Players looking for competitive reps will tee it up anywhere and everywhere. This summer, that could mean everywhere from state opens to charity events to the Korn Ferry Tour. The Monday qualifier is loaded for the Korn Ferry Challenge at TPC Sawgrass, the KFT’s restart event to be played June 11-14 at TPC Sawgrass’ Dye’s Valley Course in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.
More than 250 players will tee it up at two sites – Palencia Club in St. Augustine, Florida, and Eagle Harbor Golf Club in Orange Park, Florida – on Monday ahead of the Korn Ferry Tour event, and their resumes are all over the board.
Eight Monday qualifiers will be added, four each from Palencia and Eagle Harbor, to the Korn Ferry Challenge field (which is deep itself).
A quick look at the field reveals experience levels from PGA Tour winners, like Jonathan Byrd and Smylie Kaufman, on down. Martin Piller and Nicholas Thompson are seasoned pros who have also bounced between the PGA and Korn Ferry tours. James Driscoll is a two-time Korn Ferry Tour winner.
Akshay Bhatia, the 18-year-old and former No. 1 junior who turned professional after last year’s Walker Cup, is also in the field.
Former Duke teammates Chandler Eaton, who made the cut at the 2019 U.S. Open and advanced all the way to the final stage of Korn Ferry Tour Q-School last fall, and Alex Smalley, two-time Sunnehanna Amateur winner and a U.S. Walker Cupper, are in the field. Put past Stanford teammates (and Walker Cup teammates) Brandon Wu, who also made the 2019 U.S. Open cut, and Isaiah Salinda in that same group.
Sunny Kim has still gotten competitive reps during the pandemic through mini-tour golf and in March carded a 59 to win his 67th event on the Minor League Golf Tour.
Former Augusta State player Broc Everett, who won the 2018 individual NCAA title, will tee it up and so will Chase Koepka, the younger brother of Brooks Koepka.
Korn Ferry Tour player Chip McDaniel is of particular interest in this setting. He garnered the moniker “Mr. Monday” after he successfully Monday qualified for three PGA Tour events in 2019 in addition to navigating his way through U.S. Open sectional qualifying.
This time last year, Brandon Mancheno was gearing up for the start of the summer amateur circuit at the Dogwood Invitational, an event he won. Mancheno, a Jacksonville native and a junior at Auburn, will have a little different week now that the Dogwood has been canceled. Also keep an eye on Davis Thompson, a Georgia junior who is ranked No. 5 in the World Amateur Golf Rankings.
Other up-and-comers include recent college graduates Luis Gagne (LSU), Will Gordon (Vanderbilt), Will Grimmer (Ohio State) and Norman Xiong (Oregon).
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