When Aldrich Potgieter turned professional last year, the plan was to simply take a year or two and figure out life as a pro golfer, on the road and in a different country. He didn’t necessarily expect to win this fast. But now that he has…
“It’s awesome,” Potgieter said on Wednesday, after he became the youngest Korn Ferry Tour winner in history. “I was just trying to make the cut, trying to get that status, improve on the status. I didn’t expect this today.”
Potgieter, who is from Mossel Bay, South Africa, shot a final-round 65 to finish 10 under for the week and win The Bahamas Great Abaco Classic at The Abaco Club by two. At 19 years, 4 months, 11 days, he passes Jason Day as the youngest winner in Korn Ferry Tour history, which dates back to 1990. He’s also the youngest winner of a PGA Tour-sanctioned event since 1931.
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Potgieter’s seven-under 65 in the final round was five strokes better than his next-best round of the week. But this wasn’t his first big win, either. At 17, he won the British Amateur Championship at Royal Lytham & St. Annes in 2022 — the second-youngest to do so — which also got him a spot in the 2022 Open and 2023 Masters. He missed the cut in both, but he qualified for last year’s U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club and finished 63rd, leading the field in driving distance (336.3 yards).
He was the medalist at the second stage of Q-School last year, which gave him Korn Ferry Tour status for 2024. It’s been a lot to get used to so far, but his dad’s been in the States with him to help navigate the change.
Potgieter, who won $180,000 on Wednesday, was asked during his winner’s press conference why he turned pro so quickly instead of taking the college route.
“I was playing really good golf from a young age, so I kind of thought from my view that college was like an extra four years of preparing to become professional in my eyes. I kind of saw that like I didn’t want to waste four years,” he said. “I know they have great opportunities, great teams behind them and you can see a lot of the players are coming from college teams that are doing really good. That was an option, but I wanted to get the experience done and just make sure that my game is good enough and just grind it out on the Tour and learn stuff that these guys are going to have to learn now coming out of college.
“So I kind of saw it that way and we decided to do that. And after winning the British Am, I kind of had to make that decision and I thought turning pro was a good one.”