Tag: Eric Cole

6 notables among those who missed the cut at 2024 Cognizant Classic

Many golfers saw some wild fluctuations between their Thursday and Friday scores.

The field of 144 at the 2024 Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches is down to 68 after the cut came on Saturday morning at PGA National.

Play was halted for darkness after each of the first two rounds, and that meant 13 golfers had to return to the course Saturday morning to finish their second rounds. There were actually 14 who hadn’t played 36 holes by Friday night but Chandler Phillips withdrew with one hole to go. He was 6 over.

The tournament, in its first year with a new name, has $9 million up for grabs, with $1.62 million going to the winner. Chris Kirk is the defending champion and he’s tied for 24th. Bud Cauley is the solo leader after two days. He’s at 11 under. The cut was 2 under.

There is a slew of others not so lucky after a windy Friday at PGA National, many of due to some wild fluctuations between the score they signed for Thursday compared to their scores on Friday.

The reigning PGA Tour Rookie of the Year is cashing in this year through a busy schedule

He has already amassed $1.37 million this season although he will finally enjoy a week off.

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. — Eric Cole was not happy with the way he hit the ball from tee to green during Friday’s second round of the Genesis Invitational, so he headed to the range following his 18 holes and got to work. It paid off on Saturday.

And then it paid off again after Sunday’s final round, when Cole earned nearly a half-million dollars.

Cole, the South Florida resident and the PGA Tour’s 2023 rookie of the year, not only fired a 6-under 65 during the second round, but he was first in the field in strokes gained: tee to green for the day when he finished his round.

“Got some things dialed in,” Cole said. “It was definitely better (Saturday). Made a couple of putts on top of that.”

Cole improved each of the first three days at Riviera Country Club with scores of 73, 69 and 65. His final-round 69 dropped him out of contention, but he still finished strong enough to place in a six-way tie with Tommy Fleetwood, Sam Burns, Scottie Scheffler, Adam Svensson and J.T. Poston for 10th place.

That proved enough to walk home with $455,000.

Hideki Matsuyama won the event after a bogey-free 9-under 62 on Sunday. For his efforts, Matsuyama took home the signature event’s top prize of $4 million, nearly double what he earned for his 2021 Masters victory.

Will Zalatoris (69) and Luke List (68), who finished T-2 at 14 under, each took home $1.8 million as a consolation prize.

More: 2024 Genesis Invitational prize money payouts for each PGA Tour player

But for Cole, his breakout year in 2023, the year in which he turned 35. He played 37 events with seven top 10s, including two seconds. One of those was the Honda Classic (now Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches) where he lost a playoff to Chris Kirk. Cole will return to play in this year’s Cognizant, which starts Feb. 29 at PGA National.

All of that resulted in Cole capturing the tour’s Rookie of the Year, 50 years after his mom, Laura Baugh, won the same award on the LPGA Tour. He is the second-oldest player to be named top rookie behind Todd Hamilton, who was 39 when he won in 2004. The Rookie of the Year Award was established in 1990.

Cole, who has risen to a career-high No. 37 in the world rankings (he was No. 328 one year ago) continues to seek his first PGA Tour win. Genesis marked his seventh straight start this season. He now has five top-25 finishes and has already amassed $1.37 million this season although he will finally enjoy a week off as the Tour travels to Mexico this week.

“I always have high expectations for myself,” he said. “Maybe it’s not as big of a shock to other people this year versus last year but golf is a tough sport and anytime you have a good day it’s a good thing. It’s always a good feeling when you have a good day.”

Tom D’Angelo is a sports columnist and reporter at The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at tdangelo@pbpost.com. Follow him on social media @tomdangelo44.

Collin Morikawa, Jason Day lead notable players to miss 2024 Farmers Insurance Open cut at Torrey Pines

Check out the list of big names who are heading home (or to Pebble Beach) earlier than expected.

SAN DIEGO — Eight of the top 20 players in the Official World Golf Ranking made the trip to this week’s PGA Tour stop along the California coast, and five made the 36-hole cut, the only time this season there will be a Thursday cut.

While most of the top-ranked players in the field earned tee times for the South Course at Torrey Pines on Friday and Saturday, a handful of well-known players will be heading home (or up the road to Pebble Beach) earlier than planned from the 2024 Farmers Insurance Open.

In all, 79 players made the cut, leading to threesomes going off both the 1st and 10th tee.

Here are the notable PGA Tour players (and southern California club professionals) who are heading home early after missing the cut – which came in at 3 under – at Torrey Pines.

FARMERS: Friday tee times | Photos | Euros atop leaderboard

Did PGA Tour players botch their Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year winners? Let’s see what the numbers have to say

The races for both awards were close, and those who came up short can make the case they should’ve won.

Three days into the new year, and the PGA Tour finally announced its winners for the 2023 Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year awards ahead of its first event of 2024 later this week in Hawaii.

Scottie Scheffler won the Jack Nicklaus Award as the Player of the Year for the second consecutive season while Eric Cole picked up the Arnold Palmer Award as the Rookie of the Year. Both had terrific seasons and were worthy of consideration, but should they have been the winners?

Below is a pair of tables for both awards with blind resumes for each. Let’s see what the numbers have to say for both honors.

Player of the Year

Player Wins Major finishes Runner-up Top 10 Top 25 Missed cuts Total events
Player 1 4 1-T50-T10-T2 2 10 13 1 20
Player 2 2 T10-T2-3-T23 2 17 21 0 23
Player 3 3 T7-T2-19-T13 1 9 18 0 23

Talk about two stellar seasons. Players 2 and 3 didn’t miss a cut and were more consistent with top 10 and top 25 finishes, though they did make three more starts. Player 2 was more consistent but didn’t win as much as Players 3 or 1 (who also bagged a major championship).

Nine players out of 10 would take Player 1’s season over Players 2 or 3. Winning matters more to these guys than just about anything. They don’t tee it up to simply compete and get in contention. That extra win for Player 3 might even trump the slightly more consistent year of Player 2.

Player 1 was Jon Rahm, Player 2 was Scheffler, and Player 3 was FedEx Cup champion Viktor Hovland, who claimed the last two playoff events of the season.

The players will catch some considerable flack for Rahm’s apparent slight, especially after the Spaniard recently took his talents to the rival LIV Golf. This also marks the second consecutive year the winner of the season-long FedEx Cup wasn’t the Player of the Year.

Rookie of the Year

Player Wins Runner-up Top 10 Top 25 Missed cuts Total events
Player 1 1 1 4 8 1 11
Player 2 0 2 7 14 10 37

These two contenders had considerably different seasons. Player 1 has a smaller body of work but holds a clear advantage with a win. He finished inside the top 10 in 36 percent of his starts and 73 percent of the time he was in the top 25. Comparatively, 19 percent of the time Player 2 was in the top 10, and 38 percent of his starts ended with top 25 finishes. Once again, the advantage goes to Player 1 (although Player 2 made three times the appearances).

If you didn’t figure it out just by seeing the stats, Player 1 was rising star Ludvig Aberg, while Player 2 was the award-winner Cole. Aberg was in college for more than half the Tour’s season, and his fewer appearances may have weighed him down in the eyes of his peers. That said, he played as often as he could and contended more than his counterpart.

All five players were worthy of consideration, but the numbers point to different outcomes.

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35-year-old Eric Cole wins PGA Tour’s Rookie of the Year, second-oldest winner in history

Cole finished in the top five in four of his final five events in 2023.

Eric Cole waited more than a decade to get his PGA Tour card after turning pro.

The wait paid off.

Cole, 35, was named the Tour’s 2022-23 Rookie of the Year on Wednesday to win the Arnold Palmer Award. He’s the second-oldest winner of the Arnold Palmer Award in the Tour’s history (Todd Hamilton was 38 when he won in 2004) and he beat out rising star Ludvig Aberg for the title.

The PGA Tour Player of the Year and PGA Tour Rookie of the Year awards are determined by a member vote, with Tour members who played in at least 15 official FedExCup events during the 2022-23 season eligible to vote. Scottie Scheffler was voted Player of the Year.

“It’s a huge honor to win Rookie of the Year,” Cole said. “It’s an award in golf where you only get one chance to win it, which is a little bit unique. To win that and be voted by my peers is pretty incredible, and it’s just a huge honor.”

Cole’s mother, Laura Baugh, was the LPGA Rookie of the Year in 1973.

Cole had seven top-10 finishes last season, including a runner-up at the Honda Classic (now the Cognizant Classic). There were 28 rookies last season and he was the only one to finish in the top 50 of the FedEx Cup standings.

He finished in the top five in four of his final five events in 2023, helping secure his status among the up-and-comers on the PGA Tour and the title of Rookie of the Year.

BY THE NUMBERS: Did the players get the vote right?

Over the last 12 months, Cole rose from 228th to 20th in the Golfweek/Sagarin rankings but his year did get off to a rocky start. He missed his first four cuts, which included testing positive for COVID-19 at the 2022 Fortinet Championship and then having his clubs stolen a couple weeks later at the Shriners Children’s Open.

He ended up making 37 starts, though, with his best finish coming at the Honda when he fell in a playoff against Chris Kirk. He tied for second at the Zozo Championship in Japan and finished T-3 at the season-ending RSM Classic.

“It was a long year,” Cole said. “I got a lot of comments that I played a lot, but I was just so happy to be out on Tour finally, and any chance I had to compete on Tour just felt like a huge privilege.

“I didn’t get off to the best start missing some early cuts, but then kind of got it together a little bit and started to play really consistently and pretty well there the last half of the year and kind of capped it off with a pretty good fall, so it was awesome.”

His last missed cut came in May at the Charles Schwab Challenge, making 15 straight cuts to end the year. He’s in the field at the season-opening The Sentry, playing in the first two rounds with Open champion Brian Harman and Camilo Villegas.

Biggest risers, fallers in the Golfweek/Sagarin men’s pro golf rankings in 2023

The old phrase “what a difference a year” makes certainly applies to a good number of pro golfers.

The old phrase “what a difference a year” makes certainly applies to a good number of pro golfers.

When it comes to the Golfweek/Sagarin rankings for men’s professional golf, there some good and some not so good in terms of where players ranked a year ago as compared to now.

For Will Zalatoris, he was one of the big sliders the wrong direction. Not his fault, really, as he underwent back surgery and missed a lot of action.

Meanwhile, rising star Ludvig Aberg is more like a shooting star, as he has rocketed into the top 10 of the December 2023 rankings.

Here’s a closer look at some of the biggest movers in the Golfweek/Sagarin rankings from a year ago. How they work:

Jeff Sagarin’s rating system is based on a mathematical formula that uses a player’s won-lost-tied record against other players when they play on the same course on the same day, and the stroke differential between those players, then links all players to one another based on common opponents. The ratings give an indication of who is playing well over the past 52 weeks.

Also, players must have played in at least 10 events to be ranked.

Editor’s note: We’ve included the Official World Golf Ranking for the sake of comparison.

‘Augusta National Golf Club cordially invites you:’ Players share photos of their 2024 Masters invitations

For players eligible for the Masters, it’s the most wonderful time of the year.

It’s that wonderful time of year again when players start to share their Masters invitations. Augusta National will host the year’s first major in 2024 and there will surely be some drama when the week comes.

Defending champion Jon Rahm caused waves through the sporting world when he announced his move to LIV Golf on Dec. 7. The Green Jackets in Georgia have been clear that any player who qualifies for the Masters is welcome to participate. With his win, Rahm can play in the historic tournament as long as he wants.

The Masters teased the invitations on Dec. 21 and players around the game have begun to share photos of their Masters invitations. See them all below.

Players to watch: Predicting 10 first-time PGA Tour winners in 2024

Keep an eye on this mix of veterans and rising stars in 2024.

After taking a nearly two-month holiday hiatus, the PGA Tour will return to action the first week of January with the 2024 Sentry in Hawaii.

The last time we saw the boys in action, rookie Ludvig Aberg earned his first win on Tour at the RSM Classic in November. There were 13 first-time winners on Tour in 2023, up one from 12 the year prior. Golfweek predicted four of them.

So who do we have our eyes on for next year? From veterans to rising stars from the amateur ranks, here are 10 players who we predict will hoist a trophy on Tour for the first time in 2024.

PGA Tour rookie of the year? And who was the comeback player of 2023? We’ve got thoughts

Ballots for PGA Tour awards for the year won’t be mailed out to players until December, but why wait?

The PGA Tour ended its 2023 season with the RSM Classic, the last of the fall events that don’t count in the FedEx Cup race. The new season, no longer using a wraparound season, will begin in January in Hawaii, with The American Express in La Quinta as the third event of the new season and the second full-field event of the year.

Ballots for PGA Tour awards for the year won’t be mailed out to players until December, with honors like player of the year and rookie of the year to be decided. But why wait that long, when we can just conjecture who will win some of the awards based on what we already know about the 2023 season?

So here’s a guess at who will walk away with one of the awards (not to mention one that is no longer handed out):

Ludvig Aberg leads, Matt Atkins gets emotional among 5 things from Friday at 2023 RSM Classic

Another week, another strong start for Sweden’s Aberg.

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. — Another week, another strong start for Sweden’s Ludvig Aberg.

The rookie sensation and European Ryder Cupper didn’t turn pro until after the NCAA Championship in May but won in September on the DP World Tour and has been threatening to do the same on the PGA Tour. He’s down to his last chance before the calendar flips as he grabbed the 36-hole lead at the RSM Classic on Friday with a bogey-free 6-under 64 at the Sea Island Resort’s Seaside Course.

“I consider myself very, very fortunate to be in this position and I view it as a privilege to be able to feel that kind of pressure and tension and nervousness,” he said. “It’s not something that I want to back down from. I want to keep doing what I’m doing and hit good golf shots and make putts.”

2023 RSM Classic
Ludvig Aberg plans a shot from the 16th tee during the second round of the 2023 RSM Classic on the Seaside Course at Sea Island Resort in St Simons Island, Georgia. (Photo: Alex Slitz/Getty Images)

Aberg drained a 20-foot birdie putt at the last to take a one-stroke lead over Eric Cole, Denny McCarthy and Sam Ryder at 11-under 131. It marked Aberg’s first 36-hole lead or co-lead and lowest opening 36-hole score in what is his 11th start on Tour as a professional. How comfortable does he feel being in front?

“I think I’ve been in the lead a few times, and every time you do it, it gets easier,” he said.

Here are four more things to know about the second round of the RSM Classic.