Before the 1997 season, the Nike Tour (as the Korn Ferry Tour was then known) introduced a new rule that any participating golfer who won three times on the circuit in the same season would be promoted to the PGA Tour with immediate effect. Furthermore, all such honorees would have full membership and would be subject to just the next reshuffle for the rest of the year and free from facing them next year. The first beneficiary of this reform was Chris Smith, who that year won the Nike Upstate Classic (now the BMW Charity Pro-Am) in Upstate South Carolina and followed it up later on with consecutive wins at the Dakota Dunes Classic and the Omaha Classic. He earned his card on 10 August 1997 and went on to win the Westchester-Buick Open in 2002.
Twenty-seven years later, Matt McCarty must have sensed that this season would be a year of destiny for his career. Having come up just short last year in the KFT Final Series, the 26-year-old Santa Clara alumnus got off to a decent start before missing four cuts in the first six stateside events. Yet as late as mid-July, he was winless in his pro career, his highest finish being T3. That changed in Springfield, Missouri at the Price Cutter Classic on 21 July. McCarty's winning score of -25 was good for a three-shot win over Tommy Gainey. Three weeks later, McCarty took the Pinnacle Bank Championship in Omaha for win No 2 and then completed the battlefield promotion on 25 August at the Finals-opening Boise Open to earn immediate promotion to the PGA Tour. Because the FedEx Cup Playoffs were going on, the first opportunity to flaunt his membership would be the Procore Championship (formerly the Fortinet Championship), which kicks off the FedEx Cup Fall.
Unless you consider a certain something in the pot of gold at the end of the KFT rainbow. You see, the top graduate (there are now thirty per year) is also eligible for all normal events and free from the reshuffle, and he gets to play both the Players Championship and the U.S. Open. For all his season-long success, McCarty led second-place Max McGreevy (who himself could get promoted immediately by winning next week's KFT Championship, having won both the Memorial Health Championship and the Magnit Championship this year) by fewer than 700 points. After consulting with his connections, McCarty opted to pursue No 1 at season's end, regardless of the costs to his chances of a PGA Tour win.
At the Simmons Bank Open in Nashville the same weekend (9-12 September) as the Procore, McCarty's points-list lead dropped from 687 to 570. This left unfinished business at the following week's Nationwide Children's Hospital Championship in Columbus, Ohio. McCarty would have to outscore McGreevy by thirty points and stay more than 600 ahead of both Steven Fisk and Tim Widing (the only two others capable of chasing him down). Fortunately, Widing missed the cut; Fisk was a non-factor; and McGreevy mustered a measly T23 to McCarty's T5, enabling the promotee to secure top spot, no matter what happens in Larry Bird's hometown.
Which is what led to the field announcements today. The PGA Tour announces its member circuits' fields after 5pm Eastern every Friday before a tournament. As I awaited the field announcements for both the KFT Championship and the main tour's Sanderson Farms Championship, I tried to put myself into McCarty's shoes. The temptation to have guaranteed OWGR points and prize money (which the KFT Championship offers all qualifying players, as it is now a no-cut event) could be overwhelming. Indeed, at the end of the year the top fifty players according to the world ranking get into next year's Masters, so that must've been a consideration. However, the Sanderson Farms Championship will probably offer a bigger OWGR bounty to all who make the cut (to say nothing of a guaranteed spot for the winner at Augusta, let alone Quail Hollow for the PGA Championship) and also a bigger check for any given cut-making finish. While the going can be more difficult on the PGA Tour, then, the rewards are clearly far more lucrative--even during the fall series.
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| Matt McCarty will make his PGA Tour membership debut at the Sanderson Farms Championship in Jackson, Mississippi (PGA Tour). |
As it turned out, McCarty had indeed committed to the Sanderson Farms. It will be his first start as a PGA Tour member, and he is exempt into five of the remaining six events (Black Desert, Shriners, World Wide Technology, Bermuda, RSM) as well. The only exception is the Zozo Championship in Japan, which is reserved for top-performing PGA Tour members on the FedEx Cup season as well as select Japan Golf Tour members. Good luck to Matt McCarty on the next step in his journey!
Edward the Scop
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