PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Walking up the 17th fairway after sticking his approach shot 15 feet from the hole, Joseph Bramlett wheeled to his caddie and with an impish grin said, “How cool is this?”
For three months while golf hit the pause button due to concerns with COVID-19, Bramlett itched not simply to get back to competition, but to get in the trophy hunt and he gave it his all in his bid to catch eventual Korn Ferry Challenge champion Luke List.
“My stomach was going crazy and my adrenaline was pumping, and I felt like I could hit my driver 400 yards,” Bramlett said. “That rush is what I’ve missed and it was so great to do it again today.”
Bramlett would sink the birdie putt en route to shooting a 2-under 68 at Dye’s Valley at TPC Sawgrass, and finished tied for second place with Shad Tuten with a 72-hole aggregate of 11-under 269.
KORN FERRY CHALLENGE: Leaderboard
Bramlett, 32, surged into contention on Saturday, shooting 6-under 64, the low round of the day, and trailed the 54-hole leader Will Zalatoris by one stroke. The Stanford product carded birdies at Nos. 7 and 9 to keep the heat on List, who grabbed the lead with an early birdie binge to start his round.
Bramlett’s one mistake came at the par-3 11th hole. Bramlett held two clubs in his hand on the tee as he did often for much of the round on a gusty day. PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, who followed the final group on the back nine, joked that he usually grabbed three clubs. But Bramlett chose poorly, going with a 5-iron instead of a 4-iron and his ball splashed into the water fronting the green.
“We thought the wind was a little more left-to-right, but it was probably much more into our face than we thought,” he said. “Just the wrong club.”
The double bogey dropped him three strokes back, but Bramlett made it interesting with consecutive birdies at 16 and 17 to cut his deficit to one stroke.
Bramlett, who has PGA Tour status this season, began the week as the fourth alternate at the Charles Schwab Challenge and originally flew to Fort Worth, Texas before settling for a spot in the Korn Ferry Challenge field when it appeared he wouldn’t get into the stacked field at Colonial.
Bramlett hit 16 of 18 greens on Sunday, but his putter let him down. He missed several chances for birdie on the closing nine that could’ve been the difference.
“I tried to scare him, but couldn’t quite catch him,” said Bramlett, who is scheduled to compete next week at the King & Bear Classic at World Golf Village.
Bramlett, who is one of four African-American players on the PGA Tour, was attempting to become the second player of Black heritage to win on the Korn Ferry Tour. (Cameron Champ won the 2018 Utah Championship.) It marked his best result on the Korn Ferry Tour since the 2019 Pinnacle Bank Championship in July, where he tied for fourth. Bramlett took solace that the experience of playing in the last group and feeling the nerves of being in contention again will only help him down the road.
“I learned that I’m pretty close,” he said. “I think all of the things that I’ve been working on in my game are heading in the right direction and I hope that I can keep that up this summer.”
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