Most of the focus in professional golf understandably is at the top of the game. But for every Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele and Bryson DeChambeau, there might be a thousand guys like Matt McCarty.
He is now a PGA Tour winner after his victory Sunday at the Black Desert Championship.
And you’d have been hard-pressed to see this victory coming even a few months ago.
McCarty, 26, played college golf at Santa Clara, not exactly a power and a place where he won once.
He turned pro in 2021 and headed to Canada.
He made it to the Korn Ferry Tour in 2022 and earned $111,000. Last year, he finished 35th on the points list and made more than $270,000. That was an impressive improvement, but still left him short of the PGA Tour. He was ranked 430th in the world.
Now he’s in three of the major championships next year, including the Masters. He earned a spot in the PGA Tour’s season-opening Sentry tournament in Hawaii. He’s in the Players Championship.
And he’s got a full exemption through the 2026 season.
“It's been an unbelievable last few months for me,” McCarty said after finishing three shots better than Stephen Jaeger. “But just to like kind of play well today, that's all I wanted to do, give myself a chance. I knew it was going to be tough and a lot of different emotions, more nerves than it's been out there.
“I'm really proud of how I was able to handle myself out there today, and honestly this whole week. I had a lot of fun.”
McCarty shot a final-round 67 that included an eagle where he drove the green on the par-4 14th hole. He opened the tournament with a 62 and held the lead throughout the weekend.
297 yards to 3 feet 😤@MattMcCarty21 sticks it on the drivable par-4 14th @BDChampionship. pic.twitter.com/ZggL7fBHmn
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) October 13, 2024
Jaeger, who beat Scheffler by a stroke earlier this year to win the Houston Open, tried to keep It interesting, as did former U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover, who shot a final-round 62.
It was McCarty's fourth victory in his last 10 starts across the Korn Ferry and PGA tours.
“I knew if I played well this week after last week I would have a chance, but to do it like this, I don't know how you can kind of expect this, to be honest,” he said. “I don't know. It's just a lot of fun and I've been working really hard and this year was great for me out there.
“To get out here a little early was just like—to get some experience was great and obviously this now. I mean, it's just been a crazy last few months for me. It's been a lot of fun.”
McCarty had hardly been a prolific winner before his Korn Ferry run of late. He won that one college tournament, another amateur event. He was hard-pressed to come up with many victories.
But the lefty barely wavered throughout what was a tough final day.
“To win three times out there in a pretty short season for them, it's pretty incredible,” said Jaeger, who won six times on the Korn Ferry Tour. “He's obviously really talented ... it obviously translates really well. I think you see that more and more often over the last couple years, that the Korn Ferry category plays well, especially some guys that are good drivers of the golf ball.”
After missing the cut at a KFT event in North Carolina in June, McCarty, 26, made 12 straight cuts including those three victories, a runner-up finish and two other top-fives.
He became just the 13th player to earn the three-tournament promotion and joined Jason Gore as the only ones to win a tournament in the same year. Gore did so in 2005.
“Up until this year it had been—I won my sophomore year in college and didn't win anything for a couple three years and kind of the same until this year. It's been just trying to stay patient and like it's really hard to win golf tournaments. Keep telling yourself that and all you can do is really put yourself in contention and see what happens.
“You learn a lot from those. People always say learning how to win. I think it's like learning how to just play in contention and get yourself there more often. Winning sometimes just seems like it kind of happens, especially lately.”
McCarty has now given himself a great start to his PGA Tour career.
In addition to now being exempt through the 2026 season, he earned spots in the Sentry—the season-opening event in Hawaii—as well as the Masters and PGA Championship. He was already in the Players and the U.S. Open.
Not bad for a guy who had played in two PGA Tour events before this week.
“I'm just really excited for all the opportunities that come with this and everything,” McCarty said. “This is what I've wanted to do. To be able to do it this quickly, to be able to play in all these tournaments I'm going to be able to play in coming up is going to be really special, so I am just really looking forward to that.”
Now he’s also opened the eyes of plenty other aspiring pros. There are dozens if not hundreds or thousands who believe they are a hot streak away from success. Certainly those on the Korn Ferry Tour kind take solace in knowing just what McCarty accomplished in such a short time.
(Less than) a year to go
The PGA of America staged its one-year out news conference for the Ryder Cup last week, and beyond the usual opportunity to simply hype the matches that will be played at Bethpage Black in late September of 2025 surprisingly came a bit of news.
Luke Donald, the European captain, unveiled that Sergio Garcia has suggested an interest in returning to the DP World Tour, which would thus make him eligible to compete for an 11th time and extend his lead in all-time points won.
Competing on the LIV Golf League, Garcia would be unlikely to earn enough points to get one of the six automatic bids. And it’s not even a given that a strong LIV season or perhaps some good performances in the major championships (he’s only exempt for the Masters due to his 2017 victory) would be enough for Donald to pick him.
Given Garcia’s long-ago history (2002 U.S. Open) at Bethpage Black and perhaps some grievances to overcome with his teammates, nothing would be guaranteed. But the door is cracked open and it will be interesting to see if Garcia steps through and goes through the process with the DP World Tour.
Then there is U.S. captain Keegan Bradley, who given his late start in the process might have opted to change the qualifying system for the U.S. squad. (The European Ryder Cup team announced earlier this year that it has changed its criteria to one points list, with a strong portion of points being offered on the PGA Tour.)
But Bradley elected to stick with the system that has been in play for the last decade, with points being earned via money won, with a bump in 2025 for the major championships—but, so far, not the Players Championship.
Waiting until January to start the points race would not have been out of the question.
“We’ll keep it the same,” Bradley said in New York last week. “I think the points system does a great job in identifying the 12 best players. We play our elevated events (signature events) and majors carry so much weight, and I think that’s important with how strong the fields are week-to-week, the pressure of playing in these big tournaments, and that shows up on the points list.”
Still, only the 2025 majors received extra points, with 1.5 points earned by all players who make the cut for every $1,000 in prize money. It’s 1 point for regular events—including the signature events. The 2024 major championships and the Players Championship saw 1 point per $1,000 earned, hence Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele lead the way, with U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau in third place.
DeChambeau, as part of LIV Golf, will only be able to earn points at the majors, thus will need another strong run to make the team automatically. Brooks Koepka nearly pulled it off last year, finishing seventh in the points before getting a pick from captain Zach Johnson.
Any kind of solid play in the majors and on LIV Golf should have DeChambeau getting a pick, as Bradley said again that he wants the “12 best players” regardless of where they play.
One reason to consider scrapping the points from 2024 is all of them will have been earned more than a year out from the Ryder Cup, with the Players and Masters nearly 18 months prior. Certainly performance in those events can be weighed by the captain, but with current form being such an important part of the process, it seems unnecessary.
Bradley also noted the importance of the signature events, even though they are not getting a bump in points. And they, in essence, are getting double that of a regular event with their $20 million purses. Those who are not in the signature events or the majors will have a tall task to make the team automatically.
“I’m going to take the 12 best players,” he said. “So if we feel like there’s a few guys there ,one guy, two guys, whatever it is, then we’re going to do that. But we’re too far out to figure out how this is all going to play out. But we’re definitely going to take the 12 best players however that shakes out.”
This article was originally published on www.si.com as With First-Time Winner Matt McCarty, the PGA Tour Has Another Cinderella Story.
