Tag: Jesse Mueller

Kim Paez makes history as first woman to win Southwest PGA Championship

She became the first woman to win in the 66-year history of the event.

Kim Paez became the first woman to win the Southwest PGA Championship in the 66-year history of the event. A former Big West Conference champion at the University of California-Irvine, Paez shot 1-over 73 in the final round on the Cholla Course at We-Ko-Pa Golf Club on Wednesday to finish with a 6-under total and a one-shot victory over Jesse Mueller, who bogeyed three of his last six holes.

She won $9,000 for her efforts and a spot in the PGA Professional Championship next spring in Frisco, Texas. Paez becomes only the fourth female professional to win a Section Championship, joining Suzy Whaley (2002), Taylor Collins (2021) and Sandra Changkija (2022).

“This is just so special, almost unbelievable, and it really hasn’t sunk in yet,” Paez told SWPGA. “I am scared to pinch myself because I think I might still be sleeping from the night before. But this is so special to me because once I got my PGA Class A membership, I knew I wanted to do some big things as a PGA member and for our Southwest Section.”

A PGA Player Development Director for Ping, Paez was making her debut in the championship after earning membership last December. Females participating in PGA Section Championships play setups that are 85 percent of the men’s yardage. On the final day of the championship, the men’s yardage was 7,211 yards.

Kim Paez
Kim Paez hits a shot during the Southwest PGA Championship. (courtesy Zac BonDurant/Southwest PGA)

While the winner of the Southwest PGA Championship traditionally earns an exemption into the WM Phoenix Open, a PGA Tour rule stipulates that a player must play from the back tees to be eligible, according to the SWPGA release.

Runner-up Mueller instead received the exemption into the Phoenix Open, which will take place Feb. 8-11 at TPC Scottsdale (Arizona). Mueller competed in both the 2018 and 2021 Phoenix Open.

“Kim has a nice game,” said Mueller. “She hits it straight and is a really nice putter. She really rolls it, which you can tell the minute she hits it, she’s a good putter. I’m very proud of her to stand up to this field for three days and the course to finish up on top. It is really great for her.”

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With wife as caddie, Jesse Mueller wins PGA Professional Championship, earns one of 20 PGA Championship berths

Jesse Mueller and his wife celebrated their anniversary this year with dinner from Domino’s Pizza.

AUSTIN, Texas — Jesse Mueller’s idea of the perfect anniversary gift was heavy, time-consuming and required a little elbow grease. And his wife, also named Jessie albeit with a different spelling, wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Just a few days after celebrating his 12th wedding anniversary, the Arizona State University product and golf director at the Grand Canyon University course enjoyed a perfect Wednesday stroll around the grounds at picturesque Barton Creek Resort and Spa. He did so with his wife hauling his clubs around in the fill-in role of caddie, something she did for four days because her husband needed a helping hand.

And Mueller, who held a five-shot advantage heading into the final round of the PGA Professional Championship, did nothing to compromise his comfortable lead during Wednesday’s final round, finishing with a ho-hum 74 to earn take the title and one of 20 berths into the PGA Championship at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma, next month.

Mueller’s story is familiar — after a stellar high school at Red Mountain High School in Mesa, Arizona, and a college career at ASU, he kept grinding through a few years on minor circuits and mini-tours, with a dozen-and-a-half starts on the Web.com Tour sprinkled in.

He said his appreciation for the game has never wavered, but the weight that’s been lifted by his jump into course management has allowed him to enjoy the game a bit more.

“Some of the pressure’s off. It’s not my livelihood to play, so it’s more of a bonus,” he said. “I’m still working on it, practicing, but I might be a better player now than I was when I was playing full-time.”

Mueller — who became the first Southwest Section champ in the tournament’s history, dating back to 1968 — used an impeccable short game to build a big advantage, and while his chipping wasn’t as flawless in Wednesday’s final round as it had been earlier in the week, he managed to pull a few more key shots out of the bag.

PGA Professional Champion Jesse Mueller poses with the Walter Hagen Cup after winning the 54th PGA Professional Championship at the Omni Barton Creek Resort & Spa on April 20, 2022, in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Darren Carroll/PGA of America)

For example, Mueller saved par on No. 14 with an exquisite chip to a few inches that kept the lead at five strokes.

“On the first three days, I could not have chipped any better,” he said. “I chipped in three times for the week and I was just getting up and down all over the place. Out here, you have to because it’s so hard to hit all the greens with how windy is. So you have to get up and down out here.”

Despite a pair of bogeys coming down the homestretch, Mueller still finished the four-day event at 10 under, topping Jared Jones and Michael Block by five strokes.

Among those who also made a big move in the wind on Wednesday was Shawn Warren, a 37-year-old pro from Maine who qualified for his third PGA Championship by lighting up the windy course on Wednesday. While others were going backward, Warren fired a 66 — the best of the day — to leapfrog his way into the top 20. Warren, a former four-year captain at Marshall University, first reached the major in 2018.

But the big story was Mueller, who has previously played in one major— the 2012 U.S. Open at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. His wife has been training for a climb this summer at Mount Rainier, and that helped as the two traversed the rolling Austin hills.

And although her anniversary dinner consisted of Domino’s Pizza — since the pair finished their round late on Sunday and couldn’t find any nearby restaurants still open — Jessie insisted it was well worth the change in plans.

“It’s been a roller-coaster, for sure,” she said. “But he’s a phenomenal player, and I know that. The key was just to keep things going and have his game working at the right times, which he did this week.

“I’m really, really proud of him.”

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