Process leads Ryan Armour to best golf of career

Doc Redman isn’t one to do things the easy way. Consider his 2017 run to the U.S. Amateur title. Redman, who had just completed his freshman year at Clemson, had to survive a 13-man playoff just to get into the match play portion of the championship. Then, when he reached the scheduled 36-hole finale, Redman found himself facing defeat head-on, falling 2 down with two holes to go. But he went eagle-birdie to take Texas senior Doug Ghim into sudden death where Redman birdied the first extra hole for the victory. So, should we be surprised that Redman majored in actuarial mathematics at Clemson? Not exactly one of the easier curriculums offered there but he learned to love numbers and the many calculations that can be done while a student at Leesville Road High School in Raleigh, North Carolina. “Once I got to college, I decided I wanted to do something a little different,” Redman said. “A lot of people go into business, especially in golf, business or finance. So, I decided I want to do some different and keep going with math. “At Clemson, there’s math and then there’s a few, I guess, focus areas. And that was one — financial math and actuarial science. I only stayed two years, so I didn’t get like crazy into it, but it was a lot of fun and it got really tough, but it was cool kind of diving deeper and doing something a little more focused than most people.” Actuarial science analyzes risk assessment using mathematics, statistics and financial theory. Actuaries are found in the life, liability and health insurance industries, as well as in pension management and social welfare programs. “For life insurance, per se, it would be (figuring) what’s someone’s chance of dying in the next, whatever, 10 years,” Redman says. “Like, it’s kind of sad … but yeah, it’s trying to figure out I guess pricing out insurance plans and things like that. “And I’m sure that’s, that’s the most common thing but I think a lot of people don’t really realize, but math and just risk assessment’s kind of everywhere. So, I think there’s no shortage of jobs in if you know how to do math.” Granted, Redman’s friends at Clemson – the ones who probably only used math to figure out if they had enough money in the budget for pizza and beers that weekend — were often “totally surprised” by his choice of majors. “What the heck are you doing?” he remembers some saying. But Redman did well – in fact, he had all As and only one B as a freshman. His record was so impressive that he received the Outstanding Freshman Award from the College of Science’s department of mathematical sciences. Clemson’s golf coach, Larry Penley, and Cynthia Young, the dean of the College of Science, made the presentation to Redman for “shooting low and aiming high,” she noted, during one of his math classes. Penley, who is retiring this year after 39 years at the helm, brought the U.S. Amateur trophy and showed some of Redman’s highlights. He pointed out the sophomore’s name along with Tiger Woods, who won it three times and four-time champ Bobby Jones. “It was nice to have Coach there and I didn’t necessarily want to go up and accept it in front of everyone, but it was fun,” Redman says. “I was, like, what the heck’s going on? Why is he here? He definitely didn’t want to be in any sort of math class. So, I knew something was up.” Redman didn’t have any such warning when his phone rang the night before the U.S. Amateur championship match, though. On the other end was Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney. “I didn’t have his number at the time, so I just happened to pick up and it was him, which was really cool,” Redman says. “And then he called me again after and we talked a little bit. “He just loves seeing Clemson athletes do well. And he’s such an inspirational guy. He’s the same as he is off cameras he is on. And it was really good to have a call from him.” Redman had met Swinney, who is an avid golfer, several times. In fact, while Redman has yet to play 18 holes with the Clemson football coach, the two had filmed a segment for Swinney’s TV show at the putt-putt course at the football team’s practice facility. So, what was Swinney’s pep talk on the eve of the title match? “He just said that was right after they beat Alabama on the final play,” Redman says, remembering the 2016 title game, Clemson’s second of three national championships. “So, he said just kind of take it a hole at the time and do your best and the Clemson family’s proud no matter what. So yeah. It was really cool.”

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Thirty years ago, an anonymous ninth alternate won the PGA Championship. It was John Daly. As he triumphed, a family grieved, a father and husband killed at the tournament when he was struck by lightning. Daly and the family are forever linked.

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Justin Thomas has been tearing up the PGA TOUR. Now one of his college teammates will have the opportunity to make his PGA TOUR debut. Scott Strohmeyer was one of four players to Monday qualify for this week’s Sanderson Farms Championship. Strohmeyer was teammates with Thomas on the 2013 Alabama team that won the NCAA Championship. Three of the five players from that team have earned PGA TOUR cards: Thomas, Trey Mullinax and Bobby Wyatt.  Strohmeyer, on the other hand, has not played in a PGA TOUR or Web.com Tour event. He won his lone individual title at the 2013 NCAA Baton Rouge Regional, the second-to-last event of his career; he finished two shots ahead of Wyatt and six shots ahead of Thomas. Strohmeyer closed his career by beating Illinois’ Brian Campbell in the championship match of the 2013 NCAA Championship, helping Alabama to a 4-1 victory over the Illini. Campbell played on the PGA TOUR last season. Strohmeyer recently failed to advance out of the first stage of Web.com Tour Q-School after shooting a first-round 81; he played the next three rounds in 2 under. Strohmeyer shot 68 in Monday’s qualifier at Deerfield Golf Club in Canton, Mississippi, then won a four-man playoff for the final spot in the Sanderson Farms Championship. Rhein Gibson, Chris Baker and Mississippi State alum Matt Fast also were in the playoff. Grady Brame Jr. shot 65 on Monday to earn medalist honors. Brame, 24, will be making his PGA TOUR debut. He finished 144th on the Mackenzie Tour-PGA TOUR Canada money list this year, making two cuts in nine events. Brame played college golf at Southeastern Louisiana and won the Louisiana Amateur in 2014 and 2015. Nyasha Mauchaza finished one shot behind Brame on Monday. Mauchaza, 29, is from Zimbabwe and graduated from Towson University in 2011. His lone PGA TOUR start came at the 2011 Wyndham Championship; he missed the cut with rounds of 75-72. He last played a PGA TOUR-sanctioned event in August 2016, when he competed in his fourth PGA TOUR Canada event of the year. David Skinns is the most experienced member of this week’s qualifiers. Skinns, a 2006 graduate of Tennessee, finished 58th on this year’s Web.com Tour money list. It was his first time playing more than 11 Web.com Tour events in a season. His runner-up finish at the final event of the Regular Season, the WinCo Foods Portland Open, was his lone top-10 in 23 starts in 2017. He jumped from 115th to 58th on the money list to keep his card for the 2018 season. Skinns, 35, has played in three PGA TOUR events: the 2013 Valspar Championship (MC), 2014 Puerto Rico Open (T29) and 2016 Waste Management Phoenix Open (MC).

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