Spieth’s epic playoff win parallels Travelers’ rise

COLUMBUS, Ohio – After signing for a 5-under 66 in the final round of the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship, Justin Suh made a beeline for the 18th green at The Ohio State University GC (Scarlet). Suh’s longtime friend Joseph Bramlett was finishing up a final-round 68 for a T6 finish in central Ohio, plenty to secure a PGA TOUR return via the Korn Ferry Tour Finals. Suh is nine years younger than Bramlett, but the two met when Suh was a sixth grader in the San Jose metroplex and Bramlett was a college student at Stanford. Both grew up in the region and practiced regularly at San Jose Country Club. Suh, 25, had cemented his first TOUR card via the Regular Season Points List. After finishing outside the top 150 on the FedExCup, Bramlett needed to show out in the Finals to cement a TOUR return and join Suh for his rookie season. With back-to-back top-20s to begin the Finals, Bramlett did just that, marking the third consecutive year he will earn a TOUR card via The Finals 25. Suh was there to share the moment. He provided a heartfelt hug and shoulder massage and dialed up a friend for a congratulatory message as Bramlett exited the 18th green and headed to sign his card and make it official. “It will be nice to have a big brother as a practice partner,” reflected Suh upon learning that Bramlett was officially #TOURBound. “It will be a fun year. We played a bunch of practice rounds when he first came out of college; I’m just happy for him that he got his card back, and we’ll be traveling together and playing a lot of practice rounds.” These moments provide the heartbeat of the Korn Ferry Tour, friends being there for each other as they achieve their dreams. Suh knows how hard Bramlett has worked to ensure that he can continue to compete at golf’s highest level, after years of injury and uncertainty where Bramlett wasn’t sure if he could ever play competitive golf again, let alone on the PGA TOUR. After signing his scorecard Sunday in central Ohio, Bramlett grew reflective and emotional. He thought of what it means to compete on TOUR, as well as the challenges of constantly honing all aspects of the game. In recent years, Bramlett said he perhaps spent too much time on his long game, at the expense of chipping practice. He has re-emphasized the short game in recent months, implementing a series of intentional drills that foster a competitive streak. Throughout the week at the Scarlet Course, Bramlett’s short game was on point, particularly in a final-round 68 where he rebounded from a double bogey at No. 4 and didn’t record a score worse than par from then on. Now the 34-year-old is set for his fifth TOUR season, beginning at next month’s Fortinet Championship in California – not far from where he and Suh grew up, honed their games and commenced the pursuit of their professional golf dreams. “That’s Q-School on steroids,” Bramlett described the Finals. “It’s three weeks of Q-School. Last week was incredibly stressful, this week’s incredibly stressful and next week’s going to be the same. I’m very fortunate that I at least know where I’ll be heading next year. “That’s the part of this job, nothing’s guaranteed. That’s the beauty of sport and beauty of competition and what makes the PGA TOUR so great, is that you have to back it up each and every week. This year I didn’t do a great job of that. I competed, I gave it everything I have, but my results just didn’t get me far enough. “It’s humbling, especially going from fully exempt this year in my own category to not even having (conditional) 126-to-150 category next year and basically just having Korn Ferry Tour status. Very humbling, but that’s the beauty of what we do … Never felt more alive than I do when I’m coming down the stretch with a lot on the line. You know, it’s a beautiful place to be, it’s what we train for. It’s scary, it’s stressful, you never know what’s going to happen, but see it through.” Two players – Will Gordon and Philip Knowles – crossed the fail-safe threshold to earn a TOUR card via The Finals 25 at last week’s Finals-opening Albertsons Boise Open presented by Chevron. The Korn Ferry Tour utilized a fail-safe threshold of 220 points to declare #TOURBound status after Boise. Based on a large contingent of players from The 25 playing well in Columbus, the Korn Ferry Tour has moved the threshold to 210 points at the conclusion of the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship. In addition to Bramlett, players to secure a spot in The Finals 25 at The Ohio State University GC (Scarlet) included winner David Lingmerth, Michael Gligic, Austin Cook, Dean Burmester and Henrik Norlander. Here’s a capsule look at the six players who cemented spots in The Finals 25 this week in central Ohio. David Lingmerth Age: 35 Hometown: Tranas, Sweden College: University of Arkansas Nationwide Children’s result: Win The Finals 25 rank: No. 2 (1,000 points) PGA TOUR starts: 198 PGA TOUR cuts made: 113 Best PGA TOUR finish: Win, 2015 Memorial Tournament presented by Workday Lingmerth played the 2021-22 TOUR season in the Past Champion category, making just 14 TOUR starts in addition to four Korn Ferry Tour starts before the Finals. He finished No. 193 on the FedExCup Playoffs and Eligibility Points List to earn a Finals berth, and he took advantage. The Sweden native had battled various doubts and injuries in recent years – he even dealt with lower back pain in recent weeks – and was without a TOUR-sanctioned top-10 finish since 2017. All he did was go wire-to-wire at the Scarlet Course for a 17-under total and two-stroke victory over Paul Haley. Lingmerth, 35, now knows that he can plan a full TOUR schedule this coming season, no longer needing to closely monitor alternate lists on a week-to-week basis. “It’s stuff that’s hard for fans, or even friends maybe that you’re kind of close with, to know some of the struggles we might be going through at times,” reflected Lingmerth after his second TOUR-sanctioned victory in central Ohio, adding to his 2015 title at the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday. “I was struggling pretty good for a while there a few years back. It’s been a long climb up the mountain to reach this point again. “I feel like if I’m in this spot and I have a chance, I try to dig in and hang on there, and I did a great job of that this week.” Michael Gligic Age: 32 Hometown: Burlington, Ontario, Canada Nationwide Children’s result: Fourth The Finals 25 rank: No. 4 (277.8 points) PGA TOUR starts: 75 PGA TOUR cuts made: 39 Best PGA TOUR finish: T4; 2021 Corales Puntacana Championship The proud Canadian earned his first TOUR card via the 2019 Korn Ferry Tour Regular Season, highlighted by an emotional victory at The Panama Championship. Gligic, 32, finished No. 135 on this year’s FedExCup Playoffs and Eligibility Points List to necessitate a return to the Korn Ferry Tour Finals; he was assured conditional TOUR status next season at minimum, but he wanted more. Gligic took care of business with a solo fourth in Columbus, carding four rounds in the 60s to finish 12-under total at the Scarlet Course. The 14-year pro spent a good deal of time on PGA TOUR Canada before breaking through on the 2019 Korn Ferry Tour, and he’s now set for his fourth PGA TOUR season; he finished No. 145 on last year’s FedExCup but proceeded to improve his status via The Finals 25. A year later, the savvy veteran did it again. Joseph Bramlett Age: 34 Hometown: San Jose, California College: Stanford University Nationwide Children’s result: T6 The Finals 25 rank: No. 5 (267.458 points) PGA TOUR starts: 104 PGA TOUR cuts made: 53 Best PGA TOUR finish: T7; 2021 AT&T Byron Nelson For the third consecutive Finals iteration, Bramlett has earned a spot in The Finals 25, demonstrating a propensity for raising his level of play when he needs it most. The California native earned his first TOUR card via Q-School in fall 2010, but he finished a distant No. 199 on the FedExCup as a rookie and returned to the Korn Ferry Tour. Bramlett dealt with severe back injuries for the better part of five years, seeing countless surgeons in the process, but opted not for surgery in order to maintain the best chance of returning to the highest level of the game. His self-belief was validated at the 2019 Korn Ferry Tour Finals, as he recorded three consecutive top-30 finishes to earn a TOUR return. He finished No. 146 on the 2021 FedExCup to require a return to the Finals; he didn’t miss a beat, winning the Korn Ferry Tour Championship at Victoria National to earn the No. 1 spot on The Finals 25 and fully exempt TOUR status for 2021-22. Bramlett finished No. 162 on the 2022 FedExCup Playoffs and Eligibility Points List to lose his TOUR status. He needed to place inside The Finals 25 to earn back his TOUR card. With back-to-back top-20 finishes – T18 in Boise and T6 in Columbus – Bramlett has done just that. He’s headed back to the TOUR. Austin Cook Age: 31 Hometown: Little Rock, Arkansas College: University of Arkansas Nationwide Children’s result: T34 The Finals 25 rank: No. 6 (233 points) PGA TOUR starts: 136 PGA TOUR cuts made: 76 Best PGA TOUR finish: Win; 2017 The RSM Classic The spunky Arkansas native gained a quick following in golf circles with five top-25s in seven TOUR starts as a non-member in 2015, and he proceeded onto the Korn Ferry Tour, eventually earning his TOUR card via the 2017 Korn Ferry Tour. He didn’t waste any time making an impact on TOUR, securing his first title at The RSM Classic that fall. After finishing 136th on the 2021 FedExCup, Cook successfully navigated the Korn Ferry Tour Finals to earn back strong status, but he again finished outside the top 125 this season (No. 149 on the FedExCup Playoffs and Eligibility Points List) to require another trip to the Finals. He didn’t miss a beat, following up a T4 at last week’s Albertsons Boise Open presented by Chevron with a T34 in Columbus, rebounding from a Saturday 74 with a final-round, 2-under 69 to cross the fail-safe threshold for a spot in The Finals 25. Cook had been assured conditional TOUR status at minimum. Now he’ll have a better sense of his schedule moving forward. Dean Burmester Age: 33 Hometown: Bloemfontein, South Africa Nationwide Children’s result: T46 The Finals 25 rank: No. 7 (218 points) PGA TOUR starts: 12 PGA TOUR cuts made: 8 Best PGA TOUR finish: T10, 2022 Genesis Scottish Open With back-to-back top-11 finishes at the Genesis Scottish Open and The Open Championship, the accomplished DP World Tour pro accrued enough non-member FedExCup points to qualify for the Korn Ferry Tour Finals. The married father-of-two has long held aspirations of competing at the PGA TOUR level, and with strong play across the last two weeks, the 33-year-old has made that dream a reality. Burmester opened the Finals with a T4 last week in Boise, and he recalls walking off the 18th green on Sunday in upbeat spirits, almost like he had won the tournament, despite finishing one stroke shy of a playoff. He knew he was on the verge of a dream. With a made cut in Ohio, final-round 69 and T46 finish, he has cemented his spot in The Finals 25. Burmester comes from an athletic family; his dad played professional cricket and his mom was a highly accomplished amateur golfer. He began dabbling in golf as an elementary schooler but didn’t start to consider it a realistic career pursuit until age 17, when he won the first tournament he entered, breaking 70 to do so. He turned pro at age 20, earned Sunshine Tour status through Q-School and commenced a steady upward progression. Now he’s headed to the PGA TOUR. “Man, it’s a long road from where I came from,” reflected Burmester after the final round in Columbus. “A junior taking up the game fairly late; always played when I was younger, and my parents just dragged me to the golf course on holidays, playing 72 holes a day. Now I get goosebumps thinking about where I’m headed to, No. 1 tour in the world and best job in the world. I’m just excited.” Henrik Norlander Age: 35 Hometown: Stockholm, Sweden College: Augusta University Nationwide Children’s result: T6 The Finals 25 rank: No. 8 (210.102 points) PGA TOUR starts: 130 PGA TOUR cuts made: 75 Best PGA TOUR finish: T2; 2016 The RSM Classic, 2021 Farmers Insurance Open Norlander joins Lingmerth as Swedes to cement a spot in The Finals 25 this week in Ohio. The 35-year-old has spent five full seasons on TOUR, but after a No. 144 finish on the FedExCup Playoffs and Eligibility Points List, he was faced with a trip to the Finals to improve upon conditional status. He started the Finals strong with a T37 in Boise, and he maintained the momentum with a T6 at the Scarlet Course, closing with a 4-under 67 to cross the fail-safe threshold and secure a spot in The Finals 25. With two runner-up finishes on TOUR, Norlander has proved the ability to contend at the highest level. Now the two-time Korn Ferry Tour winner will have plenty of opportunities to chase his first TOUR title.

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FARMINGDALE, N.Y. – Everything that is old is new again… or is it? Former FedExCup champion Jordan Spieth revived memories of his dominant times with a putting masterclass at Bethpage Black on Friday, but the question becomes whether or not the 11-time PGA TOUR winner can keep it up. RELATED: Berger back in contention on Long Island | Late birdie run saves McIlroy’s day, week Spieth needed just 23 putts to shoot a second round 4-under 66 and move to 5-under at the PGA Championship, the only major missing in his quest for the career Grand Slam. It moved him into second place on the leaderboard after the morning wave, two shots adrift of Brooks Koepka’s first round lead. Spieth has been without a top-10 on the PGA TOUR since he lost the 54-hole lead at the 2018 Open Championship last July to finish T9. He hasn’t won since the 2017 Open Championship. During the lean times, the Texas native has had issues with both his swing and his putting, particularly from short range. However, in two rounds at Bethpage Black, he’s 30 of 31 from inside 10 feet, reviving memories of 2015 where he won five TOUR events, including the Masters and U.S. Open, as well as the FedExCup. “(Putting is) probably 90 percent back to when I was at my best, and the only difference maker is I think just speed control,â€� Spieth said. “Speed control has still been just a little bit iffy… but I feel as good or better 15 feet and in. I feel like I’m where I should be. I’ve put a lot of thought and work into it, and the putting feels good.â€� Spieth made six birdie putts Friday, including one from 39 feet and another from 20 feet. “It was a bonus to have the right reads and the right pace and with some of the putts I made today, I don’t expect to putt as well as I did today, each and every day. It’s just not possible,â€� he added. “But it feels consistent enough to where the good days are like they were today, and off days, I’m still rolling some good putts and still coming away with some confidence.â€� This weekend, he will need every bit of the confidence he’s built. While Spieth’s opening two rounds this season have been fine, his weekend play that has let him down. Coming into the week, Spieth’s round one scoring average was 69.83, and his second-round average was 68.33. But it drops to 71.67 for the third round and 73.11 in final rounds. Spieth claims the numbers speak to luck in the early parts of tournaments rather than poor play on the back end. “This is different. I don’t feel the same. I feel like the way I scored was actually the way that I played, and any time I was in a situation where it maybe looked like I was contending, it didn’t feel like it this year so far,â€� he said. The key, he says, was being able to trust tighter targets with his swing. But with just 15 of 28 fairways hit through two rounds, and just nine of the 18 greens in regulation on Friday, he will need to be even better to have a shot at being just the sixth man to win all four majors in a career. “Ball just needs to find the fairway as often as it was for the guys around me; DJ, Brooks… It’s not going to be as far as theirs, so I’d better be in as many fairways,â€� Spieth said. “I’m 100 percent not hitting it as well as I did a couple years ago, but I’m hitting it a lot better than I did the end of last year, beginning of this year.â€� And will the career Grand Slam enter his thoughts? “It certainly hasn’t. I can’t imagine it will because I haven’t been in contention on a Sunday since The Open last year,â€� the 25-year-old said. “If I’m able to put some good work in tomorrow, then I will be in contention on Sunday. And at that point, it will be just more of trying to win a golf tournament. It won’t matter to me what tournament it is. I’ll be pleased to be in contention, knowing that the work I put in from being pretty far off has really come back nicely on a very difficult golf course.â€�

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Kenny Knox had to Monday qualify to earn a spot in The Honda Classic in 1986. He shot 80 in the third round. And he won the tournament. “It’s almost unbelievable, really. If it hadn’t happened to me, I wouldn’t believe it,â€� Knox said recently. It still ranks as one of the most improbable victories in PGA TOUR history. He was the first Monday qualifier to win on the PGA TOUR since the creation of the all-exempt circuit; only three players have done it since. He remains the only player since the 1920s to win a TOUR event with a score in the 80s. And he did it with an improbable series of Sunday hole-outs. He chipped in once and holed a bunker shot to salvage a bogey. “The hole just kept getting in the way,â€� he said afterward. Knox beat a field that included the World Golf Hall of Famers who’d win that year’s Masters (Jack Nicklaus) and U.S. Open (Raymond Floyd). Knox, meanwhile, spent the week staying in a stranger’s two-bedroom apartment. It all happened in Knox’s first start in nearly five months. He started 1986 with just a sliver of conditional status. In three previous PGA TOUR seasons, he’d finished 146th, 186th and 168th on the money list. He’d notched just one top-10, a T8 in the 1985 Pensacola Open, and earned just under $50,000. It got so bad that fellow TOUR player J.C. Snead, Sam’s nephew, stepped in to help Knox with his swing. “I guess he felt sorry for me,â€� Knox said. Knox was playing well on the mini-tours in early 1986, but didn’t have the money to travel to the West Coast. He spent the first two months of the year clearing trees from a lot he’d recently purchased in Tallahassee, Florida. On weekends, he’d watch PGA TOUR telecasts while riding a stationary bike in his townhouse. “I’m not sure I had ever run a chainsaw,â€� Knox said. “I started clearing that lot and visualizing my house being built there. I was always kind of a dreamer.â€� He had just a couple thousand dollars in the bank and was struggling to make his mortgage. His sponsors had recently decided to stop giving him financial support. “I said, ‘That’s fine.’ I always played better with my own money anyway,â€� Knox recalled. And so, when the TOUR came to Florida, he plunked down $100 to enter The Honda Classic’s Monday qualifier. That dropped his bank balance to $2,200. He didn’t play a practice round because the course was too crowded with weekend play, but his 67 was enough to earn his first start since October. Bad weather limited Knox’s Tuesday practice round to nine holes. He couldn’t play the course Wednesday because of the pro-am. It didn’t matter. Knox’s 66 gave him a two-shot lead after the first round. “Here I am, staying with a guy I’d never met before in his two-bedroom apartment,â€� Knox said. “He came out to the course to look for my score and he couldn’t find my name because it was at the top. He figured he’d start at the bottom and look.â€� Knox’s new roommate wasn’t the only one who was surprised. A local newspaper headline read, “Knox (who?) leads Honda by 2.â€� He led by one after a second-round 71. One of his birdies came after a free drop from an anthill built by fire ants. That allowed him to move his ball from behind a tree. The wind started to pick up in the second round, which was just a harbinger of things to come. Freezing temperatures and high winds hit in the third round. Port-o-Lets were blown over by the 45 mph gusts. Knox remembers wearing multiple sweaters to combat the cold. “Back then, our weather apparel was nothing. You wore as many sweaters you as could find and still be able to swing,â€� Knox said. “I was still swinging pretty well even with all the clothes I had on.â€� He made the turn in 38, a good score for the conditions. He played his next five holes in 5 over, though. That included a double-bogey on 14 after the cameras showed up. “I hit it in the right bunker. I looked across the green and pointing right at me was a camera and it had the red light on. Even I knew what that meant,â€� Knox said. “I bladed it across the green. The cameraman had to jump out of the way.â€� It was getting dark as they wrapped up play. Knox made par after hitting driver-driver into the par-4 18th hole. He shot 80, but was just two shots off the lead. The average score that day was 79.25. No one broke par. Tom Weiskopf, a 16-time TOUR winner, shot 86 while playing alongside Knox. Andy North, who won his second U.S. Open a year earlier, shot 84. Floyd, Hale Irwin and Fred Couples all shot 81. “I went to bed thinking, ‘Maybe we’ll get rained out and I’ll finish fourth,’â€� Knox said. That would’ve been a career-changing result. But his peers implored him to set his sights higher. “Chi Chi (Rodriguez) called me Fort, as in Fort Knox. He said, ‘Fort, you can win this golf tournament,â€� Knox said. “I kind of stopped and looked behind me. I didn’t know if he was talking to me. I hadn’t thought about winning the tournament.â€� He couldn’t avoid it after a magical start to the day. It started with a chip-in for birdie on the third hole. He holed a 40-footer for birdie on the next hole. He was just short of the par-5 fifth hole in two shots. He wasn’t sure if his ball was plugged, but he was too nervous to call a rules official, so he chopped it out and made the 10-footer for a third consecutive birdie. The biggest miracle came two holes later. He’d switched to a set of beryllium Ping Eye2 irons a month earlier and started using a new ball, the Maxfli DDH, that week. “I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. I was just happy to be in the golf tournament,â€� Knox said. “The Maxfli rep told me this ball would go beautifully through the wind. The irons and the ball, it was a great combo.â€� His 4-iron tee shot on the par-3 seventh was headed straight for the flag, but his ball flew through the wind and over the green, plugging into the back bunker. Knox’s first bunker shot came out hot and rolled into a lake. After a penalty stroke, he played from the same location. He heard a voice say three times, “Just make it.â€� “The third time it was audible. I drew the club back and everything was in slow-mo,â€� Knox said. “The ball came out perfect, it checked up and trickled down into the hole. The crowd went crazy. My caddie was moon-walking. I was fist-pumping. It was a sight to behold.â€� He made nine pars and a birdie over the next 10 holes. The tournament was in hand once hit his approach on 18 to 30 feet. He lagged to 2 1/2 feet, but missed the par putt. He had to wait and watch as Andy Bean and Clarence Rose both missed birdie putts that would’ve tied him. Bean, Rose, Jodie Mudd and John Mahaffey all tied for second, one stroke back. Mahaffey went on to win THE PLAYERS a few weeks later. But they couldn’t catch Knox after a magical week. “This proves that a lot of people on the PGA TOUR can win a golf tournament,” Knox said that day. “This proves it right here.”

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