On professional golf’s first weekend back after a three-month layoff, a PGA Tour winner has been crowned — just nobody tell Brady Schnell.
Luke List became the first PGA Tour player to win a Tour-sanctioned event since early March on Sunday morning, closing out the weekend with a final-round 67 to claim the victory. List, a PGA Tour member, won the Korn Ferry Challenge, the developmental tour’s first event after the layoff.
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The catch? List’s victory comes less than a month after Schnell, a developmental tour lifer, harshly criticized Vijay Singh for entering the same event on the grounds that only Korn Ferry Tour players should participate in the event. (Schnell later apologized for his comments, while Singh went on to drop out of the event without reason in early June.)
So what was List, a PGA Tour pro, doing on the Korn Ferry Tour? The seven-year PGA Tour veteran (and developmental tour alumnus) entered the Korn Ferry Challenge with a host of other pros when spots dried up in this weekend’s PGA Tour event, the Charles Schwab Challenge. This weekend’s Korn Ferry event was staged at Dye’s Valley at TPC Sawgrass. With the event in the shadow of PGA Tour headquarters in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., it became an accessible spot for pros living in the area.
List’s victory was well earned. Three birdies on the front nine on Sunday pushed him to 12 under for the weekend, good enough for one stroke ahead of Joseph Bramlett and Shad Tuten. A two-putt par on the par-4 18th hole sealed the deal, and List headed home with the trophy and the $108,000 winner’s check.
Schnell, for his part, was quiet on social media after narrowly missing the cut on Friday.
“As much fun as it is to be home playing house, it’s fun being out here competing against your peers and chasing down trophies,” List said.