Weekend: McCarty Books Masters Trip
Korn Ferry Tour grad wins for fourth time in his last ten starts. Plus, Ryu wins in Shanghai, Bradbury takes French Open, OWGR financials reveal legal bills, and Scotland's Salmond passes.
Matt McCarty put a quick end to the fall’s most intriguing storyline: could the three-time Korn Ferry Tour winner use a battlefield promotion to accrue enough points to finish 2024 inside the world top 50?
We’ll never know if a record built largely on performance in “the minors” could vault someone into next year’s Masters.
In winning the inaugural Black Desert Championship, the world No. 76 made the top 50 watch moot. Via McCarty’s three-stroke win over Germany’s Stephan Jaegar, the 26-year-old booked a trip to the 2025 Masters to go with a U.S. Open berth awarded to the Korn Ferry Tour’s best 2024 player.
I’d even go further and say McCarty’s gradual rise is just the kind of story that built the PGA Tour and is more likely to create longer careers. There is also genuine fan satisfaction found by investing in a largely unheralded college golfer who steadily progresses before achieving extreme success. Stories like McCarty make more people appreciate the value of the Tour’s meritocracy. The same model now under threat in response to LIV’s limited-field, no-cut, rich-get-richer drabness.
While a nice golfer at Santa Clara, the left-handed McCarty was hardly the product of any AJGA mills or elite university programs where practice takes priority over studying.
After qualifying for PGA Tour Canada in 2021, McCarty graduated to the Korn Ferry Tour where he made 16 of 25 cuts to finish 55th in 2022. He then made 12 of 16 cuts to finish 35th in 2023 and, as can happen in this silly game, McCarty found a new gear in 2024 when he made 21 of 25 cuts on his way to ten winds and nine top 10’s.
With his win in Utah, McCarty became the second player to win on the PGA Tour in the same season after earning the “Three-Victory Promotion. ” It was the Battlefield Promotion when Jason Gore accomplished a similar feat in 2005 at the 84 Lumber Classic.
Winning in just his fourth PGA Tour start means McCarty joins less-than elite company —Seve excluded—in “fewest starts before first PGA Tour win (since 1970)”:
1 – Jim Benepe (1988 BMW Championship)
2 – Garrick Higgo (2021 Palmetto Championship at Congaree)
3 – Bob Gilder (1976 WM Phoenix Open), Seve Ballesteros (1978 Wyndham Championship), Russell Henley (2013 Sony Open in Hawaii), Matt McCarty (2024 Black Desert Championship)
The win is also McCarty’s fourth in his last 10 combined starts.
McCarty will head to the Masters alongside a robust class of PGA Tour rookie winners headlined by two-time winner Nick Dunlap, Matthieu Pavon and Jake Knapp.
He’s also the third left-handed winner this season, joining Robert MacIntyre (RBC Canadian Open, Genesis Scottish Open) and Akshay Bhatia (Valero Texas Open).
As for the Black Desert Championship’s debut?
The lava-lined course looked interesting enough even if bunkers and cart paths were sometimes indiscernable in the late light. More concerning: pace of play went to places that even the worst cynic could never fathom for a PGA Tour-run event where slow play penalties are outlawed.
Sunday’s final round was played in twosomes but somehow took the leaders four hours and fifty minutes to play 18 holes.
Twosomes!
I’m just so glad the PGA Tour is staunchly in favor of a rollback to end the chase for distance and 8000 yard courses that take forever to play.
The first PGA Tour visit Utah in 61 years featured just two players ranked in the world top 15 and only 18 of the top 100. Utah’s best golfer—Tony Finau—passed citing his assistant coaching duties at the PGA Junior League Championship. And it paid off when he witnessed a hole-in-one by Emery Johnson:
Elsewhere…
Shanghai native Ruoning Yin captured the Buick LPGA in her home city with a six-stroke margin over Sei Young Kim. Yin started the day one off the lead but a 64 one day after a 63 allowed the 22-year-old to claim her fourth LPGA title. A runner-up in the AIG Women’s Open and last year’s KPMG Women’s PGA Champion, Yin set a new tournament record and beat the previous mark by nine strokes.
Dan Bradbury reversed his 2024 struggles in one brilliant week with a final round 66 to win the FedEx Open de France. The two-stroke triumph from the world’s 327th-ranked player came at former Ryder Cup and Olympic golf host Le Golf National. The Englishman’s bogey-free five-under-par final round held off England’s Sam Bairstow, Germany’s Yannik Paul, and Denmark’s Thorbjørn Olesen and Jeff Winther. And the win likely puts Bradbury sixth in the 2025 Ryder Cup standings, according to Nosferatu. But it’s early.
Money in Sport looked at the Official World Golf Ranking annual financial disclosures and found that its seven-member organizations made “special contributions” totaling £1.4 million in 2023. The culprit? Legal fees which Money in Sport estimate total £2.1 million ($2.7 million) dating to last year. The case? A result of conservative crusader/attorney/Patrick Reed-representer Larry Klayman’s anti-trust lawsuit (dismissed last month).
Tributes are pouring in for late Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, who passed away Saturday after a presumed heart attack while at a North Macedonia conference. Salmond was a strong supporter of golf and the efforts to revitalize the Scottish Open. He served as First Minister from 2007-2014. Lesley Riddoch celebrated the eternal optimist in this Guardian tribute and an Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire photo spread highlights a few of his golf tournament appearances.
Happy Monday,
Geoff
Nobody asked me but the PGA Tour would be more energized & interesting if it just shut down in October & November.
Why are they playing now & why are sponsors at all involved when no one cares?
Finally the Black Diamond Championship was certainly the weakest field ever from the PGA Tour, probably until next week's event!
As a fellow Lefty, it's great to have another Lefty to root for.