Tag: erik barnes

Brice Garnett outlasts Erik Barnes in four-hole playoff at 2024 Puerto Rico Open, earns spot in the Players Championship

Garnett’s last win came six years ago.

The first opposite-field event of the 2024 PGA Tour season was a two-man race down the stretch that went to a lengthy playoff.

On one side was Erik Barnes, who turned pro in 2011 but was making just his 22nd PGA Tour start. On the other was Brice Garnett, who six years ago won his lone tournament, the 2018 Corales Puntacana Resort and Club Championship in the Dominican Republic. This was his 241st start.

In a social media post from 2020 that resurfaced Sunday, Barnes talked about taking a job as a Grocery Replenishment Specialist, with the shifts starting at 4 a.m., during COVID when playing opportunities diminished on the Korn Ferry Tour.

“It’s a nice way of saying ‘stock boy’,” he said at the time.

The duo were tied for the lead after regulation at 19 under, with both making par on the 630-yard par-5 18th. In the playoff, they each went par-birdie-par before Garnett drained a long right-to-left breaking putt for a birdie, leaving Barnes to match with a putt from the fringe for birdie but he ran it by the left.

That ended the longest playoff in tournament history as Garnett won for the second time on Tour, six years after his first. He earned $720,000 for the win as well as full exempt status on the PGA Tour through the 2026 season.

He also earned a spot in this week’s 2024 Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.

Ben Kohles, Jimmy Stanger and Victor Perez, who shot a 65 Sunday, tied for third.

Amateur Jackson Van Paris, a junior at Vanderbilt playing in his first PGA Tour event, posted the low score in the final round, an 8-under 64. He was in 50th place to start the day but finished tied for 10th.

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After career low, Erik Barnes in hunt but he trails Rick Lamb at KFT’s Memorial Health Championship

Lamb led Erik Barnes, of Marion, Indiana, and Chad Ramey by a stroke. Barnes’ 63 tied his career low on the Korn Ferry Tour.

Rick Lamb ended his opening round of the Korn Ferry Tour’s Memorial Health Championship presented by LRS at Panther Creek Country Club a day late but it didn’t prevent him from taking the first-round lead.

Lamb, of Nashville, Tennessee, finished with a 9-under-par 62 on Friday in his two-day round — suspended Thursday due to rain and lightning at 3:29 p.m. Golfers were subjected to rain showers on Friday as well, but play began with the remaining first-round golfers at 8 a.m. Second-round tee times were moved to begin at 10:15 a.m. on Friday, with the last group out at 5:15 p.m.

Lamb had birdies on Nos. 11, 12, 14, 16 and 18 on his first nine holes then finished his 18-hole round with a barrage of birdies on the final four holes to finish with a career-low 62.

“I’ll take four birdies in a row anytime, it’s nice to finish the round that way,” Lamb said Friday morning. “But there’s a lot of golf left and it’s going to be a long weekend with all of this rain, a lot of stopping and starting.”

Last week in Colorado, Lamb missed the cut with a two-day score of 153.

“The game feels good,” said Lamb, a 30-year-old graduate of the University of Tennessee. “Pretty good bounce-back after last week. Last week was weird for me. I thought my game was in a pretty good place and then I went out and played terribly. It’s good to come back strong after that.”

Lamb led Erik Barnes, of Marion, Indiana, and Chad Ramey by a stroke. Barnes’ 63 tied his career low on the Korn Ferry Tour. Barnes is looking for his first win on the circuit.

Ramey, of Fulton, Mississippi, won the Live and Work in Maine Open last year for his only Korn Ferry win.

Charlie Wi, of South Korea, T.J. Vogel, of Hollywood, Florida, John VanDerLaan, of Southbury, Connecticut and Charlie Saxon, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, all finished with 7-under 64s. Wi, Vogel and VanDerLaan were able to finish their rounds on Thursday.

Last year’s champion at Panther Creek, Brett Drewitt, finished his first round 6-under and tied for eighth. No player in the 32-year history of the Korn Ferry Tour has won the same tournament in consecutive seasons.

University of Illinois graduate Nick Hardy shot a 5-under 66 in the first round.

In Friday’s second round, Jared Wolfe, of Ponte Vedra, Florida, tied the Panther Creek course record with a 10-under 61. Chase Wright set the record-low mark in 2018, also in Round 2.