Smylie Kaufman Talks Matt McCarty's 1st PGA Tour Victory
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00The new winner on the PGA Tour, Matt McCarty.
00:07And this is a guy where, you know, we want to take this in a number of different directions,
00:11but we've talked a lot this last season just about, you know, the crop of guys coming off
00:17the corn fair or guys that are ready to make an impact right away.
00:21Matt McCarty, he earned his tour card this season via the battlefield promotion.
00:28Three wins on the on the corn fairy tour, only the 13th guy to do that.
00:32And this was it was actually if you look at his his season on the corn fairy tour this
00:37last year, if you cut it off like the first part of the year at June 2nd after a miscut
00:43of the UNC Health Championship, believe I have this correct.
00:45He missed four cuts in 12 starts.
00:48He had two top fives, but really nothing other than that better than a tie for 26th and then
00:53just flipped a switch kind of June on.
00:56He wins the Price Cutter Charity Championship in late July.
01:01He wins a Pinnacle Bank Championship in mid-August and then Albertson's Boise Open at the end
01:06of August wins that to stamp it, earn his tour card.
01:10This is a guy that they were showing stats here on Golf Channel after the win this week.
01:13The Black Desert Championship won one in his third start on the PGA Tour, so one of the
01:20fastest to ever do that.
01:21They also shoot photographic.
01:23Garrett Kigo did that a couple of years back at Congaree's second PGA Tour start.
01:27So Smiley, just reflections on a guy that looks like he stripes it pretty good.
01:32Yeah, well, this week he's he's 26 years old out of Santa Clara, grew up in Scottsdale,
01:37Arizona.
01:38So this sort of desert mountainous golf kind of suits him well.
01:41What do you see out of Matt that makes you think of what kind of impact he could have
01:45on the PGA Tour this season?
01:46Well, I think it just kind of shows where the depth is in the pro game.
01:51We talk so much about the top and fixing the highest level of the game.
01:55And when you see a player that, you know, is a relatively unknown player coming into
01:59the Korn Ferry Tour season, playing his golf at Santa Clara, this isn't a player that,
02:05you know, was playing at Georgia or playing at, you know, a top school.
02:08Santa Clara is a school I can't even name you another player that's played at Santa
02:13Clara.
02:14I'm sure there's probably been plenty of great players, but, you know, what what comes to
02:17mind is is very light.
02:19So, you know, for for a player like himself to to get as hot as he did, you know, in the
02:25middle of this Korn Ferry Tour season, the stat that I saw that interests me was after,
02:31you know, right around June 9th, he was 10 under par or more in 13 straight events.
02:36So this guy was just making a ton of birdies every single week.
02:39So he's been playing incredible this entire summer.
02:43And you know, winning's not easy, right?
02:46He won three times on that tour, which is an incredibly competitive tour.
02:50You said the 13th time for for a guy to do that.
02:55It's impressive.
02:56And I think what my takeaway from just watching Matt get the victory is that it's a storyline
03:03that I'm interested in.
03:04I'm interested so much in these Korn Ferry Tour players to learn more about them sooner.
03:10I feel like this Korn Ferry Tour season, when it finished, I'm ready to see this next
03:16crop on the PGA Tour.
03:18And if it weren't for Matt's battlefield promotion, we wouldn't be seeing him unless he was getting
03:22sponsors invites.
03:23So this is a conversation I want to get into in a in a in a second.
03:29But let's just look at the PGA Tour in this and and how he fits in this ecosystem now.
03:37Right.
03:38So he's now in the winner's category.
03:41He's got no worries about his schedule now.
03:43He's got no worries of a reshuffle that he may have had to deal with next year.
03:47So he's in a great spot now that he's won, which is obvious.
03:51He's now got a master's exemption.
03:53But what does he not have?
03:55He does not have access into the signature events.
04:00Is that correct?
04:01Like he's not even in Pebble Beach.
04:02He's not in RIV.
04:05So that's the confusing thing to me about all of this, right, is that we're having,
04:11you know, the biggest, arguably one of the biggest tournaments that the professional
04:17game offers being the masters awarding an exemption for a player winning this event
04:23in the fall.
04:24But also the PGA Tour isn't rewarding players winning to getting in their own big event.
04:31So that's where the disconnect is for me in all this.
04:35It's like, hey, I want to see Matt McCarty on the elite PGA Tour events.
04:41And I want to see these new faces playing this fall.
04:45But we're just in a tug of war right now of trying to figure out where everybody fits.
04:50It's a game of Tetris.
04:52And right now, I just think this Tetris game is a bit confusing.