Scottie Pearman, a Randleman native, won the World Long Drive Association Elite Division title on Sunday at the Bluff City Shootout near Memphis, Tennessee, with a drive of 357 yards, beating Colton Casto of Hobe Sound, Florida, in the finals.
The victory was the first on the WLD tour this year for Pearman, who has finished in the top eight of every event he’s entered this year.
Pearman is listed as No. 5 in the most recent WLD rankings. Casto was listed as No. 2 in the WLD rankings.
It’s Monday (late night) so time for What’s Going on in Triad Golf?
With Chris Kirk’s tie for fifth at the Wyndham Championship, the Ryder Cup approaching and U.S. captain Keegan Bradley here at Sedgefield, I came up with a hope for the future.
When Scheffler captains a future U.S. team — very likely — wouldn’t it be cool for Kirk to make the team. You know, maybe at some point, Kirk, could yell, “Beam me up, Scottie.” Now, if just somebody named Spock could join the PGA Tour, clever pairings makers could put together a Scottie, Kirk and Spock threesome.
How about an exemption for Rich Beem, the long ago winner of the PGA Championship?
Drum roll please. I continue, hoping there’s still somebody there for my rant about the haves and have nots on the PGA Tour — players and tournaments …
SIGNATURE EVENTS GOOD AND BAD
I’m not sure the PGA Tour’s signature events are good for players and fans.
It’s harder for players to rise into the Top 70 in FedEx Cup points when you aren’t eligible to play in the premier tournaments. Fans who attend the regular (non-$20 million events) are even less likely to see Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele and Rory McIlroy.
Here in the Triad, the Wyndham Championship is going to get some of big names trying to squeeze into the top 70 during their off-years. And we’ll get some trying to solidify their standings to be in the top 30 for the Tour Championship.
But barring comebacks from injuries or other unusual circumstances, we won’t see Scottie, Xander and Rory.
While various new bonuses and big money signature events may have slowed defections to LIV Golf, hasn’t the PGA Tour just heisted a few pages from the LIV playbook, by shoveling money to not only its best and most popular players?
As much as I like Jordan Spieth, was it really fair for him to get sponsor exemptions into every signature event he could play in 2025?
How about a rule where each PGA Tour player has to play each event at least once every three years? The Wyndham is getting better players with the 70-limit to signature events. Now, let’s get the best at least every three years.
SCOTT SHOULD HAVE PULLED THE PIN
I really see a PGA Tour player suffer from the same type of mistakes and bad breaks I do on the course.
As always, at Sedgefield at least a few players putt or chip off the greens. Still, winner Cameron Young shot 22-under-par despite two late bogeys during garbage time.
Now that he’s won, I guess I’ll never again confuse him for Clemson grad Carson Young, a Carolinas native. It’s not that crazy a mistake. Cameron Young was the only player whose first name was spelled out on TV leaderboards due to a similar named competitor. The networks could have shortened the first name to “Cam” on their graphics.
But what about Adam Scott missing a birdie putt at 18 Sunday after he opted to leave the flagstick in and his ball clipped the side of the pin, causing it to bounce over the cup and stop outside the hole?
Granted, Scott’s putt may have been a little firm. But it looked like it had a good chance to drop had the pin been pulled. I can’t remember seeing that in a Tour event.
With his easy victory Sunday at Sedgefield Country Club, Cameron Young didn’t leave any doubt.
Maybe there shouldn’t have been any doubters.
With one round to play at the Wyndham Championship, the tournament’s most-popular topic seemed to be whether Young could win a PGA Tour event. After all, in his 93 previous attempts, he’d finished second seven times without winning.
That really wasn’t fair. Though TV commentators kept bringing up Young’s previous failure to win, they also conceded that he had never taken the lead into the final day, though one loss was in a match-play final to Sam Burns. It should be noted, Young had beaten Rory McIlroy in the semifinals.
Fact is, Young had broken 70 in five of his stroke-play runnerup finishes. He had never been Greg Norman in 1996 at Augusta. Or Jean van de Velde in 1999 at Carnoustie.
The opposite of choking, the former Wake Forest standout had a track record of playing well in the final round.
And he did it again on Sunday at Sedgefield Country Club, cruising to victory and setting a tournament scoring record in the process.
Young’s 22-under-par 258 total — he made meaningless bogeys on 16 and 17 Sunday — tied a Wyndham Championship record at Sedgefield. On several occasions, he led by nine strokes.
Now, the next obvious media question is: When will Young win a major championship? That’s fair. He’s plenty good enough. Granted, Scottie Scheffler and McIlroy weren’t at Sedgefield.
But here’s two more good questions:
Will Young be named to the U.S. Ryder Cup team by captain Keegan Bradley? He should be. Passed over in 2023 for the routed U.S. team when he was ninth on the points list, Young is one of the top 12 American players.
Who is currently the best Wake Forest grad on the PGA Tour? Right now, Young is. But if Will Zalatoris can recover from his back problems, Wake could have two elite Tour players.
It would be a crime for Bradley to pick himself over Young, or any of another five choices.
The best U.S. picks based on the standings going into next week at Memphis: Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Ben Griffin (Nos. 7, 8 and 9) on the points list, Young, Brian Harman and Chris Gotterup.
Need more convincing? Young won the New York State Open at Bethpage Black, the site of the Ryder Cup.
We’re continually told how much time it takes to be a captain, so let Bradley focus on handling that role.
This weekend at Sedgefield, Young showed he could not only win, but dominate. He’d be a great Ryder Cup pick.
Cameron Young, who has seven second-place finishes but no victories in his short PGA Tour career, is in position to become the 1,000th individual to win a PGA Tour event.
The 28-year-old former Wake Forest standout will take a five-shot lead over Nico Echavarria into Sunday’s final round of the Wyndham Championship at Sedgefield Country Club. Defending champion Aaron Rai, Chris Kirk and Mac Meissner are tied for third, eight shots from the lead.
Though he’s the player with the most runner-up finishes without a victory, Young said the pressure for a first victory hasn’t been uncomfortable.
“Not really. If you had asked me two years ago I’d probably say yes,” Young told reporters. “But if you go back through, I finished second a bunch, I’ve gotten beat a lot. I haven’t — I’ve played some good golf on Sunday in really all those cases.
“So that’s all I’m trying to do tomorrow. I’m starting in a nice spot, so I’m just looking to try to beat second place by as many as I can. That’s been my mindset from the first tee on Thursday and that’s what I’m going to try to do tomorrow.”
Young, 20-under-par 190 for the tournament, shot 5-under 65 Saturday afternoon in the third round after making two birdies on four holes while finishing his second-round 62 in the morning. The tournament record is 22-under.
In three days, CBS television may have been the only thing capable of slowing down Young, who shot 31 on the front nine before CBS assumed third-round coverage from Golf Channel.
Though Young taken control, amateur Jackson Koivun, a rising senior at Auburn, has also grabbed attention, moving into sixth place at 11-under after shooting 65 Saturday.
Following Friday afternoon showers, which included a half-inch of rain and suspended play, greens were more receptive to approaches. Sami Valimaki and Matti Schmid holed second shots for eagle on the 402-yard 17th hole.
Young couldn’t have a much better opportunity to break through with a victory in his 94th PGA Tour start. This year, no third-round PGA Tour leader has lost a lead of more than three strokes.
Despite the big lead, Young said he plans to stay aggressive and keep making birdies.
“Frankly, I’m probably not going to pay much attention to my position,” he said. “I know that there is an 8-, a 9-, a 10-under out there and I’d like to be the one to shoot it as opposed to someone in second or third place.”
With four straight birdies, beginning at No. 3 in the third round, Young took a commanding lead that stretched to as much as nine strokes at one point in the front nine. He then made seven straight pars before making his only bogey at 14.
Echaverria has two PGA Tour, though neither came on U.S. soil. The Colombian shot 31 on the back nine for 64, capped by a 6-foot birdie putt at 18.
“I’ve just been calm,” Echavarria said. “I haven’t let anything rattle me.”
Rasmus Højgaard made Saturday’s best comeback, shooting 29 on the front nine (he started on No. 10) after carding 41 on the back side. The Dane made triple-bogey on 11. He eagled No. 5, sandwiched between birdies at 3,4 and 6.
Young and Echavarria will tee off at 1:55 p.m. in Sunday’s final twosome.
Cameron Young will take the Wyndham Championship lead into the weekend.
The Wake Forest graduate was at 14-under-par through 15 holes Friday afternoon at Sedgefield Country Club when play was suspended for the day.
Young was one stroke ahead of defending Wyndham champion Aaron Rai, who still had five holes to play in the second round, and Mac Meissner, who completed his round at 13-under 127.
Young and Rai will have to finish their rounds Saturday morning before playing their third round in the afternoon.
The cut is projected at 3-under 137. Many of the best-known players, including Webb Simpson, Lucas Glover, Zach Johnson, Andrew Novak, Keegan Bradley and Sedgefield member Alex Smalley will miss the cut. Akshay Bhatia was 3-over with four holes to play and withdrew.
Is a great shot on the golf course a great shot if nobody sees it?
Fortunately, a few dozen specatators were near the No. 6 green at Sedgefield Country Club on Friday to witness what will likely be the best shot of the Wyndham Championship.
Nobody filmed it. Not the PGA Tour nor Golf Channel. Not ESPN or CBS. Apparently, no local television stations. Probably not even any spectators with cell phones were prepared for the rarest of golf shots. Late Friday afternoon, PGA Tour media staffers were scrambling to find any recordings of the shot.
Golf Channel was forced to name Ben Griffin’s eagle on a holed approach at No. 9 as its “Shot of the Day.”
So what did most of us miss?
Gary Woodland made an albatross (double eagle) on the par-5 fifth hole in Friday’s second round at Sedgefield Country Club, sparking the 2019 U.S. Open champion to a 6-under-par 64 and helping him jump into the top 10 at 9-under 131.
The facts: Woodland hit a 337-yard drive into the left side of the fairway and holed his 190-yard approach with a 7-iron.
At least Woodland was available to describe it later, even if he didn’t see it go in, either.
“We were trying to land it 183 (yards) and the wind was a little in so we thought it was a perfect 7-iron, and it came off right where we were looking, landed 183, landed 3 (feet) short,” Woodland told reporters. “Nice to see the crowd go nuts to make sure it went in. It was a good shot, but it was a lot of luck and one that I’ll remember, for sure.
Sedgefield’s undulating fairways and greens often make it impossible for players to see where there ball stops.
“I mean, from that far away you’re just — I’m hoping the crowd goes nuts first, and then I’ll know the ball disappeared,” Woodland said. “You can’t tell if it went behind the pin or not.
“Somebody yelled “go in” when it landed, and so that was a nice bonus for sure.”
No. 67 on the FedEx Cup points list entering this final PGA TOUR regular-season tournament, Woodland has essentially clinched a top 70 and a trip to Memphis for next week’s playoff opener. But a top finish here would boost his chances of advancing to the final two stages.
Pennson Badgett didn’t win the Junior PGA Championship.
But the 17-year-old Pilot Mountain golfer beat Tiger Woods’ son Charlie head-to-head in the final threesome in the final round.
Badgett shot even-par 71 Friday at Purdue University’s Ackerman-Allen Course and finished in a tie for fourth place. Badgett posted 12-under 273 in the 72-hole tournament played at two Purdue courses.
Badgett, tied with Woods for second, seven shots behind eventual winner Lunden Esterline of Andover, Kansas, entering the final 18 holes, got off to a fast start Friday with an eagle on the 603-yard par-5 second hole. Esterline finished at 19-under 266.
The 16-year-old Woods shot 74 Friday to finish tied for ninth at 276.
Elizabeth Rudisill of Charlotte tied for sixth in the Girls’ Division at 7-under 278, five shots behind winner Asterisk Talley of Chowchilla, California, who made up a two-shot deficit to Zoe Cusack of Potomac, Maryland, on the final hole with a birdie while Cusack made double bogey.
Ben Griffin, the highest ranked player in the FedEx Cup standings, appears set to stick around for the weekend at Sedgefield Country Club. But U.S. Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley and Andrew Novak won’t be playing.
No. 7 Griffin shot his second straight 67 Friday for 134, to stay safely inside the Wyndham Championship’s projected cut line, floating at 3-under-par 137 in the early afternoon with about half the field still on the course.
Novak and Bradley shot identical scores of 68 Thursday and 72 Friday for 140. Other notable players on the wrong side of the cut line are Lucas Glover and Zach Johnson at 139.
Wake Forest graduate Cameron Young looks like the best candidate for a winner with local connectins. Young, who birdied three of his first four holes on Friday and was 10-under with 13 holes to play, is the leader of players still on the course and only two strokes behind leader Mac Meissner, who played early in the morning.
Pennson Badgett will have famous company in trying to chase down leader Lunden Esterline of Andover, Kansas, Friday in the final round of the Junior PGA Championship.
Badgett and Charlie Woods, son of Tiger Woods, are tied for second place Thursday at 12-under-par 202 in a 156-player field at Purdue University’s Birck Boilermaker Golf Complex in West Lafayette, Indiana.
Esterline, Badgett and Woods will play together at 10:06 a.m. Friday in a threesome.
Badgett, a rising senior at East Surry High, has committed to play at the University of Tennessee.
The bad news: they trail runaway leader Esterline by seven strokes. The field was cut to 30 players for the final round.
Joel Dahmen shot 61 at Sedgefield Country Club, including 29 on the front nine — his final nine Thursday — to take the first-round lead at the Wyndham Championship..
The 37-year-old Dahmen, who joined the PGA Tour in 2017, has a one-stroke lead over Alex Noren and a two-stroke lead over Cameron Young, Nico Echaverria, Mark Hubbard and defending champion Aaron Rai. Jordan Spieth and Adam Scott were in a group of 11 finishers at 65.
Webb Simpson shot 67, recent Wake grad Scotty Kennon shot 68 and recent UNC grad David May shot 67.
