Tag: Brandon Matthews

Brandon Matthews’ honeymoon is off to a great start at Sanderson Farms Championship

Brandon Matthews joked he should’ve got married sooner.

JACKSON, Miss. – It’s likely Brandon Matthews will never forget his first round of professional golf as a married man. Especially since it’s one that has him just a shot back of the first-round lead.

Matthews fired at 5-under 67 on Thursday during the first round of the 2022 Sanderson Farms Championship at The Country Club of Jackson. It was another highlight for him in what has to be one of the most special weeks of his life.

Matthews got married on Saturday.

“I was actually way more nervous on Saturday,” Matthews said. “That’s probably why I don’t have any nerves right now.”

Brandon and his wife Danielle tied the knot in Pennsylvania, and now he’s back on Tour, having completed his first round as a PGA Tour member. Matthews, who’s one of the longest players in golf, had to withdraw at the Fortinet Championship two weeks ago in the first round when his back flared up.

Sanderson Farms: PGA Tour live on ESPN+ | Friday tee times, TV info

Brandon Matthews
Brandon Matthews is tied for the lead after the opening round of the Sanderson Farms Championship. (Photo by Cameron Jourdan/Golfweek)

With a ring on his finger, there were plenty more circles on his scorecard Thursday. Matthews, who started on the 10th hole, went out in 1-under 35. He eagled the par-5 13th hole and followed that with a birdie. After making the turn, Matthews birdied the second and third holes before closing his first round with a pair of birdies on Nos. 8-9.

“Something I’ve worked really hard on the past few years is understanding that things might not come immediately in the round, even if I’m hitting it great,” Matthews said. “Staying patient throughout my entire career is going to be very important. Today, I was really proud of myself with the way I hung in there and just really, again, hit a lot of my spots and didn’t veer from that. Stayed patient and, obviously, had a few coming in.”

The Sanderson Farms marks Matthews’ seventh Tour event, but he has made the cut in only one: the 2022 U.S. Open. That’s likely to change. He led the field in driving distance and is second in Strokes Gained: Off the tee following the morning wave.

Matthews joked with his new bride walking off the course that they should’ve married sooner if his play was going to be like it was Thursday. It’s safe to say Matthews’ honeymoon in Jackson, Mississippi, is off to a great start.

“Yeah, (it’s) what she’s always dreamed of,” Matthews said while laughing at the honeymoon location. “(The wedding) went so great. She looked absolutely unbelievable. It was a fantastic day for both of us.”

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Watch: Brandon Matthews, future PGA Tour pro, drove the 432-yard par-4 18th at Korn Ferry Tour Finals

It’s a shot Matthews didn’t even consider in a practice round.

Brandon Matthews needed an eagle on his final hole of the Korn Ferry Tour Championship at Victoria National Golf Club in Newburgh, Indiana.

He didn’t have any room for error. After a double bogey on his 17th hole, Matthews needed to go 2 under on the final hole to make the cut on the number. What awaited him was the par-4 18th, measuring at 432 yards. At least that’s what’s listed on the scorecard.

Matthews didn’t view the hole traditionally, though. Normally a big dogleg right, players have to hit a precise tee shot to avoid a huge pond right of the fairway and in front of the green from the tee box.

Matthews, who’s known as one of the longest players in golf, instead aimed right at the green. The carry? Nearly 370 yards.

No problem. It’s a shot you’ll have to see to believe.

His shot landed 15 feet from the pin. It was a shot he hadn’t even attempted in a practice round.

“Not directly at it … that’s a little crazy,” Matthews said. “Our line was … there are some red umbrellas on the clubhouse that we saw. That was kind of our line, if we had any bit of help at all.

Korn Ferry Tour: Leaderboard

“If I wasn’t in that position, I wouldn’t be hitting driver at the green … I love doing stuff like that. It’s fun.”

Matthews wasn’t able to convert the eagle putt, settling for birdie, but the result didn’t matter much for his future. He already secured his PGA Tour card for next season and will debut in two weeks at the Fortinet Championship.

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Like 420-yard bombs? You’re gonna love Brandon Matthews, who is in this week’s 3M Open field

“If I wasn’t here to win a golf tournament, I need to figure out a different profession.”

Brandon Matthews may not be a name you’re aware of, but his style of play is something that draws eyeballs.

He’s known for his driver, but more importantly, he’s known for the numbers he can put up with the big stick.

For example, at The Ascendant, a Korn Ferry Tour tournament held at the beginning of July, Matthews smashed a drive that went 412 yards. His driving distance average this season on the KFT is 320 yards.

You may be thinking, so what? Cameron Champ averages 320.2 yards. Rory McIlroy averages over 319. Well, Matthews is so long he isn’t able to hit driver as much as he would like.

He was asked about that during his Tuesday press conference before the start of this week’s 3M Open at TPC Twin Cities.

“Yeah, so driver’s definitely going to be in the bag, be able to hit it a few times out here. A lot of these holes where I am going to hit driver, it sets up really nice for my eye. It’s going to be nice to hit it a few times this week for sure,” he said when asked if driver has a place in the bag this week.

“It’s going to be great, but also to that point, it’s also an advantage when I can hit 3-iron, 2-iron, 3-wood, whatever it is up to the points where some guys are hitting a driver,” he said. “Using my length to an advantage in the proper way is kind of how I look at it where I get my advantage.”

Matthews earned his 2023 PGA Tour card earlier this year, as well as a spot in the 2022 U.S. Open field where he’d eventually make it to the weekend and finish 60th.

“It was really cool. You know, teeing off afternoon on a Saturday in my first major was pretty great,” he said when asked about his experience at The Country Club. “Birdied the first hole, so I was in contention on an afternoon on a Saturday of my first major, so gave me a lot of confidence. Unfortunately, you know, things kind of didn’t go my way from there. The mental side kind of left a little bit and doing that in a U.S. Open doesn’t really help a lot coming down the stretch. But it was a great experience.”

Two of the last three winners of the 3M Open can be classified as bombers: Cameron Champ and Matthew Wolff. The year Wolff won, DeChambeau was one of the runner-ups.

“It definitely gives me confidence to see past champions here and who’s played well,” Matthews said. “Again, excited for the opportunity, looking forward to competing on this golf course, on a golf course where longer hitters are at a slight advantage.”

Over the last month and a half on the KFT, Matthews has put together a great stretch of golf finishing inside the top 15 in three of his last four starts including a T-3 at The Ascendant two weeks ago.

He withdrew from his last start after three rounds.

And, despite the tougher competition, he sounds confident in his game.

“I constantly say that if I — if I’m at a golf tournament, I’m not here to make a cut, I’m not here to, you know, slightly contend or finish high. If I wasn’t here to win a golf tournament, I need to figure out a different profession.”

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On the verge of locking up his PGA Tour card, Brandon Matthews gets dress rehearsal at Wells Fargo Championship, tells dad ‘We bleeping did it’

“I can’t wait to do this consistently on a weekly basis, get out here full time. Maybe we can fast-track it out here this week.”

When Brandon Matthews won the Astara Golf Championship in Bogota, Colombia on February 13, he blinked back tears and wiped his eyes as he thought about making a phone call to his father back home in POn the verge of locking up his PGA Tour card, Brandon Matthews gets dress rehearsal at Wells Fargo Championshipennsylvania.

“He’s my best friend in the world,” Matthews said. “What he’s done for me, been there for me through thick and thin, the way he’s raised me, God, I can’t wait to go see him.”

As for the phone call that day? “We ‘bleeping’ did it was the actual first words,” Matthews recounted during a pre-tournament press conference ahead of the PGA Tour’s Wells Fargo Championship, where he is competing this week on a sponsor’s exemption. “To go back and look at all the hard work and the dedication my father put in for me, the sacrifices that he has made to get me to where I am, it’s, you know, it goes without saying how special he is to me.”

The 27-year-old Temple alum enters the week ranked No. 4 on the Korn Ferry Tour Points List, with the Top 25 earning a PGA Tour card for next season. Matthews credited his dad for getting him into the game and creating a long-bomber’s mentality that has become his signature.

Wells Fargo: Odds and picks | PGA Tour Live on ESPN+ | Thursday tee times

“The 15th hole at my home club, Emanon (Country Club in Falls, Pennsylvania), has a little lake to cover and he used to sit me on the women’s tee when I was four, five years old and it was probably 60 yards to cover it,” Matthews explained. “From there, as soon as I got it over, he moved me back a tee and then did the same thing, as soon as I got it over from the next tee back, move back a tee. So, from a very young age I was just trying to hit it as hard as I can, so I developed power before I developed technique. So I think that was one of the main reasons why I hit it so far, because I just learned it at an early age, hit it as hard as you can.”

And bomb it he does: his 6-iron carries about 216 and the 6-foot-4, 210-pound Matthews led the Korn Ferry Tour in driving distance in 2019 (331.3 yards).

“My normal one that I’ve been hitting, kind of the “fairway finder cruiser” will fly somewhere around just over 330,” Matthews said of his driver, “and then if I kind of lift one, I can fly north of 340.”

He hits it so far, in fact, that two out of the last three weeks he took driver out of the bag on tighter tracks.

“It’s just so painful to do because for me, I’ve been hitting my driver so well for the past few years,” Matthews said.

He confirmed he will be swinging the big stick this week at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farms in Potomac, Maryland, not far from the nation’s capital, in what may feel a lot like a home game for him.

“This is probably the closest event to Philadelphia and Scranton that I’ve ever played in, so it’s going to be really exciting to see the amount of people come down and support me,” said Matthews, who noted that his fiancée and father will both be in attendance. “I’ve already got a thousand texts about people coming down and wishing me luck.”

Matthews, who won twice on PGA Tour Latinoamérica en route to winning the circuit’s 2020-21 Order of Merit, posted a runner-up and victory in back-to-back weeks in February on the Korn Ferry Tour. In winning in Bogota, he closed with a birdie-birdie-eagle finish to grab the title by one stroke.

Matthews is probably best-known for a tournament he didn’t win. Battling in a playoff for the Argentine Open, and a corresponding spot in the 2020 British Open, Matthews missed an eight-foot birdie putt on the fourth playoff hole when a yell from the crowd disturbed him. When told it was a fan with Down’s Syndrome, Matthews went and embraced the fan and signed him a glove.

“I had a friend, Matt Ryan, down there that literally came up to me afterwards and he said, ‘This is going to be great for you.’ I’m like, ‘Matt, we’re in Buenos Aires, Argentina, I just did that because it’s the right thing to do. No one’s going to pick this up,’” Matthews recalled.

He couldn’t have been more wrong. His response went viral and he ended up earning a sponsor’s invite to the 2020 Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Matthews’ game continues to trend in the right direction. This week amounts to a dress rehearsal before his eventual promotion to the big time for his rookie campaign in 2022-23.

“I can’t wait to do this consistently on a weekly basis, get out here full time,” he said. “Maybe we can fast-track it out here this week.”

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Today’s feel-good story: Brandon Matthews receives sponsor’s invite to Arnold Palmer Invitational

Brandon Matthews good deed gets recognized by the Arnold Palmer Invitational

Ever since Arnold Palmer passed away in 2016, the Arnold Palmer Invitational keeps thinking up new ways to keep his memory alive and well at the annual PGA Tour gathering at his Orlando golf club, Bay Hill Club & Lodge. Well, Palmer certainly would have approved of the tournament offering a sponsor’s exemption to Brandon Matthews, who will make his PGA Tour debut at the API in March.

“Words can’t describe how grateful I am for this opportunity,” Matthews tweeted. “I cannot wait to tee it up next week!”

Matthews, 25, and a Pennsylvania native like Palmer, lost the 2019 Visa Open de Argentina title in a playoff after a fan with Down syndrome made a loud noise, distracting him as he attempted a 12-foot putt to extend the playoff to a fourth hole.

“I kind of gave it a little too much right-hand and left it short left. I turned around because I was disappointed at first because I thought someone did it on purpose,” Matthews explained in a video interview posted on the Arnold Palmer Invitational Twitter feed on Thursday. “Once I finally understood it was a middle-aged man with special needs that changed the whole thing because obviously he didn’t mean to do that.”

In a wonderful gesture of grace in defeat, Matthews left the locker room and went and found the fan to give him a hug and sign a golf ball and a glove for him.

“I just wanted to make sure he was all right and it was really important to me to make sure that he was a fan of golf for life and it didn’t leave a bad taste in his mouth and all that,” Matthews said.

“There are some things in life that are just bigger than golf,” Matthews told PGA Tour.com, “and this was one of them.”

Now, Matthews, who has played in three Korn Ferry Tour events this season with a best result of T-38 at the Bahamas Great Abaco Classic, is going to make his Tour debut at Arnie’s Place.

“To get an exemption into this tournament is really special, especially since this is Mr. Palmer’s tournament,” Matthews said. “To be recognized in any light with him is special and any way that I can make people’s lives better, the game better, I’m proud to be a part of that.”

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Brandon Matthews shows compassion to fan who yelled in tense playoff moment

After learning the story behind a fan’s yell in a critical moment of the Argentine Open playoff, Brandon Matthews sought to make it right.

Brandon Matthews once went on an 11-tournament top-10 streak – which encompassed a three-tournament winning streak – while playing college golf for Temple University. Since turning professional in 2016, Matthews has won just once, at the 2017 Molino Canuelas Championship, and hasn’t authored any streak quite that eye-catching.

After a near miss at this week’s Argentine Open on the PGA Tour Latinoamerica, he may be better known in the short term for his compassion than his consistency.

On the brink of his second career win, and a corresponding spot in the 2020 British Open, Matthews, 25, entered a sudden death playoff with Ricardo Celia on Sunday after both reached 11 under for 72 holes.

Argentine Open: Leaderboard

The two men tied the first two holes, and as Matthews stood over an eight-footer for birdie to extend the playoff to a fourth hole, a yell rang out from the crowd. Matthews missed the putt, despite having felt his putter was dialed in all week.

“At that stage,” he told Golf Digest, “any minute noise resonates.”

The missed putt was perhaps season-altering. It handed Celia the title. Matthews was frustrated in the moment, but that was before the pieces came together.

As it turns out, the voice belonged to a middle-aged man with Down Syndrome, a detail Matthews only came to know because a tour official sought him out to offer an explanation in the locker room after the playoff ended, according to Golf Digest reporting.

Matthews immediately returned to the course to meet with the man, sign a glove and assure him that he was not upset.

“I wanted to make sure he didn’t feel badly about the situation,” Matthews told Golf Digest. “I grew up around people with special needs because of what my mom did when I was kid and have a soft spot in my heart [for people with special needs].”

The gesture fits Matthews’ humble nature. The 25-year-old grew up in DuPont, Pennsylvania, learning the game from his dad Ted, a former baseball player.

Ted, the general manager of McCarthy Tire in a nearby town, always bonded with his son over golf. Brandon’s mom Donna worked for Goodwill Industries while Brandon was growing up, and he frequently went to group homes to visit with people who had Down Syndrome or cerebral palsy.

Matthews said it gave him perspective on life.

The runner-up in Argentina – his second top-5 finish on the Latinoamerica Tour in the past two weeks – still represents one of the high points of Matthews’ short professional career. It comes at a good time, considering that it has been a rough year. In 21 Korn Ferry Tour starts during the 2019 season, he made only four cuts.

Matthews is still finding his way in professional golf, but the important stuff? That seems to come naturally.

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