THE FLATS – Chesson Hadley earns another solid finish on the PGA Tour, gets the mic’d up treatment from NBC/Golf Channel … Andy Ogletree has found his groove on the Asian Tour, looks for more LIV opportunities … Matt Kuchar moves South to find high-level sports opportunities for his sons … More details below in this week’s Georgia Tech #ProJackets Report.
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HADLEY PACES JACKETS AT HONDA CLASSIC
Posting another solid finish in this spring’s schedule, Chesson Hadley tied for 29th last weekend in The Honda Classic, the first stop on the Florida swing on the PGA Tour. At the historically tough PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens, Hadley battled for four days and shot rounds of 69-66-69 before falling back with a closing 73, and finished at 3-under-par 277.
Hadley sits at No. 117 in the FedEx Cup standings, second highest among the Yellow Jackets on Tour behind Matt Kuchar (No. 59), The Tech All-American had two solid starts in the fall, a tie for 37th at the Shriner’s Hospital Open and a tie for 17th at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship before missing the cut in five consecutive starts. Since then, he has a tie for 23rd at the WM Phoenix Open and last weekend’s tie for 29th at the Honda, and has earned $346, 258 in official money.
Anders Albertson also made the cut last weekend, tying for 63rd at 282 (+2), while Kuchar, Paul Haley II and Richy Werenski missed the cut.
The Tour splits with two events this weekend, the elevated Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando, in which Stewart Cink returns to action, and the Puerto Rico Open in Rio Grande, P.R., which is the site of Hadley’s only Tour victory to date. He is not in the field at Puerto Rico, but Albertson, Haley and Werenski are.
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TRINGALE TIES FOR 20TH IN FIRST LIV GOLF START OF 2023
Cameron Tringale got his first full season of LIV Golf off to a solid start with a tie for 20th place at the LIV Golf Mayakoba event in Mexico. His HyFlyers team finished seventh among the 12 teams competing. Tringale picked up $184,000 in the start and is over $1.2 million in six LIV events.
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OGLETREE FINDS GROOVE IN ASIA
Andy Ogletree sees golf as a business, and within that business he takes the opportunities as they come.
Last summer, the 24-year-old former U.S. Amateur champion was invited to play in the first LIV Golf event in London. Although he had a nightmarish score of 24 over par for 54 holes—finishing last at 31 shots back of eventual winner Charl Schwartzel—he parlayed the LIV invitation into a successful year on the Asian Tour. That circuit was a beneficiary of a $300 million investment from LIV Golf, and after playing the inaugural LIV event, Ogletree was given status on the Asian Tour’s International Series. He’s won twice there in the past six months, in Egypt and Qatar, and leads its money list—and staying in that top spot would guarantee him LIV status next year.
Leading the International Series also prompted LIV officials to invite him to Mexico to be one of three reserve players (joining Turk Petit and Wade Ormsby) for the Saudi Arabia-funded league’s season opener in Mexico. Coincidentally, the Camaleon course is where Ogletree played his first event as a pro when the PGA Tour held the Mayakoba Classic there. Although Ogletree didn’t end up playing for LIV this week, the Georgia Tech alum is making the most of the trip to the Mayakoba resort area near Cancun.
“My girlfriend and I are here, and we’re pretty much vacationing and I’m practicing. We’re getting out of Atlanta weather,” Ogletree told Golf Digest at El Camaleon.
Ogletree will wait in the wings for another start on LIV if one of the 12 four-man teams has an injured player and needs to call him up. If he were to get into a LIV event, he would be banned from playing any PGA Tour event this year, including qualifiers and Q School, as he was in 2022 after he made only that one LIV start.
Congratulations to @andy_ogletree on winning the 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗤𝗮𝘁𝗮𝗿⛳
The first player to win twice on the International Series 👏#ISqatar #InternationalSeries #whereitsAT pic.twitter.com/dFAcT0ML2J
— Asian Tour (@asiantourgolf) February 19, 2023
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“IT WAS A RISK I WAS WILLING TO TAKE” – OGLETREE
As LIV Golf began its second season on Friday, Andy Ogletree was practicing on the driving range while everyone else was on the El Camaleón course as part of the shotgun start.
Ogletree, 24, is here as one of three reserves that LIV Golf brought in just in case a player is injured or sick and cannot play.
The former U.S. Amateur champion who played with Tiger Woods during the first two rounds of the 2020 Masters became a punching bag last year when he was invited to play in the first LIV Golf event in London and shot 24 over par through three rounds to finish last, 31 strokes behind winner Charl Schwartzel.
Although he was paid last place money of $120,000, Ogletree was never invited back to another LIV event and was suspended for the rest of the year by the PGA for having played in that tournament. (He was not granted a conflicting event or media release, although he was not eligible for that week’s Korn Ferry Tour event.)
Thankful to have somewhere to showcase my ability. Cheers! @asiantourgolf https://t.co/5hbAUYbuM3
— Andy Ogletree (@andy_ogletree) February 19, 2023
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WHERE MATT KUCHAR MOVED FAMILY IN SEARCH OF “HIGHER LEVEL SPORTS” FOR SONS
Add Matt Kuchar’s name to the growing list of PGA Tour pros migrating to the Palm Beach area.
But not for the reason you might think.
Sure, Kuchar is taking advantage of our world-class venues, especially at the Bear’s Club where he and his family settled in October. But at 44, and more than two decades on the tour, Kuchar’s motivation was not about furthering his career but the careers of his teenage sons.
“We were looking for higher-level sports,” Kuchar said.
Matt and his wife, Sybi, have two sons, 15-year-old Cameron and 13-year-old Carson. Both are thriving in their sports, but they have taken different paths.
Cameron has followed Dad. Carson wants to be like Mom.
And dad and mom want the best for their boys so they packed up after 12 years on St. Simons Island, Ga. — where Sybi was raised — and headed south.
“We were looking for higher-level sports,” Matt said. “We got great tennis down here and great golf down here.”
Matt Kuchar moves family in search of ‘higher-level sports’ for sons Cameron and Carson https://t.co/1ifaL7LqFf
— Golfweek (@golfweek) February 24, 2023
