Davis Riley’s victory along with teammate Nick Hardy in the Zurich Classic was not a surprise to anyone who has followed Riley’s career. The 26-year-old turned pro with lofty expectations after starring at the University of Alabama, where he was the highest-ranked golfer in college before his junior season.

Riley also represented the US at the Junior Ryder Cup in 2014, where his teammates included PGA Tour stars Cameron Young and Sam Burns, and then again at the 2018 Palmer Cup.

Back as a 16-year-old, he also lost to Scottie Scheffler in the championship match of the 2013 US Junior Amateur at Martis Camp in Truckee, California. But how he handled that loss is worthy of being talked about.

Facing a difficult birdie putt from off the green on the 16th hole (the 34th hole of the 36-hole final), Riley noticed his ball had moved after he addressed it and called the penalty on himself.

“It took a lot of heart to do that,” Scheffler told the Reno Gazette-Journal after the match, which the 2022 Masters champ won, 3&2.

Of course, in golf where integrity is everything, nobody should be applauded for simply following the rules. But with not many onlookers in 2013, other teenagers might have played on without self-reporting the penalty.

This deserves to be talked about more:

In the championship match of the 2013 U.S. Junior Amateur vs. Scottie Scheffler, Davis Riley called a penalty on himself on the final hole of their match. Riley was just 16 years old.

"It took a lot of heart to do that," Scheffler said… pic.twitter.com/94nCZBd3Hh

— Stephen Hennessey (@S_HennesseyGD) April 23, 2023

We should all keep this story in mind as Riley continues to accomplish big things on the PGA Tour.

The post An admirable Davis Riley tale from when he lost to Scottie Scheffler as a junior golfer appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Joining forces to win the Zurich Classic of New Orleans was almost a decade in the making for Davis Riley and Nick Hardy, former AJGA All-Americans who were teammates in the 2014 AJGA Wyndham Cup.

“This is so special, and to share it with one of my best friends on tour is a dream come true,” said Riley after he and Hardy won for the first time on the PGA Tour with a victory in Avondale, Louisiana. “Just the progression of playing high school, college golf and now PGA Tour golf now is super special, and to be able to share it with this guy [Hardy] is pretty cool.”

With nine players among the top-10 teams on the leaderboard through 54 holes seeking their first PGA Tour victories, chances were good for a breakthrough story at the Zurich Classic, and Riley and Hardy wrote the final chapter in a record-setting win thanks to a brilliant inward 31 at TPC Louisiana. Capped by Riley’s 33-foot birdie putt from off the green at the par-3 17th hole, the duo shot a seven-under 65 in the modified alternate-shot format and finished at 30-under 258, breaking the tournament record of 259 set a year ago by Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele.

Riley, who called the victory “surreal” also had a near-ace at the 207-yard par-3 14th hole, his tee shot stopping two inches shy of the cup. They are the first duo to each record his first tour title at the event and they are the sixth and seventh first-time winners on tour this season.

The win took care of some unfinished business from the 2022 event for both players. Riley, 26, a Mississippi native and former Alabama All-American, was in the hunt last year before he finished T-4 with Will Zalatoris. The 27-year-old Hardy, meanwhile, injured his left wrist on the fourth hole of the final round, and though he managed to finish, he was sidelined for nearly two months on the way to missing the FedEx Cup Playoffs.

The pair, who tied the tournament record with their three-shot comeback victory, collected $1.242 million each and 400 FedEx Cup points, and each moves into the top 40 in the season-long standings. In addition, they qualify for the PGA Championship and Memorial Tournament. Riley won in his 59th PGA Tour start, Hardy in his 51st.

Davis Riley is clutch!! ?@NickHardy8 and @DavisRiley68 extend their lead to two after the birdie on 17 @Zurich_Classic. pic.twitter.com/J4OX6vFEAx

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) April 23, 2023

“I feel like we both handled it very well coming down the stretch. First timers, obviously. So to be able to do that together, kind of rub off each other’s confidence and sort of attitude,” said Hardy, an Illinois native and University of Illinois product, who set up his partner for the outright lead when he stuck a wedge approach from 129 yards to five feet at the par-4 16th hole. “It was definitely special to have a partner for the first one.”

Canada’s Nick Taylor and Adam Hadwin, World Cup teammates in 2018, closed with a 63, tying the alternate-shot record that Cantlay and Schauffele posted in the second round on Friday, but Taylor missed a five-foot birdie putt at the last and they settled for 28-under 260. Taylor collected his second runner-up finish of the season.

Beau Hossler and Wyndham Clark, who held at least a share of the lead after each of the first three rounds, came in with 71 to finish third at 261. Hossler and Clark were one of four teams bogey-free through 54 holes, but they suffered two late bogeys on Sunday at 16 and 17 to shoot themselves out of contention.

Cantlay and Schauffele bogeyed the 72nd hole but still carded 66 — giving them a better alternate-shot total by four strokes than their better-ball scores — to tie for fourth at 26-under 262 with Matthew NeSmith and Valspar winner Taylor Moore (69).

“Best ball wasn’t our best format this year compared to last year,” Cantlay said. “We both had some opportunities to save some pars and make some putts that we didn’t make this year. Coming down the stretch, I just hit a poor drive on 18 and put him in a bad spot. That was kind of the story of the week. We didn’t necessarily hit all the great shots when we needed to.”

The post Zurich Classic: Davis Riley, Nick Hardy close with birdie barrage in New Orleans to help both capture first PGA Tour victories appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Crushed with disappointment, all the rookie from Mississippi could muster on Thursday in the opening round of the Memorial Tournament was a five-under 67 in his first official round at Muirfield Village Golf Club. Which was good for a share of lead.

Yeah, no. He wasn’t crushed. He just continues to crush it.

Riley, 25, could have sulked and hung his head after he pumped a drive out of bounds on the 14th hole Sunday at Colonial Country Club and suffered a double-bogey that dropped him out of a tie for the lead. He eventually finished T-4, his sixth top-10 in a season that also includes a playoff loss to Sam Burns at the Valspar Championship.

Instead, he wasn’t about to let one poor swing overshadow all the good ones he made at Colonial — and for much of the year.

“That was a tough one to swallow,” Riley said after storming home with a 31 on the inward nine at Muirfield Village on the strength of an eagle at the par-5 15th secured with a “perfect little cut 3-wood” approach from 262 yards to 17 feet. “I really felt like I had that tournament right there. And I feel like I’ve had a good chance, had a chance to win three or four golf tournaments in the past few months. That’s been really nice. All I can do is keep putting myself in that position.”

T1 at -5 ?@DavisRiley68 joins the leaders after an impressive 2nd shot from the bunker. pic.twitter.com/ln2miSZenT

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) June 2, 2022

His attitude is as solid as the pass he makes at the ball. Or maybe it’s a product of it. Either way, he had no trouble shaking off the disappointment or talking about it.

“It’s like I was one golf swing away from being in a playoff or winning a golf tournament,” he said. “And I’ve had that a couple times, like in Mexico, I lost by two to [Jon] Rahm, hit a shot at 16 and came up short and plugged in the bunker. It’s like if that lands five yards further and goes on the green, actually I’ve got a good-looking birdie and that can change everything. Just little things like that.”

Yeah, well little things like that might bother somebody less mature or lacking confidence. Riley, who attended Alabama and has formed a natural bond with fellow Crimson Tide product Justin Thomas, seems to roll with the punches quite admirably. One bad swing isn’t cause for alarm, just a little introspection.

First round leaderboard @MemorialGolf

T1. Cameron Young (-5)
T1. Luke List
T1. Cameron Smith
T1. K.H. Lee
T1. Mackenzie Hughes
T1. Davis Riley
T7. Will Zalatoris (-4)
T7. Denny McCarthy
T7. Sahith Theegala
T7. Wyndham Clark

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) June 2, 2022

“It’s just one bad golf swing. It’s like you tell yourself don’t do that. But it’s easy to do that,” he said with a wide smile. “I think the biggest thing in those situations is just you learn your tendencies when the pressure is really, really on. And I’ve kind of learned that about myself. I’m learning what shots I tend to hit more of when I’m under pressure or things I can do better under pressure. I think that’s the biggest thing when you get in those moments.

“I’m playing good golf. And I’ve had a handful of top 10s in the past month, month-and-a-half. It’s like I’m doing the right stuff. I’ve just got to keep on doing it. It’s like eventually it will happen.”

In his last five starts since missing the cut at the RBC Heritage, Riley has finished T-4, fifth, T-9, T-13 (in his PGA Championship debut) and that T-4 last week at the Charles Schwab Challenge. He ranks 35th on the PGA Tour with a 70.266 scoring average. He’s made $2.6 million and is now ranked 94th in the world. Yeah, he’s doing the right stuff.

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The post Davis Riley shakes off another missed chance, quickly jumps into mix in first Memorial start appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Right?

Two hours and 13 minutes later, at 6pm, Burns rolled in a 38-foot downhill putt from off the green, watched his friend and World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler narrowly miss a similar prayer and won the whole thing.

Unbelievably clutch.@SamBurns66 drained the 38-footer from off the green to win @CSChallengeFW. pic.twitter.com/DaQmWt5MRe

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) May 29, 2022

How did it happen? How did the 25-year-old Louisiana native tie the largest comeback in this venerable tournament’s history? Well, you can define the strange events of Sunday at Colonial either positively — by what Sam Burns did — or negatively, but by what everyone else failed to do.

Let’s start with Burns, who came out scorching on a sunny but windy day in Fort Worth, on a course that he had visited as a child when his mentor David Toms won in 2011. Burns’ major adjustment at Colonial this year was to play more aggressively by hitting more drivers on a Perry Maxwell track that known in recent years for taking the driver out of players’ hands.

It worked. Burns’ opening nine was a birdie fusillade, one after another, starting with a seven-footer on the first hole. On the second, he drove 350 yards, hit his short pitch to 10 feet and buried the putt. Indeed, everything seemed to be working early. A brief bogey hiccup on the fifth hole was the only break in a stretch of six birdies culminating with a nine-footer on the ninth to come into the turn at 30.

Birdie
Birdie
Par
Birdie
Bogey
Birdie
Birdie@SamBurns66 is racking up birdies early. He's 3 back. pic.twitter.com/NESQwOrHtk

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) May 29, 2022

The mid-range birdie putts continued to fall on 11, but an errant drive on 12, which he bemoaned in his post-round interview, led to his second bogey of the day and halted his momentum in its tracks. He wouldn’t make another birdie, though he came within inches on almost every hole. Insofar as a 65 can be “disappointing” in any way at all, it was a disappointing finish considering his red-hot start.

“I thought I needed to make that putt on 18 in regulation to get to 10,” he said later, “and to be honest I thought I did make it. I hit a really good putt and just missed barely low.”

At that point, the tournament was up for grabs. Harold Varner III, Davis Riley, Brendon Todd and Scheffler, the 54-hole leader, had found their way to 10-under, by various means, and the trophy was there for the seizing. Instead, gravity reached for and caught them all, one by one, as nerves and the difficult conditions made their mission increasingly impossible.

“I can assure you I did not envy them while they were out there playing,” Burns said. “It didn’t feel like it was blowing any less than we were out there, it was just one of those things when you finally finish, you’re just ready to be done.”

Varner, perhaps unsurprisingly, was the first to take his hat out of the ring. He’s long had trouble playing in tense situations close to the lead on Sunday, and this was an exaggerated version of all his worst moments. A three-hole stretch starting on 12 was almost unspeakably poor, resulting in a triple bogey, a double bogey, and another triple (and a fair amount of 757 jokes on Twitter). This torpedoed his chances, and two more disastrous holes to close left him with a head-scratching 45 on the back nine. He finished even par for the tournament, in a tie for 27th place, and a whole slew of questions about how to fix his pressure performances.

Riley was next to go, and though his fall wasn’t as dramatic as Varner’s, it was equally decisive — a bogey on 13 after a missed four-footer for par and a double-bogey on 14 after the first out-of-bounds drive anyone hit on the hole all week ushered him from the dizzying heights and down to a safer part of the leaderboard.

That left the final pairing of Todd and Scheffler, the former falling to eight-under after bogeys on 11 and 12. Todd couldn’t escape that number despite a strong effort in the closing stretch. This narrow birdie miss on 16 was particularly galling after a seemingly perfect read:

Brendon Todd to tie the lead … pic.twitter.com/jo07Zy8NPo

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) May 29, 2022

Like Burns, Todd couldn’t make anything happen on the back nine despite a few close calls, and when his approach shot found the bunker on 18, he was effectively eliminated.

“This is my favourite course on tour,” said Todd after his one-over 71 left him in solo third. “It’s a place I feel like I can contend, and I’ve done that again. It’s tough, because I feel like if I had just a couple things go my way today, I would have been the clear winner.”

With everyone around him blowing over, the tournament seemed to be Scheffler’s to seize, and after his many wins this season — four in his last nine starts, culminating at the Masters — there was no question of the pressure affecting him. As Burns would say later, “the way that guy is playing right now, who would have ever thought that you’d have a chance seven back?”

Scheffler and Burns are good friends off the course, taking a little of the sting away from Scheffler falling short on Sunday at Colonial.

And yet, after a 66-65-68 start to the tournament, Scheffler somehow put together a round of zero birdies when simply shooting even par would have been enough to win by two shots. Strange as it sounds, Scheffler was actually fortunate to hang tough at nine-under as his day wound to a close, sinking par putts of nine feet, eight feet and six feet on three of the last four holes to narrowly eke his way into a playoff. A triumph at Colonial would have given him five PGA Tour wins on the season, making him one of just six players to accomplish that feat since 1981.

Instead, in the playoff with Burns (and with his sister-in-law’s wedding to attend Sunday night), Scheffler watched his “best friend on tour” knock in the improbable putt and take the championship from his grasp.

For his troubles, Burns pocketed his fourth PGA Tour win in the last 13 months, $1.512 million, and a fully restored 1979 Pontiac Firebird. And the quote of the day came in his post-round press conference, when a reporter asked Burns a simple question:

“Are you a car guy?”

“I am now,” he said.

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The post What a gritty, grindy playoff win says about Sam Burns at Charles Schwab Challenge appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Dave Shedloski
Good golf, winning golf, takes long hours, a short memory and an even keel, which pretty much sums up Sam Burns in the last seven days. It also takes a clutch shot at the right time, and while a 32-footer for birdie on the second hole of a sudden-death playoff is definitely in the clutch category, there are usually another key moment or two in which a winner rises to the occasion.

Nursing a two-stroke lead Sunday on the penultimate hole of the Valspar Championship, Burns faced that moment when he chopped up the 198-yard par 3 and had a nine-footer for bogey. Miss it and he falls into a tie with Justin Thomas and Davis Riley. Make it and he keeps alive his hopes of successfully defending his title.

Well, of course he made it. Which was crucial when Riley birdied the same hole a few minutes later to tie him at 17 under par. Then Burns did his thing—which includes being one of the game’s finest putters. With Riley sizing up a chip from just behind the green, Burns found enough of the left lip at the par-4 16th, the second playoff hole, to swirl in a birdie that proved to be the winner when Riley followed by rifling his pitch past the cup.

He BURIES it

Unbelievable putt from @SamBurns66. pic.twitter.com/CbWOptcjLW

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 20, 2022

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how Burns, after a final-round two-under 69, won for a second-straight time at the vaunted Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor, Fla., and claimed his third PGA Tour title in the last 10 months. No one has won more in that span, though, Patrick Cantlay owns three wins as well. Burns has had eight top-10s in his last 16 events, including another victory in the fall at the Sanderson Farms Championship.

If you haven’t been impressed by the former college player of the year from LSU to this point, you can start now. Endearingly, he isn’t all that impressed with himself.

“I don’t feel special, but it feels special to do it,” Burns said of winning back-to-back at a course that is among the more revered on tour.

But what about moving from 17th to 10th in the World Ranking? Again, that puts him in elite company.

Douglas P. DeFelice
Burns is one of two golfers (along with Patrick Cantlay) with three PGA Tour wins in the last 10 months.

Let’s back up for a minute. Burns had a chance to win the weather-plagued Players Championship on Monday, but his swing already was somewhere along Florida’s I-4 and couldn’t pick a lane. He shot 76 and knew he needed to call in his coach, fellow Louisianan Brad Pullin, who drove 12 hours to give Burns a tune-up.

Back on track, Burns entered the final round trailing Riley by three strokes. The two men, both 25 and hunting enthusiasts, are good friends who have competed against each other going back to their pre-teen AJGA days. It might not have been Burns’ day had Riley not given three shots back in one hole with a triple bogey on the par-5 fifth that let in a slew of contenders, including playing partner Matthew NeSmith and Thomas.

Burns then nearly let it all slip away himself when he found the left greenside bunker at the 17th, blasted out poorly to the fringe, and then blitzed his par attempt, leaving him a nine-footer. “I just tried to read the putt to the best of my ability, and I just told myself, ‘Just best stroke of the day, whatever happens, happens.’”

Julio Aguilar
Bruns and Riley, both 25, have been rivals since their pre-teen days playing the AJGA junior circuit.

Ranked 399th in the world, Riley, a Korn Ferry Tour graduate, battled back gamely from his massive misstep—it was the only triple bogey of the week from any player on a par-5 hole—but his one-over 72 tied for the highest final round among players who finished in the top 10. Even with his struggles, Riley gave himself a 15-foot birdie look on the 72nd hole to win it, but the Mississippi native missed on the low side to tie Burns at 17-under 267.

After the pair traded pars on the first playoff hole, Burns, who has led the tour in strokes gained/putting in Florida events since 2019 (and was eighth for the week at Innisbrook), holed his lengthy game-winner and reacted with a surge of energy and a few brisk fist pumps.

“I just think that after last week, the last couple weeks, I’ve tried to conserve as much energy as possible, and all through today just trying to make sure that I never got kind of too high or too low and just tried to stay kind of even-keeled,” Burns said, explaining why he finally let loose after staying bottled up on a sunny and warm afternoon.

Riley, seeking his first tour win after two KFT titles last season, was hardly surprised. “He’s been a very good putter for a long time, and yeah, that was a very good putt,” Riley said after his career-best finish. “He made a big putt in a big moment and, yeah, it was really impressive and, yeah, he did what he needed to do.”

Douglas P. DeFelice
Burns hugs his wife, Caroline, after winning with a 32-foot birdie on the second playoff hole at Innisbrook.

And, yeah, Burns has to be in the conversation now as one of the favourites for the upcoming Masters, the year’s first major. You know, because how well have players with good putting strokes fared at Augusta National?

But for now, he isn’t thinking about anything but taking his game to another level. That is something winners usually do. The resting on laurels plan never works.

“I think, for me, I just try to put in hard work, just try to improve my game every year, every week, look at stats and see what areas I can get better at and then my team and I try to attack those areas,” he said after improving in one area, his bank account, with a $1.404 million payday. “That’s all I can control and so I mean, it’s nice to see that those things are paying off, it gives us motivation that we’re working on the right things. I want to just try to make things better. That’s ultimately what I love to do.”

The post The scary thing about Sam Burns’ torrid 10-month, three-win stretch, according to Sam Burns appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Ryan Herrington
His gaze was strong, his voice calm. Davis Riley met the media on Sunday after a harrowing day at the Valspar Championship, but from the 25-year-old PGA Tour rookie’s demeanour, it wouldn’t appear to have been a heartbreaking one.

Riley lost his chance to claim his maiden tour win when he couldn’t follow up a Sam Burns 32-foot birdie on second playoff hole at the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort. But that was something Riley could stomach.

“Sam’s a hell of a player. And, yeah, I mean, any time you give someone like that who is playing well within 30 feet you always think there’s a chance, so I kind of went into there thinking he was going to give it a really good run,” Riley said. “He’s been a very good putter for a long time, and yeah, that was a very good putt.”

Go back and look at Riley’s round, however, and it’s obvious where he will say he truly lost the tournament. No golfer had made a triple-bogey 8 on any of Innisbrook’s par 5s all week. But Riley did just that on the fifth hole Sunday, squandering the 54-hole lead he carried into the round.

“Yeah, I just hit a bad tee shot and then from there it was just kind of a cluster,” Riley said.

Indeed, his drive went way left of the fairway, all the way to the left side of the adjacent sixth hole. His second shot wasn’t much better, ending up near the tee box on the eighth hole.

Riley got relief from the signage on the tee, but he proceeded to hit his third shot chunky, the ball coming to rest against a tree still some 70 yards from the hole. The only way he could play the shot was flipping a club and hitting the ball left-handed, which Riley decided against and instead took an unplayable lie.

Now hitting five, his punch shot went over the green and then his chip dashed through to the other side. Two down from the fringe got him his 8.

The only triple bogey on No. 5 this week.

Davis Riley entered the hole with a 2-shot lead and leaves it trailing by one. pic.twitter.com/8KFqsC5NGN

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 20, 2022

“Honestly, I think where it went wrong was after I dropped, got the relief from the tee box, the tee marker, yeah, it was just sandy, kind of weird grass over there, and maybe I just tried to hit too much of a perfect shot instead of making sure I blast it over the green and give myself just an up and in at par.

“Then I just kind of, I don’t know, it was just a tough shot. It’s just so sandy over there and it’s thin. You really have to make perfect contact to even get the ball that far. But if I had to do it over again maybe just make sure I get it long instead of trying to get it on the green, almost just take long and try to get up-and-down.”

To Riley’s credit, he hung tough despite the big number. Remember this is a player who had never been better than T-15 entering the final round in his 24 previous PGA Tour starts.Yes, he won twice on the Korn Ferry Tour and was an All-American at Alabama, but playing for a PGA Tour title is different. And from that point out, Riley made three birdies and just one bogey, closing out a one-over 72 to force the playoff at 17-under 267.

He even had a chance to win in regulation, missing a 15-foot effort on the par-4 18th after making a birdie to tie things up on the 17th.

“Yeah, walking off the green, I told [my caddie], ‘There’s a lot of golf left. Like, I’m playing good,’” Riley said. “And fortunately I had a little bit of cushion up until that mistake, so I was still in it. It was not like I really shot myself out of it. I knew if I played solid golf that I could play this course three, four, five under coming in and I knew that would probably be enough to win.

“But I just had to hit the reset button and just go shot by shot and I felt like I did a really good job of that today.”

Despite losing, Riley posted the best finish of his young PGA Tour career, topping his T-7 at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship last October. His $850,200 runner-up check also was more than four times bigger than the previous best payday on tour ($190,775 in Bermuda).

More importantly, there was no head hanging on Sunday night at Innisbrook. Disappointment, perhaps, but Riley walked away knowing full well it was one bad hole that cost him.

The post ‘It was just kind of a cluster:’ The triple-bogey 8 that cost Davis Riley his first PGA Tour title appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Ryan Herrington
Davis Riley is one step away from a PGA Tour card. Granted, it’s no small step—he’ll have to win another Korn Ferry Tour event before the end of 2021. But given the way he performed over the weekend en route to victory at the TPC San Antonio Championship, it’s a reasonable one.

A closing 67 on Saturday at the AT&T Oaks course at TPC San Antonio gave the 23-year-old former All-American at Alabama a two-stroke win over Paul Barjon and Taylor Pendrith. It was his second Korn Ferry Tour title in 2020, the first coming in February when he won the Panama Championship. A third win during the season earns a golfer a “battlefield” promotion to the PGA Tour, something that’s happened only 11 times in Korn Ferry Tour history. The last came in 2016, when Wesley Bryan played his way up to the PGA Tour.

The battlefield promotion was something PGA Tour officials carried over after restructuring the Korn Ferry Tour schedule in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. It became essentially the only way players could graduate to the PGA Tour off the Korn Ferry Tour until the end of 2021, officials restructuring the KFT calendar to create a 2020-’21 season. Originally, players who were among the top 25 on the Korn Ferry Tour points list at the end of the regular season in 2020 would have earned PGA Tour cards for 2020-’21. But when the PGA Tour decided to maintain the status of all players on both tours through 2021, it also meant that KFT golfers would have to wait to move off the developmental tour.

That situation was one that looked like it would hurt Riley, who had grabbed the early season win and was in great position to be among the 25. Yet Riley took the news in stride and stayed focused on trying to play well on the Korn Ferry circuit.

“It’s a bummer,” he told GolfChannel.com, “but there’s not much you can do about it. All I can do is control what I can and try to be prepared every week.”

Riley started one stroke off the lead entering Saturday’s final round in San Antonio, and made the turn in one under. At one point he was among a seven-way tie for the lead, but they Riley stepped up over the closing stretch of holes. He holed out for a birdie on the 15th from a bunker, then hit his approach on the 16th hole to 18 inches, setting up another birdie. He burned the end of the hole with his birdie putt on the 17th before making one more on the 18th after hitting his approach on the par-4 home hole to two feet.

“I’m really proud of the way I handled myself,” Riley said. “I give a lot of props to Panama week, being able to pull from those memories.”

Riley shares a place in Dallas with fellow KFT member Will Zalatoris, who won the TPC Colorado Championship two weeks ago. Riley stood by the 18th green that day to congratulate his friend. Conversely, Zalatoris stuck around to watch Riley close things out on Saturday.

“I know what he felt and it’s a really good feeling to win. … You’re happy for him but at the same time it kind of fired me up. I was ready to go this week. Now we have three trophies in there, hopefully we can just keep building that up.

“We just push each other every day and play a lot of golf together. It’s good to have someone just as good or maybe better than you to play with, it’s a lot of fun.”

The post This tour pro is now on the verge of a PGA Tour battlefield promotion appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.