THE FLATS – Chris Petefish and Stewart Cink rack up top-10 finishes on Korn Ferry and Champions Tours … Andy Ogletree vanquished from LIV after first event but has fought is way back, will others follow his path? … More details below in this week’s Georgia Tech #ProJackets Report.
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PETEFISH SCORES RUNNER-UP FINISH IN PENULTIMATE KORN FERRY EVENT
With a tie for second at last weekend’s Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship, Chris Petefish made an 11-spot jump in the Korn Ferry Tour points standings and assured himself a tee time at the season-ending Korn Ferry Tour Championship, which will be played Oct. 5-8 in Newburgh, Ind.
It was Petefish’s second runner-up finish this year – he also was runner-up at the Utah Championship in August – and third in the top-10. After a string of seven missed cuts in nine events early this season left him at No. 88 in the points standings, he has fought his way back up to No. 44, assuring him Korn Ferry status for 2024, but he must play himself into the top 30 to earn PGA Tour status.
Petefish finished the weekend in Columbus with a 6-under-par score of 278 on the Ohio State University Scarlet Course.
And it was a day! T2 and one hell of a nice putt on 18 for the save. @GTGolf pic.twitter.com/sEHQEwycGf
— COA Golf (@golfplanners) September 25, 2023
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CINK EARNS TOP-10 ON CHAMPIONS TOUR BEFORE HEADING BACK TO ITALY
In between a scouting trip to Italy as vice-captain for the USA team for the Ryder Cup and the actual event itself, which is this weekend, Stewart Cink squeezed in a trip to Pebble Beach, Calif., last weekend and captured a top-10 finish in his fourth start on the PGA Tour Champions.
Cink shot 8-under-par 208 over 54 holes at the PURE Insurance Championship, his third top-10 finish in four tries, and he has earned nearly as much money ($468,639) in four Champions Tour starts as he has accumulated in 23 PGA Tour events this year. His current standing of No. 40 will qualify him for the Charles Schwab Cup playoffs.
Cink sticks this one close over a grazing spectator at the 11th 🦌@PUREFirstTee | @stewartcink pic.twitter.com/5wmb4sDO22
— PGA TOUR Champions (@ChampionsTour) September 23, 2023
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WILL OTHERS FOLLOW THE PATH OGLETREE HAS TAKEN?
Last June, at LIV Golf’s debut event outside of London, Charl Schwartzel shot seven under par over three rounds to win the circuit’s first-ever first prize: a check for $4 million.
Thirty-one strokes behind him was a former U.S. Amateur champ battling injury and professional golf limbo. Andy Ogletree had some conditional status on the Korn Ferry Tour, but not enough to play a meaningful number of events. In what mostly amounted to an act of desperation, he had elected to roll the dice and play LIV’s inaugural tournament.
But shooting 82-77-75 wasn’t in his plans. Getting subsequently suspended from the PGA Tour wasn’t, either. Nor was what came after. LIV recruited bigger names than his, booting Ogletree out of the 48-player circuit and into obscurity.
But in the 15 months that followed, Ogletree played his way out of limbo. Now he’s on the brink of a full-time return to LIV. Speaking at this week’s LIV event outside of Chicago — where he’s filling in as a reserve — he thinks other young pros may follow his path, providing a concrete example of the ways in which LIV could shape the future for young pros.
All of which raises an essential question: Does he have a point?
At LIV’s first event he finished 31 shots off the lead. Now Andy Ogletree is on the brink of return — and other pros are taking note of his path back.https://t.co/0sOP9wJb0c
— GOLF.com (@GOLF_com) September 22, 2023
Andy Ogletree has had a stand out year on the Asian Tour’s International Series, all but regaining his LIV status for the 2024 league. He says that now people can see what’s he’s achieved, more young Americans may look to Asia as an option:
“Guys are gonna go to the Korn Ferry Q… pic.twitter.com/Vy8iF5gfj2
— Flushing It (@flushingitgolf) September 20, 2023
