The first two rounds of the 2022 Sanderson Farms Championship at The Country Club of Jackson are complete. It’s the second event of the PGA Tour’s 2022-23 season. Scores were lower during the second round, as numerous players climbed up the leaderboard to put themselves in position ahead of moving day.
Thomas Detry fired his second consecutive round of 5-under 67, and he leads at 10-under 134. Mackenzie Hughes caught fire Friday, shooting 8-under 64, and he’s one back of Detry. Sepp Straka is tied with Hughes after his round of 6-under 66.
The cut was 2-under 142. There are 78 players moving on to the weekend.
Here’s a look at a few notable names who missed the cut at the Sanderson Farms Championship:
Four players who started the week outside the top 30 moved in.
WILMINGTON, Del. – When Sahith Theegala finished his final round at the BMW Championship, he was projected to qualify as one of the top 30 in the FedEx Cup points standings. But there were too many players still on the course for him to celebrate.
“It would mean the world to make the Tour Championship and stand along 29 of the other best golfers in the world,” he said.
“A dream season,” is how Theegala, who a year ago was sweating out getting into the Korn Ferry Tour Finals when he boarded a plane for Boise not knowing whether he was in the field.
He entered Sunday sitting on the bubble and knowing what he had to do. That sort of pressure can do funny things to some golfers.
“I was like, I’m in 30th place out of 70 people, and I’m as nervous as if I were near the lead,” he said. “I had a little bit of the shakes warming up. I couldn’t hold my hands still.”
Theegala made birdie at the first hole to settle the nerves temporarily, but as he put it, his round was “a wild ride.”
He was one over for the day through 11 holes when strung together three straight birdies and then drained a 37-foot birdie at 17. Still, he’d hit only 1 of 14 fairways all day, dead last in the field, and tried something different, anything to find a fairway.
“I don’t know why I tried to hit a draw. My natural shot is a cut. Tried to draw a 5-wood, and it started 20 yards right of my target and then cut, so I hit it 50 right,” Theegala said.
He caught a good lie in order to slice one up near the green, but left himself a 7-foot par putt that was worth at least $500,000 – last place money next week where the rich get richer.
“That was such a grind,” he said after drilling the putt to shoot 3-under 68 and finish T-15.
His “dream season” continues another week as he improved to No. 28 in the FedEx Cup points standings, one of two rookies along with Cameron Young to make it to Atlanta and East Lake Golf Club for the Tour Championship.
“It’s another step for me to feel like I really belong because I still don’t feel like I’m really there at the top of the game,” he said.
Next week, he’ll be alongside 29 of the best in the world.
Here’s a look at others who are in the field at the Tour Championship and those who aren’t:
Plenty of players are looking to punch their tickets to East Lake Golf Club.
The second leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs begins Thursday at Wilmington Country Club in Wilmington, Delaware, at the BMW Championship. That means only the top-70 players from the PGA Tour FedEx Cup standings qualified and are shooting for the season-long prize, the FedEx Cup.
Only 68 players will tee it up, and from there, only the top 30 in the standings advance to the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. The winner of the FedEx Cup Playoffs will take home $18 million and the FedEx Cup.
Cameron Smith, No. 3 in the FedEx Cup standings and into next week’s field, won’t tee it up at the BMW Championship, withdrawing Monday.
Here’s a closer look at some names in the FedEx Cup points standings, including those who are on the bubble and others who need a big week to make the Tour Championship.
“It’s kind of hard to say ‘about time’ when it’s your second year on Tour, but about time,” — Zalatoris, who has 3 runner-up finishes this season
When Will Zalatoris opened the FedEx St. Jude Championship with a disappointing 1-over 71, his fiancée, Caitlin Sellers, phoned and innocently asked him, “What are your plans if you don’t make the weekend?”
“She meant that all in good fun,” Zalatoris said on Saturday.
And what did he tell her?
“I told her let’s cross that bridge when we get there,” Zalatoris said.
He did more than stick around for the weekend. After three runner-up finishes, including two at majors and two playoff defeats, Zalatoris was the victor of a sudden-death playoff over Sepp Straka to win his first PGA Tour title and vault into the top spot in the FedEx Cup point standings.
“It’s kind of hard to say ‘about time’ when it’s your second year on Tour, but about time,” Zalatoris said. “Considering all the close finishes that I’ve had this year, to finally pull it off, it means a lot.”
The 25-year-old reigning Tour rookie of the year shot a final-round 4-under 66 at TPC Southwind in Memphis, Tennessee, and became the second player to win his first tournament in the playoffs, joining Camilo Villegas, who did so at the 2008 BMW Championship. Ranked No. 14 in the world entering the week, Zalatoris already had a fruitful season, which included eight top-10s, the most among players without a win. He had threatened to claim his first Tour victory on several occasions, narrowly missing a birdie putt at the last to force a playoff at the U.S. Open and suffered playoff losses at the Farmers Insurance Open and PGA Championship. This time he was on the right side of the playoff ledger, becoming the first player to win a sudden-death playoff with a bogey since Sean O’Hair did so at the 2011 RBC Canadian Open.
Will Zalatoris holds the trophy after winning the 2022 FedEx St. Jude Championship at TPC Southwind in Memphis. (Photo: Christine Tannous/The Commercial Appeal)
First off, Zalatoris made sure he had weekend plans, rebounding with a bogey-free 63, his lowest round on Tour since the second round of the American Express in January. It didn’t take long for Zalatoris to figure out the reason for his sluggish start.
Zalatoris said he didn’t allow his new caddie, Joel Stock, to read the putts on the first day as they learn to get a feel for each other. Stock served as Zalatoris’s sidekick for the first time since Zalatoris and his longtime caddie, Ryan Goble, parted ways in the middle of last week’s Wyndham Championship.
Zalatoris posted a 65 on Saturday to climb within two strokes of the lead. He birdied the first three holes of the final round, including a 15-footer at the third, to take the lead. Zalatoris made a bogey at No. 7 but regained the lead with a birdie at 10. Straka, 29, who snapped a streak of six missed cuts and hadn’t played on the weekend since the Memorial in early June, made birdie at the 12th to tie Zalatoris for the lead at 14 under.
Both Zalatoris, a Wake Forest product, and Straka, a Georgia grad, converted short birdie putts at the par-5 16th to climb to 15 under. Zalatoris boomed a 310-yard drive at 18 into the right fairway bunker, came up short with his approach, pitched to 10 feet and canned the par putt. After being criticized for his unorthodox putting stroke, Zalatoris celebrated his clutch putt by referencing a Steph Curry line, exclaiming, “What are they going to say now?”
“I actually can’t believe I said that,” Zalatoris said, noting he’s a big Golden State Warriors fan and when Curry said that “it kind of related to kind of my journey so far…At least it wasn’t something worse, but yeah.”
Congrats @WillZalatoris 👏🏾 His resilience is a testament to his character and now he's a winner! He's been a rock solid dude through all the noise and I have so much respect for him because of that. Now watch him go! Bravo dude 🏆
Straka missed a 22-foot birdie putt to win in regulation as they tied at 15-under 265.
It was a wild playoff with Straka having to can a 6-foot par putt at 18 after his 24-foot putt for the win raced by at the first extra hole. Returning to 18 again, both players overcame poor tee shots to salvage par. And then it got really zany at the par-3 11th hole. Zalatoris had the honors and his tee shot bounced on the retaining wall multiple times, avoiding the water and settling between the wall and the rough.
Advantage Straka, except his tee shot bounced into the pond fronting the green. Following a drop, his third flew the green and landed in a bunker. After much deliberation, Zalatoris elected to take a drop, too, rather than risk hitting against the rock retaining wall.
“I couldn’t get the club on the ball,” Zalatoris said. “Considering where Sepp was and he had four feet for 5, there’s no reason for me to try that shot and make it bank right into the grass and go back in the water and all of a sudden I’ve lost the golf tournament.”
Zalatoris’s third shot from 94 yards stopped 7 feet from the hole and he lifted his arms to the sky when his putt dropped in.
With the victory, Zalatoris also earned quadruple points and unseated Scottie Scheffler, who missed the cut on Friday and had held the lead since March. But Scheffler remained World No. 1 as Cameron Smith was docked two strokes before the final round got underway for a penalty he committed on the fourth hole during the third round. Instead of trailing by two heading into the final round, Smith’s deficit bumped to four. He shot even-par 70 and finished T-13, six strokes back.
Lucas Glover, who started the week at No. 121 in the FedEx Cup Playoffs, made birdies at 16 and 17 to tie for the lead at 13 under, but bogeyed the last hole to shoot 66 and tie for third. He vaulted to No. 34 in the points standing and was among the top 70 to advance to the second playoff event at next week’s BMW Championship.
But this week belonged to Zalatoris, who won for the first time in his 56th start after many close calls.
“The first second at the Masters was life changing because it put me in position to play out here as much as I wanted to and put me kind of on the map,” Zalatoris said. “The second at the PGA was kind of affirmation that it wasn’t a fluke of a week, and the third one at the U.S. Open gave me that much more belief that I can win a major, I can win out here. It was just a matter of time and obviously this was my week.”
Zalatoris planned to celebrate, but he also was quick to point out that their was more work left to do.
“I think I’ve always had the attitude of the job’s not done and as great as it is to pull this off, I still feel like I’ve got some unfinished business going forward,” he said. “It’s obviously very satisfying, but this is the peak season for us obviously for the PGA Tour players and the grind continues.”
You’ve just won your first PGA Tour title, handled all the media obligations and now have to rush over the pond to get ready to make your debut in the Open Championship. But you’re in Kentucky with the Barbasol Championship hardware and your passport is home in Alabama, so — courtesy of the PGA Tour, which sets up a private jet — you fly south.
You repack, get three hours of sleep and then head for Scotland, the itinerary taking you through JFK and Dublin before touching down in Edinburgh. And that’s when you see the horrors at the hands of luggage handlers.
We’ll let Trey Mullinax take it from here.
“All my clubs were out of my (golf) bag when I got here,” Mullinax said. “A lot of clubs were bent, and so we had to adjust and stuff like that. I guess going through TSA, whatever, they took the irons out (of the golf bag) and put them not back in my golf bag. They were just lying in the travel case.
“A couple of irons were bent and stuff like that.”
But his travel nightmare has turned into a dream week at the 150th Open Championship played at the Home of Golf. After making the cut on the number, he and Kevin Kisner were the first two-ball out and Mullinax shot 6-under-par 66; Kisner shot 65. Mullinax will be able to sleep in a bit longer Sunday after moving up more than 50 spots on the leaderboard.
“A little bit of a blur,” Mullinax, 30, described his present state. “I left my house at 5 a.m. Monday morning, got here at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, and then teed off at like 1:30 for 18 holes. I was actually OK Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday I was really tired. I haven’t slowed down. I really haven’t had any time. I’m really looking forward to next week getting home to my family and hanging out with my kids and celebrating the win, seeing some friends and stuff like that.”
Trey Mullinax lifts up his two-year-old son Jude on the 18th green during the final round of the Barbasol Championship golf tournament. (Photo: Jordan Prather-USA TODAY Sports)
Playing the Old Course has certainly woken him up.
“Getting to hit shots I’ve never hit before,” he said of the highlights. “My caddie has been very prepared for the shots that we’re going to have to hit and the bump and runs you have to hit around here.
“I feel very prepared, and I feel like my game’s good.”
And now his putter is back to normal, too. On Friday night, Mullinax discovered the lie of his putter was off by 2 degrees.
“I knew it looked funny. I was having to tell my caddie, man, I’m having to forward press this a lot. I was like, man, I don’t know what’s going on,” he said. “The ball wasn’t rolling like it was in Kentucky. Surely I didn’t lose it in two days.
I found out today that it was 2 degrees off. I played a lot better today.
“Shooting 66 out here is never bad. I was just trying to keep up with Kiz the whole time. I mean, he was putting phenomenal. I started making some putts. It became kind of like who can make the most birdies? He made the most birdies. I sniffed him on the last hole. Might have caught a skin there with him.”
“Conversations with Champions presented by Sentry” is a weekly series from Golfweek and The Caddie Network.
“Conversations with Champions presented by Sentry” is a weekly series from Golfweek in collaboration with The Caddie Network, where we take you behind the scenes for a chat with the winning caddie from the most recent PGA Tour event. This week: Julien Trudeau, caddie for Trey Mullinax, at the 2022 Barbasol Championship.
He had missed three out of four cuts on the PGA Tour, with the other finish being a solo 69th.
But last week at the Keene Trace Golf Club in Nicholasville, Kentucky, it all came together for Trey Mullinax, who picked an ideal time to snap that skid and earn his first PGA Tour win at the 2022 Barbasol Championship.
He also earned his first trip the Open Championship, which just so happens to be the 150th playing of the event at the most famous golf course in the world, St. Andrews, where the conditions are dry and the course will run.
“The strategy is just massive because there’s so many options off the tee. We’re actually going to hit it into the fescue on purpose on a few holes,” said Trudeau, who was standing on the practice putting green at the Old Course when he caught up John Rathouz from The Caddie Network.
Mullinax has appeared in two majors prior to punching his ticket to Scotland. He missed the cut in the 2018 U.S. Open. He finished tied for ninth in the 2017 U.S. Open.
This week, the long-hitter will have plenty of options from all parts of the golf course.
“We watched Max Homa hit a putter from like 100 yards and he putted it up to like a foot and I was like, ‘Was that the play?'” Trudeau said. “It was so cool watching this thing go up and down, up and down over these humps. So it’s going to be really fun to watch on TV, I think, because these balls are just moving.
If they’re not aiming for fescue, Mullinax and Trudeau are prepared for rollout.
“We hit a drive. … the run out on No. 14 is 420 and he hit it about even with the end of the fairway,” Trudeau said of a practice-round tee ball from Mullinax. “It was a little bit down on the right but, this thing probably went 410 yards.”
Mullinax now has a trip to the home of golf on his summer schedule.
Low scores set up for a close shave in the final round of the 2022 Barbasol Championship with the tournament being decided with a clutch, late putt.
Trey Mullinax made a 14-footerfor birdie on the final hole to take a one-shot lead at 25 under and earn not only his first PGA Tour win, but the final spot in the field for next week’s 150th playing of the Open Championship at St. Andrews. The 30-year-old shot a 6-under 66 on Sunday to follow rounds of 65-65-67 and hold off a charging Kevin Streelman, who missed his birdie putt on the 18th that would’ve forced a playoff.
“I had a reminder this week that this is my purpose. This is what God has for me,” said Mullinax on the Golf Channel broadcast after his round. “I just told myself that all day, ‘This is your purpose. This is what you’re supposed to be doing, so commit to it and do it.'”
Mark Hubbard finished third at 22 under, followed by Hurly Long at 21 under. Vince Whaley rounded out the top five at 20 under.
On top of his date with the Old Course, Mullinax is also exempt through the end of the 2023-24 PGA Tour season. After next week’s major, just six events remain on the Tour schedule for the season.
Jon Rahm had a simple plan: hit driver everywhere, and it worked Thursday.
Jon Rahm had a simple plan for playing Vidanta Golf Course in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico — hit driver everywhere.
“If it doesn’t fit,” he said, “we’ll figure it out.”
Rahm found the generous fairways fit his trademark fade just fine in the opening round of the Mexico Open, finding the short grass on 12 of 13 holes on his way to shooting a bogey-free 7-under 64 and grabbing a share of the lead at the PGA Tour’s newest event on the schedule.
“When I feel at my best, I’m pretty much comfortable hitting driver anywhere,” Rahm said. “It was one of those rounds where it felt like everything clicked together. Short game was good, had a chip-in, putting was good and tee to green was fantastic.”
Rahm, who was unseated as World No. 1 last month and entered the week at No. 2, started on the back nine with a couple of nifty par saves and jumpstarted his round with three birdies in a row starting at No. 12, where he holed a 15-foot putt. Then he chipped in from 30 feet at 13 – “a huge bonus,” he said – and capped the birdie streak with a 2-putt birdie at the par-5 14th.
Rahm’s birdie pace slowed as he worked hard to add a circle on the card by sinking a nine-foot putt at 18 and drilling an approach from 206 yards to 3 feet. That improved the Spaniard to 5 under.
“Although I went into a little dry spell, I didn’t care about it so much because it is not the easiest golf course,” Rahm said. “The one thing to keep in mind for people watching the scores, there’s a big difference between morning and afternoon (conditions). We had no wind for 13, 14 holes, it’s very, very scorable. Once the wind starts going 20, 30 miles an hour, this golf course starts showing some teeth.”
Rahm took advantage of his ball-striking prowess and said he felt especially comfortable with the driver. He had missed a pair of makeable birdie putts in a row when he stepped to the tee at the 311-yard par-4 seventh, drove the green and his 42-foot putt turned right and crept in for eagle.
“I never really lost patience here,” said Rahm, who deemed his performance as “probably as solid a round as I played all year.”
Jon Rahm of Spain plays his shot from the 12th tee during the first round of the Mexico Open at Vidanta on April 28, 2022, in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco. (Photo by Hector Vivas/Getty Images)
Rahm shared the early lead with Monday qualifier Bryson Nimmer, Trey Mullinax and veterans Jonathan Byrd and Brendon Todd. Starting on the back nine, Todd heated up on the front side, dropping six birdies between the second hole and the seventh. His streak of four in a row began with a 5-wood from 235 yards that rolled to within a foot of the hole.
“That was just kind of a big momentum birdie,” said Todd, 36, who could use a good week having recorded just one top-10 finish in 16 starts this season.
Byrd, 44, hit eight of nine greens on the front nine and at the one he missed he chipped in from 25 feet for birdie en route to shooting an opening-nine 29.
“When you catch a run, you’ve just got to press down the pedal and see what you can get out of it,” Byrd said.
Two more birdies and his lone hiccup of the day, a bogey at 15, and Byrd, who last won in 2001, signed for his best start to a tournament this season. All facets of his game were cooperating but none more so than his putting. As part of his practice routine, Byrd attempts to make at least 100 feet of putts.
Trey Mullinax needed a top-20 finish this week to secure his PGA Tour card. He’s in great position to do that and more.
Trey Mullinax opened with a course record-tying 63. He followed that up with a Friday 71 to lead by one heading to the weekend. On Saturday, Mullinax posted a 68 to get to 14 under and will keep that one-shot lead through 54 holes.
On Sunday, he’ll look to close out a wire-to-wire win in the season-ending Korn Ferry Tour Championship.
Joseph Bramlett and John Huh each shot the round the day, a 65. Bramlett is solo second at 13 under; Huh is solo third at 12 under. Lee Hodges and Hayden Buckley are tied for fifth at 11 under at Victoria National Golf Club in Newburgh, Indiana.
Mullinax has battled several injuries to his feet and back over the last few seasons. He missed the KFT’s top 25 from this season which meant he still had work to do this week to secure his PGA Tour card for next season.
“I knew how important this week was. I was trying to treat it like any other tournament, though,” he said after Saturday’s round.
A top-20 finish would do it. He’s in great position now to get back to the big leagues.
PGA Tour cards are just three rounds away at the Korn Ferry Tour Championship.
Have a day, Trey Mullinax.
The former All-American at Alabama was rolling like the Tide on Thursday at the Korn Ferry Tour Championship, the third and final event of the Korn Ferry Tour Finals.
The 29-year-old shot a bogey-free 9-under 63 at Victoria National Golf Club in Indiana to take not only the early lead, but also a crucial step towards his PGA Tour card. Twenty-five players moved on to the Tour through the KFT regular season. Nine more players have already earned their cards for next season through the Finals 25 via the first two Finals events, leaving 16 left to be claimed this week.
Tyson Alexander made birdie on four of his last seven holes to climb into second place, two shots back at 7 under. Andrew Novak, who already earned his PGA Tour card, sits T-3 at 5 under alongside Hayden Buckley and Tommy Gainey, who are each looking to earn their way to the next level.
The shot of the day came from 40-year-old Ricky Barnes, who let out a “get lucky” when his tee shot on the par-3 16th ricocheted off a rock and shot across the green to the rough. Barnes, the 2002 U.S. Amateur champion, sits T-48 at even par.
