn’t play well at all; played with a couple of injuries, and I was able to come to Argentina and finish fifth and second to regain my status on this Tour,” he said recalling that trip as a turning point in his promising career.
Having played as well as he did this season, Matthews is full of confidence heading into the future. He said he can’t wait to get the 2022 Korn Ferry Tour season started in order to chase his lifelong dream of playing and being successful on the PGA TOUR.
“I feel like my game is trending upwards, and I feel like there’s really no turning back for me where I am right now and the way I’m playing. I feel like the next few years are going to be really fun,” he concluded with a grin.
Behind Matthews, the remaining four players inside the Points List top five also secured Korn Ferry Tour cards. They are Americans Sam Stevens (No. 2), Conner Godsey (No. 3) and MJ Maguire (No. 5). Finishing in fourth place, Mexico’s Alvaro Ortiz was the leading player from Latin America this season.
note: this article written by Gregory Villalobos for PGATOUR.com and originally published here
Justin Lower hit 960 shots over the course of the 2018 Korn Ferry Tour Finals. One fewer, any of them really, and he’d have earned his PGA TOUR card. Instead, he missed his lifelong dream by a shot – narrowly missing a 7-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole of the Korn Ferry Tour Championship – and headed home for the fall while his good buddy, Jim Knous, headed to Napa for the TOUR’s first event with the last spot in The Finals 25.
“It was tough. I never really missed something that big by a shot, so it was tough to deal with obviously,” Lower said. “But Jimmy’s a great buddy, and I was extremely happy for him and I wanted to let him know that I was happy for him even though I was heartbroken at the time. But the thing that helped me was it wasn’t just that one shot in the four Finals events. It could have been any shot in those four events.”
At 32, Lower is back on the bubble for a PGA TOUR card this season, and his moment for redemption is now. Sitting 24th on the Korn Ferry Tour Points List, the highest he’s ever been at this point in the Regular Season, the Malone University grad is staring down his first TOUR card but needs to hold on for three more events. So he’s keeping it simple, taking it one day and one shot at a time, but all with the hope that this is it and it’s his time for the jump to the big show.
“I feel like I’m ready to go. I feel like I’ve put in my time out here,” Lower said. “That timeframe is a little different for everyone, definitely been different for me as compared to other guys, maybe a little longer than I expected, but I think I’ve proven that I can compete and I’d like to take it to the next level for sure.”
If the last five Korn Ferry Tour events are any indication, he’ll be just fine after posting four top-20s including a runner-up at the BMW Charity Pro-Am.
“It’s definitely been the most consistent I’ve been this season. Game feels good,” Lower said. “The putter’s been the biggest change from the beginning of this year until now. I feel like I’m finally making some. It was pretty frustrating at the beginning of the year, but I feel like that’s the biggest difference so far and hopefully continue to strike it well, which I feel like I’ve always done, and just go from there.”
It hasn’t always been as easy over the course of his 10-year career as he’s made it look this season. He remembers the lowest point being in 2015 when he had lost his Korn Ferry Tour status from the season prior and failed to advance out of First Stage of Q-School.
“I remember feeling pretty down in the dumps,” Lower said. “I birdied my last three at First Stage of Q-School, and I thought I was in and then someone in the last group made a birdie to knock me and a couple others out. I just remember that was really tough because I didn’t even have a chance at the next stage. I just had another year on the mini-tours. It was not anything I wanted.”
But that’s the year that sparked change. Frustrated with his 2015 season, Lower went to a new coach in 2016, Mike Emery, and he felt like he really started to gain more clubface control. He has also gained 15 to 20 yards over the last four or five years by learning to use his body and the ground more effectively.
Although the ball-striking has become a strength over the last four or five years, Lower has also had to fight through the same mental struggles that all longtime pros go through. The COVID-19 pandemic brought on mental struggles for so many around the globe, but it actually helped bring Lower out of his. Entering the pandemic-forced three-month break with four straight missed cuts, he came back to competition a different player, finishing 22nd and runner-up in his first two starts last June.
“The first two events were really validating for me. It was really big for me because I was in a pretty dark spot mentally before COVID hit, and I’d really worked on my well-being mentally through that time and it was pretty tough,” Lower said. “I remember playing the event in Mexico, which was our last event, and I didn’t want to be there. It was just a horrible feeling and it’s no fun to go through on the golf course, let alone another country. We all go through low times, but the break during COVID was huge for me.”
The rest of the 2020-21 season has provided further validation. There was the runner-up at the BMW Charity Pro-Am, where he led by three after 54 holes, a fourth at the 2020 Albertsons Boise Open and eight other top-25s since the pandemic hit. Now, the next step is obvious – the PGA TOUR – and if he can hold on and secure his first TOUR card over a decade after turning pro, the emotions on the first tee at the Safeway Open in September just might be a bit overwhelming.
“It’d be validation of a lot of hard work. I’ve been grinding a long time for it,” Lower said. “It’d be a lot of fun. I always picture what it’d be like to play as a member out there, so I want to say I’m looking forward to it but trying to not get ahead of myself at the same time. But I think it’d be a lot of fun.”
This article written by Nick Parker and originally posted by the Korn Ferry Tour here
Another great week for FSG clients, with three Top-11 finishes on the Korn Ferry Tour. Grant Hirschman led the way with a career-tying best 4th place finish, Charlie Saxon 6th and Justin Lower 11th at the Memorial Health Championship in Springfield, Illinois.
Hank Lebioda, in his third season on the PGA TOUR at 27 years old, finished 4th at the Rocket Mortgage Classic on Sunday. Lebioda fired rounds of 67-70-66-68 at Detroit Golf Club. The week prior at the Travelers Championship, Lebioda finished 5th place. As a result, Lebioda has advanced 200 spots in the Official World Golf Rankings, and has secured his spot in the Fed Ex Cup Playoffs as well as full status membership on the PGA TOUR for the 2021-2022 Season.
Lebioda started Sunday’s final round in the penultimate group, one shot off the lead with a 1:55PM tee time paired with Cam Davis. Lebioda made par on his first six holes during Sunday’s final round, followed by a tap-in birdie on the par 5 7th hole after his tee ball found the trees lining the right side of the fairway. Lebioda hit a punch shot back into the fairway and hit a wedge to just a few feet to the elevated green. On the 8th hole, Lebioda took a conservative approach off the tee with a hybrid on the 372 yard hold. Although, a pulled tee shot ended up again in the right trees. Hank hit a miraculous punch shot through the trees to the front of the green; two putts followed for a pedestrian par. Hank then caught a break on the par-3 ninth hole–an errant iron shot off the tee flew left of the green and ended at the base of a massive oak tree. Any right handed golfer in the field could not have hit a shot, although Lebioda the lucky lefty was able to take a normal swing and stance; a pitch shot to eleven feet provided for an incredible par save and momentum headed to the back nine within two shots of the lead with nine holes to play.
Lebioda then got rolling on the back nine. His approach shot on the 10th hole skipped long of the green, which he chipped in for birdie. On the par 3 11th hole, Hank hit is 233 yard tee shot inside 14 feet and sank the birdie putt to move within one of the lead.
After a par on the twelfth hole, Lebioda birdied again on 13 after hitting a wedge to just a few feet.
Lebioda finished with pars on holes 14 through 18 to finish in a tie for 4th. The back to back Top 5 finishes secure Hank’s spot in the playoffs and full membership on the PGA TOUR for the 2021-2022 season.
It was a great weekend for Fidelity Sports clients across several major Tours, with Top 10 finishes across the PGA TOUR, PGA TOUR Champions and PGA TOUR Latin America.
On the PGA TOUR, Hank Lebioda led the way with a 5th place finish at The Travelers Championship, his best finish of the season. Lebioda held the lead mid way through his final round, and the Top 5 finish moved him to 114th in the Fed Ex Cup Standings, with just six weeks remaining on the schedule prior the start of the playoffs. Lebioda birdied his final two holes of the week, including a hole out from the bunker on the 72nd hole to post rounds of 69-68-67-77 for the fifth place finish.
On PGA TOUR Champions, Tim Petrovic finished 10th place at the Bridgestone Senior Players Championship at Firestone Country Club. It was Petrovic’s 6th Top 10 Finish in a Major Championship on the Champions circuit and his second of 2021. Only two players finished under par for the week, and Petrovic fired rounds of 72-70-72-71 for the 10th place finish.
The Korn Ferry Tour visited Portland, Maine for the “Live and Work in Maine Open”. Four Fidelity Sports clients made the cut. Justin Lower led the way with a 20th place finish, Wade Binfield 25th place, Mark Blakefield 30th and Brian Richey 41st. The Top 20 finish moved Justin Lower to 24th on the Points List with five events remaining on the regular season schedule. The Tour is off this week and will head to Colorado next week for the TPC Colorado Championship.
Brandon Matthews and PGA TOUR Latin America were in Ecuador for the Banco del Pacifico Open. Matthews, the leader on the Order of Merit, has already notched two wins during the 2020/2021 wrap around season and a third win would provide an immediate “battlefield” promotion to the Korn Ferry Tour. Matthews finished 5th place in Ecuador, continuing his spot atop the Order of Merit as the Tour heads to its final event of the year at the Bupa Championship presented by Volvo July 22-25 in Cancun, Mexico
WESTON, Florida –Standing on the 10th tee, coming off a missed two-footer for birdie on No. 9 to shoot even-par on the front-nine, Brandon Matthews knew he was running out of time at The Club at Weston Hills Open. With only nine holes left to make up a lot of ground, he went on to make five birdies, three of those over the final four holes, lifting him to a one-shot win over fellow American Sam Stevens.
Playing a group ahead of Matthews, Stevens carded a bogey-free 66, making pars on the final four holes to take the clubhouse lead, at 21-under. Matthews needed one more birdie, at the 72nd hole, to avoid a playoff and clinch the win.
“I just felt good. It’s kind of hard to describe that feeling when you are in the moment and you are feeling really good about things,” said Matthews about his mindset playing the 585-yard par-5 final hole. “I felt really good over that third shot. I knew I was going to hit it solid. I knew I was going to hit it close.”
That third shot came with a gap wedge from 138 yards, and his ball landed within three feet for a stress-free birdie. Matthews carded a final-round 67 that moved him to 22-under, good for his second victory in his last three starts. As the only two-time winner this season, the 26-year-old charged into the top spot of the PGA TOUR Latinoamérica Points List, moving past Mexico’s Alvaro Ortiz, who missed the cut this week.
“This one was really great for me because I didn’t really have the putter over the weekend, and I still grinded it out,” said the Temple University alum. “The fact that I was able to put trust in myself for (the last) nine holes, making some great putts coming down the stretch, words really cannot describe how much confidence that gives me to keep doing that at a high level.”
With their sights set on moving to the Korn Ferry Tour next season, Matthews and the rest of the PGA TOUR Latinoamérica players are now headed to Bucaramanga, Colombia, where the Holcim Colombia Classic presented by Volvo is scheduled to start on Thursday.
Did you know Brandon Matthews is the second-quickest PGA TOUR Latinoamérica champion to get to three career wins? It took him 17 starts to get to this point, only trailing FabiánGómez, who reached his third PGA TOUR Latinoamérica victory in six starts. Gómez, who went on to win on the PGA TOUR, won the Argentina Classic in three consecutive seasons in 2013, 2014 and 2015.
In order to save time and to prevent further weather delays, the 64 players who made the cut were not re-grouped between the third and fourth rounds.
Because of the lightning delays the past couple of days, Brandon Matthews was among a group of players who had to play 30 holes Sunday. At 13-under for the tournament, he resumed the third round on the seventh hole at 8 a.m.
Brandon Matthews earned this victory at age 26 years, 10 months, 17 days.
Brandon Matthews became only the 14th player with three or more wins on PGA TOUR Latinoamérica. In addition to his three wins (2017 Molino Cañuelas Championship and the 2020 Puerto Plata Open), he was also the runner-up at the 2019 VISA Open de Argentina, where he lost a playoff. He also finished solo third at the 2017 Puerto Plata Open.
By collecting 500 points as a tournament winner for the second time this season, Brandon Matthews increased his season’s point total to 1,065 to become the new Points List No. 1 player. Matthews now holds a 227-point advantage over Alvaro Ortiz, who missed the cut and slipped into the second spot, with 838 points. The following are the updated standings through the fifth event of the 2020-21 season:
This is Brandon Matthews’ second stint as a PGA TOUR Latinoamérica No. 1 player. He held that position for three consecutive tournaments after his win at the Molino Cañuelas Championship in 2017, an injury-plagued season that saw him go on to finish 13th on the Order of Merit.
The runner-up finish was a PGA TOUR Latinoamérica career-best for Sam Stevens. The 24-year-old Oklahoma State University alum has been quite consistent this season, with finishes in the top-12 in his three previous starts (tied for 11th at the Estrella del Mar Open, tied for 12th at the Shell Open and tied for ninth at the Mexico Open). Stevens gained 11 spots on the Points List, moving into the fifth position. As a PGA TOUR Latinoamérica rookie, Stevens made 15 starts in 2019 to finish 47th on the Order of Merit. His best finish and only top-10 that year was a tie for fourth at the Brazil Open.
“You know, I ask a lot of myself. I have very high goals for myself, very high standards, and I try to meet them. I’ve been doing a great job at it lately, so if I can continue that path, we are going to be in a great spot.”—Brandon Matthews’ thoughts on reaching the top of the PGA TOUR Latinoamérica Points List
“The confidence that I have in my ball-striking right now is pretty high, and if I can continue to strike it like this and make a couple more putts it’s going to be fine.”—Brandon Matthews
“There have been times in my career where that would have affected me a lot more, and I wouldn’t have won this golf tournament. That was by far the biggest thing that I’m going to take out of this.”—Brandon Matthews on the way he reacted to the two-footer he missed for birdie on No. 9
“I just lipped out real hard for birdie (on No. 14), and I knew I had to get two (birdies) coming in, at least. I got to 15, the wind should have been a little bit into, and it was actually a comfortable drive for me. I picked up the tee and walked away and it flew into the middle of the trees. I thought it was going to end up in the right center of the fairway. (I was) fortunate enough to get through the trees there and into the other fairway. I had a good (yardage) number and hit a great pitching wedge in there from 150 (yards). That was one I was really committed on, and I holed that putt and then hit another great one in there on 16, too.”—Brandon Matthews describing his birdie on 15 to start his birdie-birdie-par-birdie finish
Partly cloudy, with a high of 93 and humidity at 56 percent. Wind W at 6 mph.
Through two rounds on two different tours, Fidelity Sports Group clients Justin Lower and Brandon Matthews hold the lead respectively on the Korn Ferry Tour and PGA TOUR Latin America.
Justin Lower is off to a red-hot start in Greenville, South Carolina at the BMW Charity Pro-Am with rounds of 64-63, good enough for 16 under par through 36 holes. Lower has birdied 18 of his first 36 holes in the first two days. A win for Lower would move him inside the Top 25 of the Points List and in line for his first PGA TOUR Card. The event is televised by Golf Channel.
Brandon Matthews return to form continues, as he competes this week in Weston, Florida on PGA TOUR Latin America at The Club at Weston Hills Open. Matthews currently sits at 4th on the Order of Merit, thanks in large part to his win at the Puerto Plata Open in December 2020.
Matthews is chasing his third win on the PGA TOUR Latin America circuit, his second of the season, and ultimately a return to the Korn Ferry Tour in 2022. The long-hitting, powerful Matthews has been working diligently on his swing to avoid back troubles.
Garett Reband is set to make his professional debut this week on the Korn Ferry Tour at the BMW Charity Pro-AM in Greenville, South Carolina. As a reward for finishing in the Top 5 of the inaugural PGA TOUR University ranking system, Reband will have seven guaranteed and consecutive starts on the Korn Ferry Tour circuit.
Formerly the 4th ranked amateur in the world, Reband has signed with Fidelity Sports Group for exclusive and world-wide representation, marketing and management as a professional golfer. To launch his career, Fidelity Sports has partnerships for Garett lined up with PXG equipment, Nike apparel and Titleist for golf ball and gloves.
Dreamed about my first pro start since I picked up a club. Ready to go! @BMWCharityProAm @KornFerryTour
— Garett Reband (@GarettReband) June 10, 2021
Excited to partner with @pxg @nikegolf @Titleist pic.twitter.com/WF3FfN7cbT
“All of us at FSG are very excited to join Garett’s team as he launches his professional career. He has had an incredible career as an amateur and collegiate student athlete at University of Oklahoma,” said Drew Carr, “the sky is the limit for Garett and we feel fortunate to be selected to be guide and advise him in each step of his exciting journey as a professional.”
During his amateur and collegiate career at the University of Oklahoma, Reband compiled incredible accomplishments. In addition to PGA TOUR University and his WAGR rankings, Reband won multiple collegiate events, was a 1st Team All-American, a Haskins Award Finalist, a member of the United States Palmer Cup team and a member of the 2017 National Championship team and 2021 Runner-Up at University of Oklahoma.
PGA TOUR Champions member Tim Petrovic fired rounds of 65-71 at the Insperity Invitational hosted at The Woodlands in Houston, Texas.
Petrovic, a winner on the PGA TOUR, finished 2nd for the week at the rain shortened event. After grabbing the first round lead with a red-hot 65, Petrovic had a bit of a slow start to his second (and final) round on Sunday. However he bounced back with birdies on 12, 13, and 15 to finish in the tie for second place with Major Champions John Daly and David Toms. This marks Petrovic’s 8th runner-up finish on PGA TOUR Champions.
Petrovic moved to 14th in the season long Charles Schwab Cup standings.
PGA TOUR Champions player and PGA TOUR winner Tim Petrovic will be featured in Tour Edge golf equipment advertising in 2021, as one of the primary brand ambassadors for the company along with Major Champions Tom Lehman and Bernhard Langer.
The spots will air throughout the year on GOLF Channel
Justin Lower has signed a multi-year partnership agreement with Lower.com, an award-winning fintech brand located in Columbus, Ohio. Lower.com is an online mortgage company offering purchase mortgages, mortgage refinancing, and HELOCs. It takes an AI-based approach to make personalized recommendations for borrowers based on simple, web- and text-based application forms.
For the partnership, Justin will feature the Lower.com branding on the front of his headwear in all competitive events on the Korn Ferry Tour and PGA TOUR during the term of the agreement. Additionally, Justin will be featured in company advertising and be making special appearances on behalf of the brand.
PUERTO PLATA, Dominican Republic—Thirteen months after missing a putt to extend a playoff at the VISA Open de Argentina, where he was distracted by a fan with Down syndrome who yelled at a critical moment, Brandon Matthews found redemption with a five-shot win at the PGA TOUR Latinoamérica’s Puerto Plata Open.
Leading by four after a third-round 63, Matthews proved impossible to catch Sunday at Playa Dorada Golf Course. The 26-year old from Dupont, Pennsylvania, never led by less than three shots, and a final round, 6-under 65 led him to a comfortable five-shot victory. Matthews finished the week at 26-under par 258, with fellow American Jacob Bergeron claiming runner-up honors after firing a final-round-low, 8-under 63.
“Today I was playing myself, because I knew that if I played a good round of golf I was going to be almost impossible to catch. I had 26-under on my mind, and that’s why I kind of gave it a little bit more of a fist pump there at the last,” said Matthews of a round he capped off with a birdie at the last to make it a five-shot margin.
For his winning efforts at Playa Dorada Golf Course, Matthews earned 500 points and $31,500 in the second of two consecutive events that marked the restart of the PGA TOUR Latinoamérica season after the COVID19 pandemic forced a nine-month break.
Starting the day with a par at the first, a hole where he made birdie-birdie-eagle the first three days, Matthews recorded his first birdie at the par-3 second. “That birdie was really big; settled me down a little bit, got me in the flow of the round,” said the Temple University alum who made his only bogey of the day on the next hole.
After that he pretty much didn’t miss a golf shot, making back-to-back birdies on Nos. 4 and 5 to keep his challengers away. Ahead by four through nine, Matthews opened the back nine with birdies on 10 and 11 to cruise to victory the rest of the way. His last two birdies, on 16 and 18, formed the punctuation mark to a solid weekend in which he shot 14-under.
“I’m really proud that I extended my lead. I think that probably the hardest thing to do in golf is to have a several-shot lead and extend it throughout the day. I really played almost as good as I could have. I put [the ball] in every spot that I needed to put it in and trusted my putter a lot,” said the man who now ranks third on the PGA TOUR Latinoamérica Order of Merit.
Matthews didn’t see his Puerto Plata win as any sort of vindication after losing the 2019 Argentine Open. “You know, things happen, and I keep telling everyone that I never got upset about [being distracted by the fan]. I don’t hold it over my head at all. It’s not anything like that. My second-place finish there allowed me to regain status on this Tour, so if I didn’t finish second that week I might not be here right now,” added the champion.
Entering the day in a tie for seventh, Conner Godsey shot 64 to finish six shots behind in a two-way tie for third, with Brendon Doyle, who joined Matthews in the last grouping. Argentina’s Alejandro Tosti, the other player in the final group, finished another stroke back, in a tie for fifth, with Patrick Newcomb.
Coming off a victory a week ago at the Shell Open, MJ Maguire finished at 18-under to join Argentina’s Leandro Marelli in a tie for seventh. The finish allowed Maguire to earn enough points to take the Order of Merit lead away from Brazil’s Alex Rocha, who now ranks second.
Did you know Brandon Mathews is one of only 30 players with multiple career PGA TOUR Latinoamérica wins? By adding the 2020 Puerto Plata Open title to his win at the 2017 Molino Cañuelas Championship, Matthews became the 17th player with two PGA TOUR Latinoamérica trophies. Ahead of that group are nine players with three wins and four with four wins.
Born in Dupont, Pennsylvania on July 27, 1994, Brandon Matthews claimed this title at age 26 years, 4 months, 23 days.
The President of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, was in attendance on this final day and he presented the tournament trophy to Brandon Matthews during the closing ceremony. https://www.instagram.com/p/CJCa5y2AlvB/embed/captioned/?cr=1&v=13&wp=1080&rd=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pgatour.com&rp=%2Fla%2Fen%2Fnews%2F2020%2F12%2F20%2Fmatthews-cruises-to-five-shot-win-in-puerto-plata.html#%7B%22ci%22%3A1%2C%22os%22%3A1316%2C%22ls%22%3A953%2C%22le%22%3A993%7D
At 26-under for the week, Brandon Matthews tied the second-lowest 72-hole total recorded on PGA TOUR Latinoamérica. At 29-under, Alexandre Rocha set the Tour record during his win at the 2020-21 season-opening Estrella del Mar Open in March. Alvaro Ortiz finished that same event as runner-up, at 26-under, for a number that Matthews matched today.
Brandon Matthews’ 26-under total is by four shots a new 72-hole record at Playa Dorada Golf Course. The previous mark had been set by Andrés Gallegos, who shot 22-under in his 2018 win.
Brandon Matthews improved his PGA TOUR Latinoamérica career record to two wins and six top-10 finishes in only 15 starts.
By collecting 500 points as a tournament winner, Brandon Matthews increased his season’s point total to 548 to move into the third spot on the Order of Merit, which is now led by MJ Maguire. Winner of the Shell Open a week ago, Maguire tied for seventh Sunday to move past Brazil’s Alexandre Rocha at the top of the standings.
The following are the updated Order of Merit standings through the third event of the 2020-21 season:
Pos. | Last Week | Player | Points |
---|---|---|---|
1 | 2 | MJ Maguire (U.S.) | 593 |
2 | 1 | Alex Rocha (Brazil) | 561 |
3 | 34 | Brandon Matthews (U.S.) | 548 |
4 | 3 | Álvaro Ortiz (Mexico) | 338 |
5 | 4 | Andrés Gallegos (Argentina) | 337 |
6 | 47 | Jacob Bergeron (U.S.) | 329 |
7 | 8 | Leandro Marelli (Argentina) | 253 |
8 | 5 | Raul Pereda (Mexico) | 240 |
9 | 6 | Rowin Caron (Netherlands) | 219 |
10 | 7 | Chris Wiatr (U.S.) | 217 |
Jacob Bergeron carded a bogey-free 63 to move from a tie for seventh into solo second. He recorded birdies on Nos. 1, 4, 5, 9, 13, 14, 15 and 18 for the lowest round of the day. The runner-up finish is a career-best for the 22-year old from Louisiana, whose lone top-10 prior to today was a tie for ninth at the 2019 Bupa Match Play.
Joining Bergeron in the tie for seventh at the beginning of the day, Conner Godsey had the hottest start of the afternoon, going birdie-par-birdie-birdie-eagle over the first five holes. He ended up carding a 64 to tie for third, which is also his best career finish in 11 PGA TOUR Latinoamérica career starts. His previous-best was a tie for fourth at the 2017 Flor de Caña Open in Nicaragua.
Inside the top three the entire week, Brendon Doyle turned his first made cut of the season into tie for third, at 20-under. The Indiana University alum had two eagles, 19 birdies and three bogeys.
Argentina’s Alejandro Tosti, who shot 63-63 to hold the lead for the first 36 holes, shot 71-68 on the weekend to tie for fifth. This was Tosti’s second top-five this season, having finished solo fifth at the season-opening Estrella del Mar Open in March. Tosti now ranks 11th on the Order of Merit, having shot 63 or better in four of the 10 rounds he has played this year.
Improving his performance in each of his three starts this PGA TOUR Latinoamérica season, Patrick Newcomb has steadily climbed the Order of Merit standings. He started the year with a tie for 55th at the Estrella del Mar Open, tied for 12th at the Shell Open last week and following a bogey-free 67 in the final round tied for fifth in Puerto Plata. He moved into the 13th spot on the Order of Merit.
In a tie for 10th, at 16-under, Juan José Guerra finished the week as the leading player from the Dominican Republic. The 23-year old rookie shot 67 Sunday to record his second top-10 in three starts this season. Guerra ranks 18th on the Order of Merit. Willy Pumarol, the only other local to make the cut, shot 70 today to tie for 44th.
“I had 26-under on my mind because I knew that if I got to 26-under today that it was going to be almost impossible for them to catch me.”—Brandon Matthews
“My putter was with me this week. I putted really nice and felt really confident on these greens.” —Brandon Matthews
“I’m just looking forward to the next event, where I can try to get my second win of the year and then hopefully get a battlefield promotion (to the Korn Ferry Tour).” —Brandon Matthews
“I’m just looking forward to the opportunities that lie ahead and keep progressing, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other kind of thing. I’m just happy to be in this position right now and look forward to what I can do in the next few months.”—Brandon Matthews