THE FLATS – Cameron Tringale earns another top-10 finish as the Yellow Jackets go 4-for-4 on the weekend at the Valero Texas Open … Paul Haley II continues climb up Korn Ferry Tour points list … Four Yellow Jackets in the field for The Masters this week … More below in this week’s Georgia Tech #ProJackets Report.
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JACKETS GO 4-FOR-4 AT VALERO TEXAS OPEN
All four Yellow Jackets in the field made the cut and posted solid finishes last weekend at the Valero Texas Open, and Cameron Tringale contended for his first PGA Tour title all the way into the final round Sunday before finishing in a tie for ninth place.
Tringale, making his 297th start on a Tour career that began in 2009, most of any player without a win in that span, led after 36 holes for the second time in his career (first was the 2014 Northern Trust, in which he finished in a tie for second place). The former ACC Champion shot 66-69 on Thursday and Friday, making five consecutive birdies at one point in round 2, then shot 73-72 on the weekend.
It was Tringale’s third top-10 finish of the 2020-21 season and continued a period of strong play that has lifted him to No. 34 in FedEx Cup points, trailing only Stewart Cink (No. 26) among former Yellow Jackets.
Meanwhile, on the heels of his third-place finish at the WGC Dell Technologies Match Play, Matt Kuchar posted a tie for 12th place (281, -7) and jumped to No. 89 on the FedEx Cup list. Chesson Hadley continued to inch higher (now No. 130) after tying for 23rd place (284, -4), and Vincent Whaley tied for 34th place (286, -2).
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HALEY, REEVES WITH STRONG FINISHES ON KORN FERRY TOUR
Paul Haley II posted his second strong finish in a row last weekend when he tied for fifth place at the Emerald Coast Classic at Sandestin, his fourth finish of T6 or better in the 2020-21 wrap-round Korn Ferry Tour season. The former ACC Champion got better as he went over the weekend, firing rounds of 69-67-68-65 for a 72-hole total of 269 (-11), and logged his highest finish since last July, when he tied for third at the TPC San Antonio Challenge.
Haley, who has a T6, a T16 and a T6 in his last three tournaments, moved up to 29th place on the Korn Ferry Tour points list, just four spots out of the coveted top-25 who get PGA Tour cards at the end of the season.
Meanwhile, Seth Reeves tied for 17th place with a 72-hole score of 274, shooting 65-65 in the middle two rounds, and remains Georgia Tech’s top-ranked player in Korn Ferry Tour points (No. 22).
Anders Albertson, J.T. Griffin and Ollie Schniederjans all missed the cut at Sandestin.
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ELSEWHERE
Luke Schniederjans picked up a paycheck after a fifth-place finish at last week’s SwingThought.com Tour event at Georgia National Golf Club in McDonough, Ga. The 2020 graduate shot 69-70-75 for a 1-over-par 213 total … James Clark and Drew Czuchry both missed the cut in a GPro Tour event in Augusta, Ga.
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KUCHAR LEADS FOUR FORMER JACKETS IN THE FIELD FOR THE MASTERS
Four former Yellow Jackets are in the field for the Masters this week at Augusta National Golf Club. Matt Kuchar, Stewart Cink, Larry Mize and amateur Tyler Strafaci are among the 88 competitors who begin competition Thursday.
Kuchar and Cink, both in their 40s and with long histories at Augusta National, look to join Mize (1987) as a Masters champion, while Strafaci attempts to keep a Tech tradition of high-level amateur play in the tournament alive.
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