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With the tournament set to begin next week, Farmers Insurance® and the Farmers Insurance Open® will again host a group of players from the APGA (Advocates Professional Golf Association) Tour when a collection of the best players on the PGA TOUR come to Torrey Pines, January 28-31, 2021. In January 2020, the AGPA Tour worked with Farmers® to host its first-ever tournament in conjunction with a PGA TOUR event at the Farmers Insurance Open, an annual PGA TOUR stop at Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego, Calif. The 27-hole APGA Tour tournament, dubbed the Farmers Insurance Open Invitational, was held on Torrey Pines' North Course during Saturday’s third round of the Farmers Insurance Open, played simultaneously on the South Course. It was recently announced that the APGA Tour will return in 2021 to play again on the Saturday of tournament week with 17 players set to tee it up on Torrey Pines' North Course this year. “At Farmers we value diversity and are proud to help support the APGA Tour in its mission to level the playing field for many talented golfers,” said Jeff Dailey, CEO of Farmers. "We look forward to hosting the APGA during the Farmers Insurance Open with the second-annual APGA Tour Farmers Insurance Open Invitational on Saturday of tournament week." All 17 participants have unique paths to the APGA Tour as they chase their dream of playing on the PGA TOUR. In fact, two APGA Tour players– Kevin Hall and Willie Mack III—have recently been awarded with sponsors' exemptions to separate PGA TOUR events in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and The Genesis Invitational, respectively. The following contains biographical information on several players who will be available by request for media interviews. Mulbe Dillard, a senior at Florida A&M, debuts at No. 1 in a newly formed ranking created by the PGA TOUR and the APGA Tour aimed to help top Black college golfers' transition to the professional ranks by easing the financial burden of playing developmental tours and Korn Ferry Tour Q-School. Dillard leads this new college ranking for Black golfers in NCAA Division I, II and III, with the top five seniors each year receiving summer status on the APGA Tour and an exemption into the pre-qualifying stage for Korn Ferry Tour Q-School. Kevin Hall, 37, is deaf and trying to pave the way for both the deaf community and African Americans. He played high school golf for Winton Woods (Ohio) while he attended St. Rita School for the Deaf. He went on to play at Ohio State, where he won the Big Ten Conference individual championship in 2004 by 11 shots and turned pro the following year. He has played several PGA TOUR and Korn Ferry Tour events over the course of his career. In recent years, he has won three times on the APGA Tour. His father, Percy Hall, caddies and signs for him, and will be joining Kevin at the 2021 Farmers Insurance Open Invitational. Willie Mack III, a Farmers Insurance brand ambassador, is a native of Flint, Mich., who played collegiately at Bethune-Cookman (in 2006), where he won 11 collegiate events. Mack was also the first African American to win the Michigan Amateur Championship, in 2011. He won the APGA Tour's Lexus Cup as the Tour's top player in 2019. He won two events, finished runner-up twice and recorded six top-10 finishes that year. Mack has won nearly 20 professional tournaments and currently competes on the APGA Tour. While Joey Stills has carved his own path through his young golf career as a standout player at the University of West Florida, giving his time as a teacher and mentor at his local First Tee Chapter and now as a professional on the APGA Tour, he continues to chase not only his own dreams, but also the career of his father, Adrian Stills. Adrian is one of the pioneering African Americans to make it to the PGA TOUR through PGA TOUR Qualifying School and joins legendary figures helping to pave the way for African Americans in professional golf. He eventually joined APGA Tour CEO Ken Bentley to develop and co-found the APGA Tour. Joey joins other First Tee alumni in the field, the aforementioned Mulbe Dillard and Joseph Dent, son of 12-time PGA TOUR Champions winner, Jim Dent. Other APGA Tour players who will be at the event include: • Brad Adamonis • Jarred Garcia • Joe Hooks • Michael Herrera • Maurice Jeffries • Landon Lyons • Marcus Manley • Tim O'Neal • Tommy Schaff • JP Thornton • Davin White • Rovonta Young In addition to the APGA Tour Farmers Insurance Open Invitational, another APGA Tour member, Kamaiu Johnson, will be playing in the PGA TOUR competition next week after Farmers Insurance CEO Jeff Dailey surprised Johnson with the news that he had been awarded a sponsor's exemption into the Farmers Insurance Open in October. Johnson called the news "life changing" and will tee it up against the world's best players when he makes his PGA TOUR debut next week. With exemptions announced for Hall, Johnson and Mack, three players who have been an integral part of the APGA Tour schedule will tee it up on the PGA TOUR in the next four weeks. Kamaiu Johnson, also a Farmers Insurance brand ambassador, dropped out of school in the eighth grade. City golf superintendent Jan Auger spotted Johnson, then 13 years old, swinging a stick outside an apartment complex that bordered Hilaman Golf Course in Tallahassee, Fla. Auger told Johnson to head back to the clubhouse, where there would be a 9-iron and a bucket of balls waiting for him. This moment changed the course of his life. At 16, Johnson began competing in events and made history, winning the Tallahassee Open three times, the last of which came in 2017. In 2020, Johnson won twice on the APGA Tour, including a victory at the 2020 APGA Tour Lexus Cup Championship in Los Angeles, and finished second in the 2020 APGA Tour Lexus Cup Point Standings. A longtime supporter of the APGA, Farmers is deepening its commitment in 2021 by increasing its financial support for player access, working to provide professional and career development opportunities for athletes, and helping to bring the game to more athletes.
SILVIS, Ill. – Viktor Hovland figured he needed to birdie the last hole to get a top-10 finish at the John Deere Classic, thus punching his ticket to next week’s Barbasol Championship. Instead, the 2018 U.S. Amateur winner from Oklahoma State bogeyed the hole and signed for a final-round 64, dropping him out of the top 10 and giving him a hard-earned break. “I’ll take two weeks off and just chill in Stillwater,� he said as he packed up his things in the locker room after competing on a sponsor exemption for the fourth straight week. He shrugged off the 12-foot par putt he missed on 18. “I figured I needed a birdie, but it still hurt.� At the U.S. Open in June, Hovland, 21, set a new tournament standard for low score by an amateur (280, 4 under), beating the record previously set by Jack Nicklaus in 1960 (282). In doing so, Hovland also became the first player since Matt Kuchar in 1998 to be low amateur in both the Masters Tournament (T32) and U.S. Open (T12). Hovland turned pro before the Travelers Championship (T54), and was steadily improving, finishing T13 at the Rocket Mortgage Classic and 3M Open the last two weeks. He was hot again Sunday, leaving himself just a three-foot eagle putt at 17 before his miscue at the difficult, par-4 finishing hole. The bogey was a setback in his quest to earn enough FedExCup points to secure his playing privileges on the PGA TOUR next season. Hovland could have earned Special Temporary Membership, good for unlimited sponsor exemptions, with a three-way tie for third or better, or a six-way tie for second or better at the Deere. But a top-10 finish would have helped a lot, giving him at least one more start at the Barbasol. Instead, he’ll take a much-needed break after five straight weeks. “It’s going to take something really special at the Wyndham,� Hovland said, “but more likely I’ll be going to the Korn Ferry Tour Finals.�
The last two winners on the PGA TOUR – Rory McIlroy and Seamus Power – have both represented Ireland in the Olympics. They were almost college teammates, as well. And not at a school that’s necessarily top of mind when you think of American powerhouses. East Tennessee State in Johnson City, Tennessee, competes in the small Southern Conference and in the Football Championship Subdivision (more commonly referred to as Division I-AA). Golf may be the school’s strongest sport, thanks in part to a pipeline from Great Britain and Ireland that included Power. The Buccaneers, led by Irishman Keith Nolan, finished third in the 1996 NCAA Championship – ahead of a Tiger Woods-led Stanford team – and twice played in the NCAA Championship during Power’s tenure. Power, who won his second PGA TOUR title Sunday at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, almost was preceded on campus by McIlroy, who won THE CJ CUP in South Carolina a week earlier to ascend to No. 1 in the world. McIlroy signed a letter of intent to play golf for the Buccaneers beginning with the 2005-06 season. “The youthful McIlroy brings an extensive and successful resume to Johnson City,” reads the news release from November 2004, which is still available online. McIlroy opted to stay in Ireland and play amateur golf, however, but ETSU’s coach at the time, Fred Warren, kept the signed letter of intent and had it framed. “I signed a letter of intent to play for ETSU, did my SAT, did everything like that so I (was) fully ready to come over and play college golf,” McIlroy said in 2015. “But at that point I knew that I really wanted to turn pro earlier than the four years he was going to be here. I had no intention of graduating at all, so I thought it was just better to play that full time amateur golf in Ireland. … By the time I was probably just getting out of college I had just won my first major, so sort of it was a good decision in the end.” The Ireland-to-ETSU connection actually was started by John Paul Fitzgerald, who played for the Buccaneers and became McIlroy’s caddie for several years. Next was Nolan, who finished T9 in that 1996 NCAA Championship and represented Great Britain & Ireland in the following year’s Walker Cup. Warren watched Power play at the 2005 European Boys’ Team Championship at Monticello Golf Club in Italy. If it had not been for the interest from East Tennessee State, Power was considering taking an accounting course at a university in Ireland, according to a New York Times article. Power still had doubts about attending ETSU even as he was on his flight bound for the States. “Where am I going?” Power told the Times. “I didn’t have a telephone. I didn’t have many dollars. If I land over here, and if something as simple as my coach isn’t at the airport to pick me up, I have no idea what I’m going to do.” According to a 2016 profile on PGATOUR.COM, Power’s scholarship actually became available after McIlroy decided to not attend East Tennessee. McIlroy played amateur golf until turning pro after the 2007 Walker Cup. Power started at ETSU in the fall of 2006 and graduated with an accounting degree in 2011. He also was a two-time conference champion. He spent several years on the mini-tours before playing his first full Korn Ferry Tour season in 2015. He was a PGA TOUR rookie for the 2017 season, but failed to make the FedExCup Playoffs in three of his first four seasons. He started 2021 ranked 429th in the world but has now risen to a career-best 32nd in the OWGR. He also is fifth in this season’s FedExCup.
