Valdes won for the first time in 80 starts on the Korn Ferry Tour.
Trent Phillips shot a final-round 66, tying for low round of the day, to get into a playoff against Jorge Fernandez Valdes at the 2023 UNC Health Championship on Sunday on the Korn Ferry Tour.
Phillips, who turned pro last year, had four consecutive birdies on Nos. 13 through 16 before closing with back-to-back pars. Meanwhile, Valdes, 30, who eagled the par-4 9th, survived a bogey on the 16th hole to shoot a 68 to also make it to bonus golf at Raleigh Country Club in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Both golfers reached 13 under, one clear of the field, to force overtime.
But the extra golf was over quickly, as Valdes made birdie on the first playoff hole to win for the first time in 80 Korn Ferry Tour starts. Prior to this win, had had five top-25s and five missed cuts during the 2023 season.
Valdes celebrated on the 18th green with his wife Martina and daughter Azalea after the trophy presentation.
Third-round leader and Raleigh native Grayson Murray birdied the final hole but otherwise had a disastrous back-nine, with a double bogey on the par-5 12th and bogeys on Nos 13, 16 and 17. He shot a back-nine 39 and a final-round 1-over 71 to miss the playoff by a shot. Two weeks after winning on the Korn Ferry Tour, Murray tied John Augenstein for third.
Kyle Westmoreland, the first Air Force Academy graduate to earn his PGA Tour card, had a first-round 63, which tied for low round of the week. He started the final round a shot back and went on to finish solo fifth after a final-round 71.
The ace is the second of Phillips’ career, but he never saw the first one go in.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Trent Phillips wrote a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 on his scorecard Saturday in the second round of the 2022 NCAA Div. I Men’s Golf Championship at Grayhawk Golf Club.
We’ll call that a desert golf six-pack.
The senior from Inman, South Carolina, sits T-18 at 3 over after rounds of 71-72 to start his final quest for a national championship. Phillips made the first hole-in-one of the tournament on Saturday with his ace on the 230-yard par-3 13th.
”It was pretty electric,” said Phillips of his second career hole-in-one. “It was a full 6-iron, I hit hard, it looked good all the way, and it went in. I could see it go in and then I saw all the people going crazy. It was a great feeling.”
Seeing the ball go in was important for Phillips, since he never saw his first ace drop. In a Q&A on the Georgia website, Phillips told the unique story of his first hole-in-one:
Q: Have you ever had a hole-in-one? If so, can you tell me about your first one?
Phillips: I know it’s going to sound weird but I think I’ve had one. That sounds really weird.
It was in high school and we were playing a practice round for our state championship at Furman. I hit this 7-iron and it never left the (flagstick), and I just never saw it. It literally went right over the top of the flag and I’m thinking, ‘There’s a hazard back there.’ I’m thinking, ‘Did I fly the green?’ I go over the green and look in the hazard, and then I go look in the hole. And there’s a ball in the hole.
I think I flew it in and didn’t see it.
If a ball goes in the hole and nobody sees it, did it really happen?
Phillips is a finalist for the Haskins Award – given annually to the men’s college golfer of the year – after his win at the Williams Cup, a pair of runner-up finishes at the Carmel Cup and Linger Longer Invitational and a pair of fourth-place finishes at the Puerto Rico Classic and Calusa Cup. The senior ended his spring by finishing fifth at the SEC Championship and 12th at the NCAA Bryan Regional.
His Bulldogs sit T-10 at 23 over with a cut to the top 15 teams awaiting after Sunday’s third round.
Meet the finalists in the running for men’s college player of the year.
The postseason is underway in college golf, and after last week’s NCAA Regionals, the NCAA Division I Men’s Championship field is set for May 27-June 1 at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona.
With that championship field set, the race for the Haskins Award is wide open and white-hot. A handful of players have shone throughout the season as front-runners for the Haskins Award, which honors the player of the year in men’s college golf, as selected by college golfers, coaches and members of the college golf media.
The players are listed alphabetically. Players on the Haskins Award Watch List were selected by a panel of Golfweek and Golf Channel writers.
Trent Phillips saved his best for last after four years playing the Sunnehanna Amateur, adding his name to a prestigious winner’s list.
There is some amount of timing involved in making a run at the Walker Cup, the top line on many an amateur player’s goal sheet. Win the Sunnehanna Amateur, and you can guarantee a pretty hard look for that team. In the case of Trent Phillips, however, the clock will likely run out on his amateur career before another look for the team in 2023.
Phillips, who appeared on a Walker Cup practice squad after his freshman year at Georgia and is about to enter his senior season there, has teed it up in competition four times at Sunnehanna Country Club in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. This trip is likely to be his last, but he’ll go out on top after a one-shot victory on Saturday over Ian Siebers, a Duke freshman, and that’s a good enough line on the resume for him.
Phillips and the rest of the Sunnehanna field faced some amount of wind every day. “The weather was a little weird today,” as Phillips said on Saturday afternoon, which caused the greens to get a little soft in the final round. In his mind, that made the course play even harder.
“The greens are wicked and they have so much slope that the balls were almost plugging and landing on spots where they would normally funnel down to the low areas,” he said.
The Inman, South Carolina, native approached the final round wanting to play aggressively and keep his foot on the gas. He had a one-shot lead after three rounds and didn’t want to fall into the trap of coasting it home. He couldn’t, as it turns out, with Siebers firing a 65 behind him plus Travis Vick (third) bringing in a 66 and Leo Oyo (T4) a 64 behind that.
Travis Vick, Ian Siebers and Trent Phillips at the Sunnehanna Amateur. (Photo: Barry Reeger)
Phillips thinks the challenge at Sunnehanna lies in placing it on the right spots on the greens.
“For me, and I feel like a lot of people would say this too, just keeping it underneath the hole and hitting fairways. That rough out there is super thick…” he said. “So keeping it in the fairway is important and keeping it under the hole to have uphill putts.”
On his way to a final-round 68 (which left him at 9 under for the week), Phillips “drove it fantastic,” hitting every fairway as well as 14 greens.
As the No. 48-ranked player in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, Phillips’ summer continues with more of the best stops on the amateur calendar: next week’s Northeast Amateur then the Western Amateur and the U.S. Amateur in the following months.
The Sunnehanna breakthrough could lead to more.
“My past couple summers just haven’t been great. I’ve had great college season and then I come play summer golf and it’s just not all there,” he said. “So this was really important for me to get off to a good start in the summer, especially heading into my senior year.”
Phillips thinks it was as much about what was going on in his mind as it was being a younger player without so much awareness of his golf game. Simple mistakes add up.
“When you grow up, you get better each year, that’s kind of what I’ve learned throughout college,” he said. “Each year I’ve gotten better, and my scores may not show it each week but I’m learning and you just learn each week some new things that you can carry on with you.”
Back home in South Carolina, Phillips works on his game with Tommy Biershenk and Taylor Crosby. But after three weeks on the road – Phillips competed for the victorious Americans last week in the Arnold Palmer Cup – he’s not rushing back to the range.
The ability to lay low may be one secret to Phillips’ newfound good headspace, even though it’s been something he’s always practiced.
“I like to kind of stay away from golf sometimes when I get back from long trips and stuff like that,” he said, “just because I don’t get a whole lot of time to myself, especially with golf and the college season so when I get a chance I like to take advantage of it and just practice when I can.”
