Does men’s pro golf really need “reunification”?

There have been plenty of social media posts made and column inches written in the golf magazines lately on the issue of healing the rift in men’s professional golf. In a recent Golf.com article, Adam Scott is quoted as saying that a “reunification[1]” agreement whereby LIV Golf defectors[2] would be welcomed back to play PGA Tour events is one way forward. Flip-flop king Rory McIlroy has gone on record saying that reunification would be “the best thing for everyone”[3]—but does the men’s professional game really need the players who have signed on with the Saudi-backed league to come back to the mainstream fold? What is there to be gained from it?

The Saudi pick-up league, initially headed up by the perennially butt-hurt Greg Norman, lured players with promises of big paychecks, which they delivered on, and OWGR points so that LIV players could still earn their way into the four men’s majors, which they have not delivered on. This classic bait-and-switch played on the “have-my-cake-and-eat-it-too” mentality of entitled and/or desperate pro golfers, some of whom may in the near future be looking back wistfully on the good old days scrambling to make cuts and a paycheck.

Let’s look at a few of the golfers who play for LIV Golf and what they bring to professional golf. We’ll start with the chief rabble-rouser:

Phil Mickelson – Fan favorite, multiple-event winner, record-holder for the oldest ever to win a major championship, FIGJAM Phil (as he is known around the Tour) has won more money on the golf course (and lost more betting on sports, including golf) than most people would earn in a dozen lifetimes, but he has for years been at odds with the PGA Tour leadership on the subject of money. As in, why don’t the players, who provide the content, get more of the cash that the Tour rakes in from TV rights, video content, etc.?

Phil raised a storm of controversy when he phoned golf writer Alan Shipnuck in May 2022 and bared his breast concerning his decision to throw in his lot with Greg Norman in his Tour-busting alliance with the Saudi-funded LIV Golf League. The storm increased in intensity when he back-pedaled, whining that the conversation had been off the record (reader, it wasn’t–gkm). He allowed as how the Saudis were “scary motherf**kers” to work with, but he was going that route in order to gain leverage to try to squeeze more gelt out of the PGA Tour (in much the same manner, I imagine, as his bookies might have been putting the squeeze on him to settle his gambling debts.)

Aside from his record-breaking 2021 PGA Championship victory, which truly was a performance for the ages, Phil had been increasingly fading into a non-presence, last playing any non-major events on the PGA Tour in late 2021 and 2022, making only one cut out of three cut events – a T-36 finish at what was then the Fortinet Championship. He hasn’t exactly set the world on fire in his time playing LIV Golf’s team scramble format, either, carding only two Top 10 individual finishes since 2023.

So, does the PGA Tour need to bring this contentious, antagonistic, aging member of the over-the-hill-club back into the fold?

Dustin Johnson – DJ, as he is known, may be the quintessential laid-back, no-worries guy. Long of limb and stride, and long off the tee, Johnson was also fading in the stats when he accepted the Saudi gelt. In his last season playing non-major Tour events he managed two Top 10 finishes and eight cuts made in 10 cut events—not exactly covering himself in glory.

Other issues have clouded Johnson’s PGA Tour career, such as a six-month suspension in 2014 for drug use (marijuana, cocaine), and at the best of times it has seemed that the slow-walking, slow-talking (slow-thinking?) South Carolina native is only out there playing golf as an easy (for him…) way to make a lot of money and support a laid-back Low Country lifestyle. His LIV Golf record is no barn-burner, either, with two wins and eight Top 10 individual finishes in the first two full seasons.

Brooks Koepka – Brooks started his pro career in 2012 busting his hump on the Challenge Tour, the (then) European Tour’s equivalent of the minor leagues. He traveled so much that he had to have extra visa pages added to his passport, won several events, and in 2014 stepped up to the PGA Tour. He enjoyed success, if somewhat focused, in the big league of golf – his nine wins include back-to-back U.S Opens in 2017 and 2018, two Phoenix Open wins (2015, 2021) and three PGA Championship titles (2018, 2019, 2023) with the last coming after he kissed Yasir Al-Rumayyan’s ring in 2022, hauled a wheelbarrow-load of money home, and put the PGA Tour in his rearview mirror.

I remember when Brooks was a humble, soft-spoken newbie on the PGA Tour, telling the assembled media at the 2014 Fry’s.com Open about eating horse meat in Kazakhstan, and other tales of the Challenge Tour, in between going through the shots of his tournament-leading second and third rounds. No one could have been more surprised than I was when he morphed into a brash, prickly “big name” in pro golf with a fragile ego and more major wins than regular tournament victories. Koepka has played consistently well since jumping ship, with five Top 10 finishes in 2023 and four in the 2024 season – but would PGA Tour fans (or PGA Tour members) welcome him back?

Patrick Reed – Reed has been a lightning rod for controversy over the years. He came up as a hard-scrabble Monday qualifier, playing his way into six PGA tour events in 2013 to earn his card for the 2014 season, but controversy has haunted his footsteps from the beginning. There were hints, and later outright accusations from his Augusta State teammates, of cheating and marginal off-course behavior, and both on- and off-course controversy in his years on the PGA tour. There was the “embedded ball” incident at Torrey Pines in 2021, his “Captain America” schtick at the Ryder Cup matches over the years, and his wife, Justine, ran a (then) Twitter account called @useGolfFACTS which was a badly disguised Patrick Reed propaganda account. His LIV Golf record is in the upper echelon, with five Top 10 finishes in 2023 and three in the 2024 season, but perhaps the jump to a guaranteed prize, Sunday-scramble, team golf format league has taken the shine off of his “Captain America” persona.

Bryson DeChambeau – What can I say about Bryson DeChambeau that hasn’t been said by scores?[4]Sure, he has won two U.S Opens – the first, in 2020, by dint of a show of bomb-and-gouge golf that gave the lie to the “just grow the rough really deep” school of thought when it comes to reining in modern-day bulked-up big hitters; and the second, just last year at a woefully overmatched Pinehurst #2, by playing well and waiting for Rory McIlroy to make a mistake (which, sadly, he did).

Quirky, mouthy, prone to using (and misusing) big words that most golf fans (and golf writers) don’t understand anyway, DeChambeau has always reminded me of that one nerdy only child with social-skills issues that we all knew when we were kids – the one who spent a lot of time around grownups, vying for their attention by showing off his awkward braininess. A physics major at Southern Methodist University who dropped out after his junior year[5], he was nicknamed “The Scientist” for his meticulous, technical approach to golf, but as a career mechanical engineer with an actual degree to my name I can tell you that a good 50% of the “technical content” he spouts is nonsense.

The quirky kid from Clovis, in California’s Central Valley, is a YouTube star now, embracing video sensationalism to “build his brand” as the kids say these days, and was a fan favorite while still on the PGA Tour. Fans might welcome home back to the home of real competitive golf – but does he deserve it?

Jon Rahm – Let’s wrap it up with the Big Man from Arizona State, the guy who told the world that he had made plenty of money and was staying with the PGA Tour, the organization that had made him, like it had the other players profiled above, a multi-millionaire. (By show of hands, who thinks that his representation team were negotiating with the Saudis at the very moment that he said this?) It has been reported that Rahm, whose physical size (6' 2", 220 pounds) is apparently matched by the size of his ego, has flattered himself that his jump to the Saudi golf league with a contract worth $300 million would be the impetus that would heal the schism and make men’s professional golf one big happy family again, though the last 20 months of ongoing negotiations between the Tour and LIV Golf representatives give the lie to that thought. Can the bitter taste that his “surprise” money-grab exit left in the mouths of players and fans be washed away sufficiently to allow his return?

There are a host of others, notable and not-so, who could be put up as examples, but compiling even the brief list above has left a bad taste in my mouth.

The bottom line is, does the PGA Tour really need these guys back? Like any athletic endeavor, professional golf experiences turnover as players age out of ability, or desire to play. Is the public recognition of the fading stars, pedestrian journeymen, and struggling newcomers that currently inhabit the LIV Golf roster such that losing them to the three-ring (round) circus LIV Golf tournaments will hurt the sport as played in the traditional, and more competitive, manner that it has been for decades?

I don’t think so.

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[1] (Meaning a common competition pool for all men’s professional golf’s players across different tours or leagues, not necessarily a conjoining of the tours themselves.)

[2] (My descriptor, not his.)

[3] (By “everyone” I think he means his bank account.) 

[4] (Gold stars for those of you who recognize the reference.)

[5] (Because recruiting violations by the football staff brought a lockout of ALL SMU athletics teams from national championships for a year.)

Mixed results for NorCal golfers on opening day of 2020 U.S. Open

There are half a dozen NorCal-associated golfers in the field at the 2020 U.S. Open at Winged Foot Golf Club, and at the end of the first round the results they posted range from a respectable 1-under to a worrisome 8-over.

Collin Morikawa plays a shot from the greenside rough on the third hole during the first round at the 2020 U.S. Open at Winged Foot Golf Club (West Course) in Mamaroneck, N.Y. on Thursday, Sept. 17, 2020. (Darren Carroll/USGA)

Happily for we natives of NCGA territory, the two top scorers among the group are Northern California-born—Clovis’ Bryson DeChambeau, and Sacramento native Cameron Champ.  This pair of long-ball hitters from the Central Valley carded rounds of 1-over (DeChambeau) and 3-over (Champ) on the venerable Winged Foot GC layout.

The group of four remaining players of special interest to NorCal golfers comprises two SoCal golfers and two out-of-staters, all with college golf connections to the Bay Area.

Cal Men’s Golf is represented by Southern California natives Collin Morikawa and Max Homa; former Stanford golfer Brando Wu, of Scarsdale, NY, and Colorado-born 2011 San Jose State grad Mark Hubbard are also in the field.

Wu, a 2019 Stanford grad, is playing in his second U.S. Open—his first as a professional—after topping the points list of the developmental-level Korn Ferry Tour series in 2019. He claimed the “best of the rest” title among NorCal affiliated players with a 4-over 74. Opening with a 2-under 33 on the front nine, Wu fell prey to the Winged Foot rough on the homeward nine after hitting only four of eight fairways.

Wu may be remembered for receiving his Stanford diploma on the 18th green of Pebble Beach Golf Links at last year’s U.S. Open—nice compensation for having to miss his graduation ceremony at the Palo Alto campus.

Cal Men’s golf standout and 2020 PGA Championship winner Collin Morikawa found the venerable Westchester County golf course heavier sledding than TPC Harding Park, where he hoisted the PGA’s Wanamaker Trophy six weeks ago after taking the 2020 PGA Chmpionship. The SoCal native seemed never to entirely get his feet underneath him on Winged Foot’s turf, going 36-40–76 largely due to a fall-off in his usual masterful iron work (-1.08 SG:Approach), around the greens (-2.37 SG) and weak putting (-0.83 SG:Putting). 

Mark Hubbard, a former San Jose State golfer, found himself in a similar position to Morikawa at the conclusion of his first round, with a 6-over 76 on one birdie and seven bogeys. Hubbard had his own 18th-green moment at Pebble Beach Golf Links in 2015, when he proposed to his girlfriend, Meghan, after completing the first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

Of course someone has to be last, and in this accounting of NorCal-affiliated golfers, that dubious honor falls to former Cal Men’s Golf stalwart Max Homa. A decently strong performance off the tee (+1.12 SG – 9 of 14 fairways) wasn’t enough to carry his round in the face of numbers like -2.17 SG:Approach, -2.38 SG:Around the Green, and -2.03 SG:Putting. 

Homa can take heart (I suppose) from the fact that he closed out his first round one stroke better than fellow SoCal native Phil Mickelson, and saw a lot more of Winged Foot’s fairways than the veteran southpaw, who only found two of 14 in the first round.

Cal Golf alum Collin Morikawa outlasts crowded leaderboard to take 2020 PGA Championship

A 95-year-old muni golf course on a chilly, windswept, often fogbound peninsula in Northern California just provided the golf world with one of the most thrilling final rounds in major-tournament golf in decades—and a Cal Men’s Golf alumnus was the star of the show.

2020 PGA Championship winner Collin Morikawa poses with the Wanamaker Trophy during the trophy presentation ceremony. (Image copyright: 2020 Darren Carroll/PGA of America)

San Francisco’s Harding Park Golf Course (now TPC Harding Park) was shown to great effect this past week, in wind, fog—and even sunshine—and while some of the biggest hitters in the game were factors in the outcome right to the end, it was a mid-range hitter whose game excels in accuracy who outlasted the bomb-and-gouge brigade to step into the winner’s circle at the end of the day. Collin Morikawa, a 2019 Cal graduate, reigning PAC-12 Men’s Golf champion, and second-year PGA Tour pro who already has two professional wins to his credit, plotted his way around Harding Park with GPS-worthy precision, all the way to the grand prize—the Wanamaker Trophy.

The weather on San Francisco’s west side was overcast but generally calm, with mild temperatures for most of the day, trending chilly as the final pairings closed out their rounds. The firm greens were troublesome for long approach shots, requiring a steep landing angle to hold the putting surface, and the Harding Park greens, derided by some as flattish and uninteresting over the course of the week, befuddled many of the contenders down the stretch with their subtleties.

As many as seven players were tied for the lead over the second half of the round, but their numbers dwindled as bad breaks and bad luck took their toll. Northern California’s Cameron Champ, a Sacramento native and the winner of the season-opening Safeway Open last October at Napa’s Silverado Golf & Country Club, dropped back when an errant drive at the long par-four ninth hole resulted in a double-bogey six, and bogeys on 13 and 15 put paid to his chances for the win. Champ’s 8-under finish netted him his first Top Ten finish in a major tournament, and it is unlikely to be his last.

Bryson DeChambeau, another NorCal native and a big hitter who has achieved notoriety for his recent emphasis on physical bulk as a means to increase his length off the tee, started the day at 6-under and was among a half-dozen or so players who dipped into double-digits under par. Back-to-back bogeys at holes 8 and 9, the one-two punch of hardest-playing holes that closed out the front side, dropped him off the pace. Birdies at 14 and 15 pulled the 2015 U.S. Amateur and NCAA champion back to 10-under, but it would prove sufficient only for a spot in a five-way tie for fourth place.

Dustin Johnson, an early favorite to contend for the title today, has been fighting a seeming majors jinx for much of his career, alleviated only by his 2016 victory in the U.S. Open at Oakmont, and was plagued by near-miss putts in his pursuit of a second major title. Four birdies and two bogeys, at the par-3 third hole and par-4 fifteenth, netted the Carolina native a 2-under round and 11-under for the tournament, good enough for his fifth T2 or solo-second finish in a major.

At the end of the day, and over the closing holes of the final round, it was all about Collin Morikawa. The recent Cal grad posted the lowest round, a 64, and only bogey-free round, among the top 20 finishers. Beyond the raw numbers of the score, his stats tell the tale: 1st in driving accuracy, 1st in approach accuracy, 1st in Strokes Gained-Putting; but those numbers, while impressive, aren’t the thing that people will remember from the final round in his impressive victory— it’s the gunslinger eagle-two that he put up at the par-four 16th hole that will be talked about for years.

Morikawa came to #16 after having chipped in for birdie at #14 to take the lead at 11-under. The course had been set up with a couple of teasingly drivable par-fours, most notably the 16th hole, a scenic two-shotter along the Lake Merced shore that was playing an enticing 300 yards to a center-right pin today, and he had resolved, before the round, not to succumb to the temptation they presented. But on the tee-box at #16, sitting on 11-under, with Paul Casey already in with the same score, and Tony Finau and Bryson DeChambeau in the pairing behind him sitting on -10 and -9, respectively, and both representing threats to pick up another shot or two in the final holes, he made a decision.

“Wednesday night, I had no plans on going for 16 at all. […] Colt Knost, he saw me Wednesday afternoon practicing on there, and he asked me if I was ever going to go for it. I told him a quick no, it’s too much into the wind, why go for it. ”

When his caddie, J.J. Jankovac, asked him what he wanted to do on the tee at #16, Morikawa thought back to the 14th hole at Muirfield Village, in the final round of last month’s Workday Challenge tournament, when he hit a similar shot into the drivable par-four 14th hole, and then went on to win the event in a playoff.

“…It was like 278 to the front, and just a good drive for me. It was going to land just short of that in this weather; it’s going to bounce on up,” Morikawa said in a post-round interview, “(caddie J.J. Jankovac) looked at me, he counted off and asked me what I wanted to do and I told him, ‘Let’s hit a good drive.’”

And “hit a good drive” he did, one that golf fans will be talking about for years. Landing just short of the green, the drive bounded up onto the putting surface, released, and rolled to within seven feet of the hole. After bringing his caddie in to help read the putt, something he rarely does, Morikawa stepped up and rolled it dead-center into the hole for an eagle-two and immediate separation from the field.

Barring some unfortunate mishap on his part, and/or miracle strokes on the part of Finau, DeChambeau, Casey, or Johnson, it was all over at that point; two strokes with two holes to play, let alone three, is too much to ask of any golfer outside of a Hollywood production. Morikawa closed with a pair of pars, though on both holes he came within inches of birdies that would have turned his victory into a late-running blowout.

Morikawa’s 65-64–129 finish is the lowest weekend total for a man in a major championship, and the young man from La Cañada, California, has now joined Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, and Rory McIlroy in the ranks of players who won their first PGA Championship at the age of 23. Besides the $1.98 million paycheck, the win brings with it a five-year exemption on the PGA tour, and entries to the U.S. Open and the Masters.

Mix of old hands and newbies top Round 3 leaderboard at PGA Championship

A mix of experienced “old hands” and fresh-faced newbies crowded the top of the leaderboard after an exciting Round 3 at the 2020 PGA Championship at San Francisco’s TPC Harding Park Golf Course. Among them are NorCal native Cameron Champ, of Sacramento, and former Cal Men’s Golf standout Collin Morikawa, a native of Los Angeles.

Sacramento native Cameron Champ is in contention for his first major-tournament title in the 2020 PGA Championship title at TPC Harding Park Golf Course in San Francisco.(Photo by Christian Petersen/PGA of America/PGA of America via Getty Images)

Morikawa, who started the day at two under par, shared low-round-of-the-day honors with 54-hole leader Dustin Johnson and runner-up Scottie Scheffler. His seven-under score after three rounds was good for a T4 finish, which he shares with England’s Paul Casey and 2018 and 2019 PGA defending champion Brooks Koepka.

Cameron Champ opened the current PGA season with an emotional victory at the Safeway Open last October, dedicating the win to his grandfather, Mack, who passed away from cancer soon after the tournament. Morikawa and Champ will be play together tomorrow in the second-to-last pairing, behind Dustin Johnson (-9) and Scottie Scheffler (-8).

Scheffler, 24, of Dallas, has a place in Northern California golf history himself, having won the 2013 U.S. Junior Amateur Championship at Martis Camp Resort in Truckee.

The late stages of today’s third round resembled a game of Whack-A-Mole as players rose through the rankings only to be knocked back down by poor play or just plain bad breaks. The changeable Lake Merced-area weather had the players contending with wind, then calm, then increasing misty and chilly conditions that sapped distance from tee shots, demonstrating that the bucolic Arcadian beauty of the lakeside region can conceal an iron fist in its foggy velvet glove.

Second-round leader Haotong Li found tree trouble off the tee at the 13th hole when one of the notorious Monterey Cypress trees that line the Harding Park fairways grabbed his ball and kept it, as they sometimes do. The resulting double-bogey was followed by a bogey on #14, and another at #16, the drivable par-4 on the Lake Merced shoreline. Five dropped shots and two birdies left him with a 3-over 73, and 5-over, T13, going into the final round.

Brooks Koepka, who unlike Tiger Woods and Jordan Spieth, is going into the final round with a shot at a new line in the history books for a third consecutive PGA Championship, got a big dose of “leaderboard gravity” with a string of bogeys on holes 13, 14, and 15. Only a well-executed birdie on #18, the result of a 170-yard approach shot to six feet above the hole, and the clutch birdie putt that followed, pulled him out of an eventual six-way cluster of players at six-under.

Arguably leading that group of six-under finishers sitting T7 after 54 holes is Clovis, California’s, Bryson DeChambeau. The former SMU golfer won the 2015 USGA Amateur Championship, and was NCAA champion as a junior, but dropped out before his senior year and turned pro when SMU was suspended from NCAA championship competitions for recruiting violations.

DeChambeau posted a 4-under 66 today to finish the third round at six under par. Known for his length off the tee after undertaking a “bulking-up” regimen of weightlifting and protein shakes during the PGA Tour’s hiatus, it was, ironically, a 95-foot putt from the front edge of the 18th green that was the highlight of his round today, for a final birdie that lifted him into the top dozen finishers after 54 holes.

Final-round play gets underway tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. local time, with online coverage on ESPN+ beginning at 10 a.m., switching to ESPN online and on television at noon, with CBS-TV taking over from ESPN at 3 p.m.

Journeyman Ted Potter, Jr. stares down past champions to take AT&T Pro-Am title

At the close of play Saturday at the 2018 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am the scene was set for a Jack-the-Giant-Killer scenario – World #1 Dustin Johnson, a two-time winner in this event, in 2009 and 2010, surged to the top of the leaderboard with a 64 at Pebble Beach, but a few miles away, past the Lone Cypress, around the curve of Cypress Point along 17-Mile Drive, Ted Potter, Jr. was making some magic happen at Monterey Peninsula Country Club, carding a 9-under 62 to jump up onto the top step with DJ for Sunday’s final round.

2018 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am winner Ted Potter Jr. speaks to the media after holding off a pack of higher-ranked pursuers to collect his second PGA Tour win.  (photo by author)

Opening with a 6-under 30 on MPCC’s back nine, Potter bid fair to do the same on the front side, but after a bogey-bogey stumble at the last two holes he had to settle for 9-under 62 and a share of the tournament lead going into Sunday’s final round.

Ted who?

They say that even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while. Sunday at Pebble Beach Potter, a one-time “Central Florida mini-tour legend”, did just that. He has five Top 10 finishes in 84 PGA Tour starts, including a win at the 2012 Greenbrier Classic. Take out that 2012 win and his average PGA Tour paycheck is $22,000. For this win his paycheck is $1,332,000.

After a near record-breaking performance Saturday at MPCC, the 34-year-old from Ocala, Florida, who last played in a final group on Sunday in 2011, in the Web.com Tour’s Soboba Classic, came out swinging on Sunday morning with four birdies and a bogey in the first seven holes, while co-leader Johnson stuttered his way through the same stretch at 1-under.

DJ made another bogey at the wicked-hard par-4 eighth hole after his second shot found the bunker behind the green, dropping him to T-3 alongside Troy Merritt, as Chez Reavie moved past him into solo second with birdies at 8 and 9.

Meanwhile, Ted Potter Jr. was waltzing through the latter stages of the biggest finish of his pro-golf career like it was one of the Central Florida mini-tour events he used to dominate. A nerveless par from a scary spot above the hole on #11, the worst position on the slipperiest green on the course, was typical of his play to that point.

With a pack that included Phil Mickelson, Chez Reavie, Kevin Streelman, Dustin Johnson, Troy Merritt, and Jason Day in pursuit, Potter – the “Ocala mini-tour legend” – coasted in while the #1 player in the world, a former #1, and a host of much higher-ranked players tripped over themselves in a vain attempt to chase down the 246th-ranked player in the world.

All efforts came to naught, however, as the field trailed the mini-tour legend from Central Florida to the finish. Phil Mickelson’s 67 fell three shots short, as did Chez Reavie’s 68.

Jason Day made a dramatic effort with driver off the deck for his second shot at #18, only to see the ball ricochet off the seawall left of the fairway, leaving him a third shot from the eponymous pebble beach behind the scoreboard. He knocked that one over the green into the front bunker, chipped out and made a 17-foot putt for what was probably the least likely par in the history of the 18th hole at Pebble Beach. Day closed with 70 to join Mickelson, Reavie, and Johnson in a tie for second place.

Potter played the final hole with two fairway woods, and a 9-iron to 14 feet, lagging to two inches from there and tapping in for a 69 on the day, 17-under for the tournament, and a three-stroke win.

The win jumps Potter from 117th to 15th in the FedEx Cup rankings, and earns him a two-year exemption on the PGA Tour and an invitation to the Masters.

“(My goals for the year) will definitely have to change now,” Potter said in a post-round interview. “I’m just happy to be where I am right now.”

NorCal player results

Among players with a Northern California association, Fresno’s Kevin Chappell and former Stanford Men’s Golf star Patrick Rodgers brought home the best result, T-8. Chappell posted a 5-under 67, with three birdies in his first nine, and two bogeys bookending four birdies in his final nine, for his best finish in this event since 2009, when he was T-6; Rodgers closed with a 1-over 73.

Walnut Creek’s Brandon Haskins made the biggest move of the day, closing with a 6-under 66 that rocketed him 45 spots up the leaderboard to finish T-15.

James Hahn of Alameda fired a 4-under 68 to close out the tournament at 7-under, T-26 – a 33-spot move up the leaderboard. Sacramento’s Nick Watney carded an even-par 72 to close at 4-under for a T-47 finish.

Bryson DeChambeau struggled to a 3-over 75 for a final score of 3-under and a T-55 finish. Stockton’s Ricky Barnes finished T-62, at 2-under.