Aspiring Tour players are always looking for ways to measure their games against those already playing at the next level, and Kyle Cox is no different.
When Cox, a sophomore at Texas-Arlington, sat down with his swing coaches a few months ago to take a hard look at where he was losing strokes, he found himself in the trees.
“You’re trying to find really little things and how to improve,” Cox said of preparing for that next level. “We immediately looked to the tee ball. I’m way out of position too many times. It’s costing me too many strokes.”
Cox has always hit a long draw but worked to refine his go-to ball flight into a simple, repeatable and more accurate cut. Cox’s six-shot victory on Dec. 30 at the Orlando International Amateur is a good indicator that the process has been worth it.
Leaderboard: Orlando International Amateur
Cox, a native of Carrollton, Texas, started the final round at Orange County National’s Panther Lake course in Winter Garden, Florida, trailing by one shot. He was 2 under on the front and added two more birdies – plus his only bogey of the day – in the opening few holes of the back nine. By the time he closed with back-to-back birdies, he had far and away outpaced the rest of the field.
“I was always in position with an iron and I was just making some putts,” Cox said. “I was always in the fairway.”
A final-round 66 was his second-lowest score of the week, following his opening 65 on the Crooked Cat course, and got him to 15 under for the tournament.
Cox’s closing charge is another indicator of hard work paying off. He hasn’t always been so good about ignoring the scorecard and playing a round shot for shot.
“I’ve been playing golf quite a while and I’ve been playing years of tournament golf,” Cox said. “I’ve been in all different kinds of spots.”
Regardless, this is Cox’s self-described biggest victory and his first major tournament win since he claimed won an AJGA event as a junior in high school.
Cox was keenly aware of the history at Winter Garden. Two weeks ago, the place hosted the final stage of Korn Ferry Tour Qualifying School. At the 54-hole mark, the leader were also 15 under. Cox knows, of course, that conditions can be vastly different on any given day, but he was still proud to know he could win on a Korn Ferry Tour venue – and in a field of 200 players.
The Orlando International Amateur, which is a relatively new (yet increasingly deep) amateur event on the winter schedule, is Cox’s second off-season tournament start. He also played an All-Pro Tour event at River Plantation Country Club in Conroe, Texas, last week and finished T-6, second best among the amateurs in the field.
Cox gets invaluable perspective from swing coaches Cameron McCormick and Andrew Lewis, too. He has worked with McCormick, who also instructs a bevy of professionals and high-level college players, since the middle of his eighth-grade year.
“No one’s swing looks the same, everything is different,” Cox said of McCormick’s talented stable. “It’s catered to the player. He makes it super easy to play good golf.”
At Texas-Arlington, Cox’s whole is team is motivated to play well. Plenty of his teammates are chasing winter starts the same way Cox is. The Mavericks are ranked No. 126 in the Golfweek/Sagarin college rankings after the first half of the season.
Cox and company have a collective eye on a Sun Belt Conference title that would bring an automatic qualifying berth into the NCAA postseason. It’s full steam ahead to that goal, even as the college season is on pause.
“We as players know we need to do this and how much it helps out,” Cox said of staying sharp in the off-season.
That’s a popular line of thinking. At Orange County National, Cox’s closest pursuers were Justin Tereshko, the assistant men’s golf coach at Louisville, and Paul Swindell, a Lipscomb junior.
Luke Gifford, a Florida native who is in his sophomore season at South Florida, was solo fourth at 9 under followed by Blake Dyer, an Englishman who is halfway through his senior season at Florida, was fifth, another shot back.
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