The tournament within the tournament at the season-ending Korn Ferry Tour Championship was the race to a PGA Tour card for the 2025 season.
There are 30 being doled out in all this season and before they teed it up at the season finale, 17 cards were already claimed. Another five, while not officially locked up, were a virtual certainty. That left eight cards truly up for grabs.
On Sunday, Braden Thornberry grabbed himself one of those cards.
Thornberry started the week in 51st, well outside the top 30, but he secured his playing privileges for 2025 with an outright win at The French Lick Golf Resort’s Pete Dye Course. His final-round 66 got him to 9 under and vaulted him to 16th in the points. This is the first Tour card for the 2017 Haskins Award winner, who won the award after his sophomore season at Ole Miss when he won the NCAA individual championship.
“It’s crazy. This is my I guess fifth year since I turned pro and I’ve played a lot of good golf. I had such a good college career and I was excited to get out in the pro ranks,” he said of his journey to the PGA Tour. “Like really, it’s not that I struggled with my golf game, it’s like it never quite clicked for some reason at the pro level. It’s just amazing to finally get a win out here. To get a win and to be Tour Bound in the same day is just crazy. I’m sure it hasn’t all hit me yet, but it’s just a crazy day.”
He added that he got a little inspiration from his dad before the final round.
“My dad texted me this morning and kind of put it in my head, ‘You know, one good round, you could be on the Tour,'” he said. “So it’s crazy to actually go out there and have that one-in-a-hundred round that you needed at the exact right time. It’s just amazing.”
He was the only player in the 74-man field to climb inside the top 30. And that meant someone else had to fall out. Bubble Boy Sam Bennett was that golfer. He started the week 30th in points but a final-round 78, a day that included two double-bogeys, dropped him to 31st, the first man out.