THE FLATS – PGA Tour season resumes this weekend for six Yellow Jackets in Hawai’i … Can Matt Kuchar win again in 2023? … Look for Ollie Schniederjans to return to the golf course in 2023 … More details below in this week’s Georgia Tech #ProJackets Report.
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PGA TOUR SEASON RESUMES FOR JACKETS
Last weekend’s Sentry Tournament of Champions had no Georgia Tech alumni in the field, but six of the seven Yellow Jackets with Tour status will be present for the second event in Hawai’i this weekend, the Sony Open at Waialae Country Club in Honolulu.
Matt Kuchar, who won the event in 2019 for the second of his two victories that year, is back in action along with Anders Albertson, Stewart Cink, Chesson Hadley, Paul Haley II and Richy Werenski.
Kuchar begins the calendar year ranked the highest (No. 88) among the Jackets in the FedEx Cup, followed by Haley (No. 100), Hadley No. 122), Werenski (No. 147), Cink (No. 165) and Vincent Whaley (No. 199), who is not in the field this week.
Rickie Fowler, Stewart Cink added to strong @theamexgolf field https://t.co/JqfoGb1IFi
— Larry Bohannan (@Larry_Bohannan) January 5, 2023
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WILL MATT KUCHAR WIN AGAIN IN 2023?
Golfshake sports journalist, Derek Clements, takes a look at 10 golfers who either haven’t won at all or have endured a fallow period. They all have one thing in common – he expects them to change all that in 2023! Matt Kuchar is one of them
Kuchar is a nine-time winner of the PGA Tour, and he would have won The Open at Royal Birkdale in 2017 had it not been for the unlikely heroics of Jordan Spieth. His most recent victory came at the Sony Open in 2019, after which his game went into a slump.In 2020-21 he made 25 starts and missed 12 cuts. This was a shock to the system as Kuchar had built his reputation as being one of the most consistent players on tour. He may now be in his 40s but Kuchar worked his socks off and in 2022 enjoyed a tied second and tied third. He will be looking to win again in 2023.
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LOOKING FOR SCHNIEDERJANS TO RETURN TO GOLF COURSE IN 2023
Once considered one of the more promising members of that 2011 recruiting class along with Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas, Ollie Schniederjans didn’t log a PGA Tour start this year and has just five since July 2019, when he capped an 180th-place performance in the season-long FedExCup.
Even worse: He played just twice anywhere this year. And in those two January KFT starts in the Bahamas, he was solo 61st and then withdrew after an opening 77.
Shortly after losing his KFT card in September 2021, Schniederjans wrote on Instagram, “Physically, I have realized the way I need to move and know how it feels at my best. I have battled issues physically throughout the last few years that have made things difficult from small injuries discomfort and inability to execute movement consistently at the level I know I need to in order to perform day in day out tee to green. This has been a tricky thing to figure out and manage with all the play and travel but I am looking forward to some offseason time to really focus on and address getting stronger better movement consistently so I can execute and feel the way I need to more often.”
He’s not posted again since.
But expect to see Schniederjans back in action, somewhere, in 2023.
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EVEN PROS GET INSECURE ABOUT THEIR OWN GAMES
It doesn’t happen often, but every now and again, I accidentally poke at a sore spot for players. I ask them about what I thought was some innocuous thing about their game, only to get some unexpected defensive response. Cameron Tringale won the ‘oops, sorry’ lottery this year. At Bay Hill last March, I spotted him on the putting green using an open hand grip, with his palms opposing each other. When I watched him doing it he stopped what he was doing and waited for me to leave. When I asked him about it, from a place of genuine curiosity and interest, he told me he didn’t want to talk about it, and that was it.
I would’ve loved to know what he was actually doing, and why, but I still walked away from that frosty interaction having learned something: Sometimes pros get insecure about their own games, too. Ultimately, they’re human, just like the rest of us. And even for a guy like Tringale, who earned more than $17 million on the PGA Tour. He never captured that elusive victory, though. Maybe his fortunes will fare better on LIV, where he jumped later that year.
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REEVES ON SPORTS SPECTRUM PODCAST
Seth Reeves is a professional golfer who played on the PGA Tour in 2021-22. He first earned his PGA Tour card in 2019, and in 2020 played on the Korn Ferry Tour, where he won his first professional tournament at the 2020 Pinnacle Bank Classic. He turned pro in 2014 after a successful college career at Georgia Tech.
Today on the podcast, we talk to Seth Reeves about trusting in God during the highs and lows of golf, losing his PGA Tour status, his involvement with College Golf Fellowship, and how becoming a dad has changed his perspective on life.
