Byrd Wins Web.com Tour Championship; Hoge's 65 Gets Him Back to the PGA Tour

October 3, 2017 | 6 min.



ATLANTIC BEACH, Fla. --  The 2016-17 PGA Tour season was the third in a row during which Jonathan Byrd failed to make enough money -- by finishing in the top 125 on the money list -- to earn fully exempt status for the following season. Things didn't get any better for the five-time PGA Tour winner in the first three tournaments of the Web.com Finals. He made the cut in the first tournament, but finished in the middle of the pack, and he missed the next two cuts.

Byrd was so discouraged, in fact, that he considered skipping the final event, the Web.com Tour Championship. But his wife talked him into playing, telling him -- in effect -- to stop whining and go play. 

The next thing anyone knew, Byrd was collecting the $180,000 winner's check. 

"I just kind of got rolling," he said Monday, after shooting a 4-under-par 67 in the rain-delayed final round at Atlantic Beach Country Club. "You never know when it's going to be your week, and this week was my week. I played great. I got breaks to go along with it. I made putts, and it just kind of came easy this week."

He ended up with a 72-hole aggregatel of 260 (24 under). That was four better than the second-place totals of 264 shot by Sam Saunders and Shawn Stefani. Saunders, who is Arnold Palmer's grandson, opened the tournament with a 59 and also led after 36 holes with a 125. But he was only 3 under for the last two rounds, including a 69 on Monday. Nevertheless, the $88,000 that he earned secured his place on the PGA Tour for the 2017-18 season, as it did for Stafani. 

The Web.com Finals are a four-tournament series that now serve much the same purpose that the old PGA Tour Q-School used to. Players who finished No. 126 through 200 on the PGA Tour money list were in it, along with those who finished 1 through 75 on the 2017 Web.com regular-season money list. The top 25 from the Web.com regular season had already earned their Tour Cards for '17-18, but everyone else needed to finish in the  top 25 for the Web.com Finals to get their Tour Cards for the next season (which begins Thursday with the Safeway Open). 

Of course, the PGA Tour never does anything without making the process at least slightly convoluted, and the Web.com Finals are no exception. It isn't really just the top 25 from the Finals money list who will matriculate to the Big Tour, because Nos. 1 through 25 from the regular-season money list don't count. So it was actually the top 32 who made it. 

In any case, the 38-year-old Byrd, who hadn't won on the Web.com Tour since 2001 (when it was called the Buy.com Tour and Byrd was only one year removed from Clemson), moved up 40 places to finish No. 3 on the Finals money list. That will make him a PGA Tour regular again for the first time since 2015. 

Another player who cracked the top 25 in the final week was Tom Hoge, a former Pine to Palm champion from Fargo who also won two Minnesota State Amateur titles before turning pro in 2011.

He ended up No. 167 on the PGA Tour money list for 2016-17, which relegated him to the Web.com Finals. The $23,798 that he made in the first three tournaments of the Finals left him roughly $15,000 short going into the Tour Championship. He needed something like a top-15 finish in Atlantic Beach to get his Tour Card back.

An opening 71 didn't exactly help his prospects, but he came back with a 63 on Friday and made the cut comfortably. A 70 on Saturday dropped him back into a tie for 34th, however, and Sunday didn't get off to a great start, either. Beginning his round on the back nine, he bogeyed the first hole, No. 10, a 600-yard, par 5 -- a Cardinal Sin for a tournament golfer.

Hoge didn't give any more strokes back in the next five holes, but he didn't gain any, as he made five consecutive pars. But then he went on a tear. Hoge was the best player in the tournament for the last 12 holes, making seven birdies, including four in a row from No. 16 (a 472-yard par 4 that ranked as the hardest hole on the course) through No. 1. He capped things off with birdies at the 575-yard, par-5 seventh and the 435-yard, par-4 ninth for 65, which gave him a 269 for the week, good for a tie for 12th -- and $20,250. 

That pushed his total for the Finals to $44,048. He was No. 29 overall, but No. 23 when the regular-season top 25 were thrown out. 

You could think of Hoge as a part-time Minnesotan, and the same goes for Troy Merritt. He played high school golf -- and basketball -- at Spring Lake Park and went on to play two years at Winona State, where he was a Division II All-American. He then transferred to Boise State (he had lived in Idaho through eighth grade) and was a Division I All-American. Merritt won the 2009 PGA Tour Q-School, going wire to wire in the 108-hole tournament/ordeal.

After two years on the Big Tour, he lost his card but got it back after a couple of years in the Web.com wilderness, and claimed a PGA Tour victory in 2015 at the Quicken Loans National. He was No. 149 on the money list for 2016-17 and had to go into the Web.com Finals to get his card back, which he did by finishing in the top 10 in the second and third tournaments of the series.

Merritt tied for 32nd in the Tour Championship and made a modest $5,975. That bumped his Finals total to $59,650, which put him in 17th place. He was easily inside the top 25, no matter how the top 25 are defined, and he, too, will be back on the PGA Tour again for the 2017-18 season.   


MEN'S PROFESSIONAL GOLF

Web.com Tour Championship

At Atlantic Beach Country Club

Par 71

Atlantic Beach, Fla.

Final results


1. Jonathan Byrd                      $180,000    64-65-64-67--260

T2. Sam Saunders                     $88,000    59-66-70-69--264

T2. Shawn Stefani                      $88,000     66-66-67-65--264

4. Bronson Burgoon                  $48,000      66-63-68-68--265

T5. Matt Jones                           $36,500      65-68-67-67--267

T5. Rob Oppenheim                  $36,500      67-64-66-70--267

T5. Cameron Tringale               $36,500      67-64-66-70--267

T8. Anders Albertson                $28,000      68-66-67-67--268

T8. Austin Cook                        $28,000       66-65-70-67--268

T8. Ethan Tracy                        $28,000       67-66-67-68--268

T8. Roberto Castro                   $28,000       65-64-69-70--268

T12. Tom Hoge                        $20,250       71-63-70-65--269

T32. Troy Merritt                      $5,975        68-69-68-68--273


 

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