Keegan Bradley made news on the PGA Tour on Sunday, firing a final-round 64 to overtake Jim Furyk in the WGC Bridgestone Invitational. And he will remain relevant this week as he serves as the defending champion of the PGA Championship, golf’s final major of the season, which tees off Thursday at Kiawah Island in South Carolina.
But perhaps bigger news locally was made Sunday in Omaha, Neb., where recent University of Virginia graduate Ben Kohles won for the second straight week on the Web.com Tour, clinching a money-list promotion to the PGA Tour in 2013.
“I don’t think that part has sunk in yet,” Kohles told the Associated Press. “It’s pretty life altering.”
Kohles is the first player in history to win his first two professional events on the Web.com Tour, formerly the Nationwide Tour. He did it Sunday in the Cox Classic with a final-round 62 to win by three strokes.
“I think I played the best round of my life today. That was a blast,” Kohles said. “I’m pretty shocked myself. What are you supposed to do better than this?”
Kohles, a three-time All-American and two-time ACC player of the year, originally planned to turn pro after this month’s U.S. Amateur. But when he received an invitation to play in the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Invitational, he accepted and turned pro. He won the event in Columbus, Ohio, rolling in a 22-foot birdie putt on the first playoff hole.
After qualifying for the U.S. Amateur on Tuesday in College Park, Virginia golf coach Bowen Sargent described Kohles as a complete player with no weakness but said Kohles’ greatest asset was his unshakable confidence.
As Sargent played the critical final hole in the Tuesday qualifier, he had a mantra.
“Be like Ben,” said Sargent, who birdied the hole.
– Kevin Dunleavy
