Ollie Schniederjans was in the Bermuda Championship until the very end. The 27-year-old, in the field on a sponsor exemption, came up two shots shy of the playoff between Brian Gay and Wyndham Clark on Sunday – which Gay ultimately won. Schniederjans’ 13-under total was good for solo third.
A few more back-nine putts drop and Schniederjans, a player who has gone back and forth from the Korn Ferry Tour to the PGA Tour, would have returned stateside in a totally different situation.
“Obviously a win would change my whole situation more than these guys because I’m a sponsor exemption this week,” Schniederjans said. “I’m just lucky to get the opportunity and take advantage of it and have a chance.”
Truly, Bermuda was a family affair for the Schniederjans crew. Ollie and Luke Schniederjans, 22, both received sponsor exemptions. (Bermuda Championship tournament director Sean Sovacool is a Georgia Tech alum, just like the Schniederjans brothers). It was their first time playing in the same Tour field. Middle brother Ben has caddied for Ollie for the past year.
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“I always dreamed of us playing a PGA Tour event together,” Ollie said before the tournament. “All three of us brothers out here walking around, it’s pretty incredible.”
Luke missed the 36-hole cut.
Ollie lost his Tour privileges after finishing No. 180 in the 2018-19 FedEx Cup point standings and spent last season competing on the Korn Ferry Tour. But he took the chance to regroup and had five top-10 finishes in 17 events in 2020. He is 11th in scoring average on that tour.
Schniederjans admits he has been lost for a few years – didn’t know what his swing was doing or how to fix it, and as a result, struggled from tee to green. In the early part of 2020, Schniederjans was devoted to figuring out the formula for his own success. Now when he finds himself veering of the rails, he can get himself back on track.
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“I’ve been able to manage it really nice this year and get some consistency and I’ve learned even when I’ve gotten off, gotten back on track, I kind of understand my stuff even better,” he said.
The Bermuda stop, where Schniederjans missed the cut a year ago, is a good indicator that it’s working. Any Tour stop for a player looking for a breakthrough, like Schniederjans, can be life-changing. Brendon Todd demonstrated that last year. The journeyman pro was winless since 2014, but Bermuda represented the first of two straight fall wins that turned around his career.
Schniederjans calls it a “high responsibility” playing on the PGA Tour, where there’s a lot more money on the line and a sense of importance. In that sense, a step back to the Korn Ferry Tour was a blessing – one that allowed time to hit the rest button.
“Kind of used it to my advantage, I would say. You don’t want to do that when you’re on the PGA Tour, you don’t want to take your time. You want to be ready to go right away. I think I was able to kind of look at it as, all right, I’ve got 12 or 15 months to kind of get myself ready so that when I come, back I’m actually ready to do something out here. I think it worked out in my favor.”
It sure would seem so.
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