Young PGA Tour stars face off in ‘One Club Lefty Challenge’ at Safeway Open

The new PGA Tour season is now in full swing, but it’s not the only sport clogging up social media feeds this fall. The college football season is underway too, and in honor of the pigskins starting to fly, the PGA Tour set up a special challenge pitting one UC Berkeley alum against a proud Stanford graduate.

On Tuesday at the Safeway Open, Tour pros Brandon Hagy (UC Berkeley) and Maverick McNealy (Stanford) faced off with bragging rights on the line. In addition, the two pros agreed that the loser would have to wear the jersey of the winner’s college in Thursday’s first round.

But this was not your regular golf match. Instead of 18 holes, the two young pros played only one. One is also the number of clubs each player was allowed to use.

As if that wasn’t hard enough, the Tour threw one other wrinkle into fold: both Hagy and McNealy, who are right-hand dominant, had to play lefty.

The venue for the competition was the 443-yard, par-4 1st hole at Silverado Country Club’s North Course. Both players chose to use an 8-iron, and McNealy went first, and after a little trash talk, he “striped” his tee shot into the fairway. Hagy followed with a fine shot of his own, though despite the results, both lefty swings looked awkward.

Those award swings would not hold up for long. Hagy’s second shot was a worm-burner duff along the ground. McNealy then took his second shot, and while he got it airborne, it didn’t travel quite as far as Hagy’s second.

Both players went over the green with their third shots, leaving them greenside needing to chip and putt with an 8-iron to finish off the match.

You’ll have to watch the video yourself below to see who came out on top.

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