The king of the PGA Tour’s Florida Swing? Our pick might surprise you

One of the most trying days of the year, here at the GOLF.com HQ, is the Monday after the conclusion of the PGA Tour’s four-week romp through the Sunshine State (Cognizant, API, Players, Valspar). It is on that Monday that a committee gathers, in a secret chamber, to choose the King of the Florida Swing recipient. Much like the voting for, say, Best Picture at the Academy Awards, KFS voters have broad discretion to vote as they see fit. To get considered, the only requirement is to have played at least two rounds of each of the four events.

A player who has missed all four cuts is bound to get the voters’ sympathetic attention. Alas, no player missed all four this year. Cameron Young did come close, missing three of the four. But in Week III, at the Players, Mr. Young made the cut and had a T61 finish.

This year, four players made the cut in the four Sunshine State events:

Jacob Bridgeman (T2-T15-T50-3);

Shane Lowry (T11-7-T20-T8);

Max McGreevy (T4-T40-T20-T54);

Sepp Straka (T11-T5-T14-T28).

The committee was impressed by Mr. Straka’s relentless consistency, and that he played all four events. Why would he? It’s not like he’s trying to play his way into the Masters — Sepp won the Amex earlier this year, so he’s in the Masters. But that’s also why he is not bringing home the GOLF.com KFS Award this year. An Amex win comes with a whole raft of goodies. One voter wrote on the ballot’s Notes section: “Does he really need it?”

Valid.

Shane Lowry, kind of the same. Before this year is out, he is likely to play in all four majors, plus the Ryder Cup and the two-ball team event in New Orleans with his close personal friend Rory McIlroy. The committee believes there is something to be said for shining a light on a fresh, emerging talent with this award.

Enter Max McGreevy. Not a kid but not a bearded veteran, either. (He’s 29 and looking for his first Tour win.) Max McG did get a lot of voter attention. Our Odd Facts department unearthed this beauty: MM was born in Oklahoma the very year (1995) that Mickey Mantle, Yankee legend and an Okie to the bone, died.

But in the end the committee could not stop looking at those bookend finishes Jacob Bridgeman posted. The second-place finish at PGA National got him into Bay Hill, and man-oh-man did he right a listing ship on his way to solo third at Valspar in the finale. Also, the kid’s swing. (He’s 25 and looking for his first Tour win.) It’s a joy to watch. A swing that any golfer in the steel-shaft era would identify as a real swing (not a hit) that will not wreck your back and will last a long time. He looks like a second baseman: 5-10, 170 pounds, fit and strong but not at all in a gym-rat-gone-wild way.

One voter scribbled in Notes section, “Could see him saying in the late 2040s, ‘Look forward to seeing if I can keep this whole thing going on the senior tour come 2050.’” Bridgeman lives in Greenville, S.C., where Jay Haas lives. Haas played in his first U.S. Open in 1974, then played 26 more. Last year, he played in the U.S. Senior Open for the 18th time. He’s had more diner breakfasts with caddies than he can count and never had a nervous breakdown in the vicinity of a sprinkler head, tee marker or the shoreline of a pond. (None of the KFS voters can say the same.)

In a phone interview Monday afternoon from Houston, where Bridgeman had just arrived for his sixth straight Tour event, the former Clemson golfer was remarkably composed as he remembered some of the highlights, on the course and on the road, of his award-winning four-week stretch through the Sunshine State. One burned-in-his-mind image was from the par-5 9th hole in the first round of the Players, when his playing partner (and friend) Chandler Phillips hit a second-shot, 300-yard 3-wood over trees to four feet.

The fellas are good at golf. You don’t get a Tour card, a KFT (Korn Ferry) card, a PGA Tour card — or KFS consideration ­ ­—without being very, very good. Do you know how good you have to be to miss four straight cuts on the PGA Tour?

News

One of Bridgeman’s most unexpected drives (of the Florida’s Turnpike variety) came on the Sunday night of the Arnold Palmer Invitational, when he drove a truck belonging to Chris Kirk’s caddie (Michael Cromie) from the Bay Hill parking lot to the TPC Sawgrass parking lot, where he picked up a tournament courtesy car. It’s only 150 miles, and Bridgeman drives a truck at home. Not a big drive but not out of the PGA Tour Travel Services playbook, either. There were other times when Bridgeman’s veteran caddie, GW Cable, gave him a lift to or from an Avis location, when Bridgeman was in between courtesy cars. In 1968, when the Big Three was at the height of its fame, the Florida Swing went Doral, Orlando, Pensacola, Jacksonville, and a hundred-plus guys roamed around the state for a month in their own cars. That was then.

The most unexpected drive Bridgeman made was Sunday night, after the Players. He was sick as a dog for a day or longer starting on Friday (there was a bug going around the Players) and by Sunday he was worn out. That afternoon, Bridgeman, with his mother and his fiancé — Haley Farmer, a Clemson grad with the science gene (she’s an oncology researcher) — made the six-hour drive home to Greenville.

“I needed some sleep and some home-cooked food,” Bridgeman said. Tuesday night of Valspar week, he flew Greenville to Atlanta and Atlanta to Tampa and played in the Valspar pro-am on Wednesday morning. (Delta. Like the sign says, Fly Delta Jets. They used to say when a player was struggling, “He’s playing so bad he’s taking swing tips from Delta skycaps.”) On Sunday in Tampa, on 15, the last par-3, Bridgeman was short-sided and dead. He holed out for a 2, on his way to solo third.

JB made $818,000 at the Cognizant. He made $349,000 at Bay Hill. He made $63,000 at the Players. He made $600,300 at the Valspar.

And, as the King of the Florida Swing winner for 2025, he will get a one-year subscription to GOLF Magazine, with special InsideGOLF status for bonus content.

Congratulations, Jacob!

Bridgeman is now ranked 70th in the world. He and Haley are getting married in December. He owns a truck. He has a house in beautiful Greenville, S.C. He’s in a good place.

He was asked what he needed to do to qualify for the Masters.

“I’m not exactly sure,” he said. “I know a win would do it. I think it would.” It would indeed.

Greenville to Augusta is 120 miles. He could drive his own truck to the gates of the club and right on down Magnolia Lane. And if it’s not this year, it will likely happen soon enough. In a press release announcing the 2025 KFS winner, the committee, borrowing from Ben Crenshaw at the 1999 Ryder Cup, said, “We’ve got a good feeling about this Jacob Bridgeman.” Young Jacob was born in 1999, but there’s something old school about him. Playing six straight weeks is part of it. Not always knowing where you’re going, or how you’re going to get there, is part of it, too. Anybody who has been on any kind of tour knows that.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com