There was no hiding Trey Winstead’s stoop.
He was noticeably heavier, had misplaced vital flexibility, and he couldn’t hold his driver on the planet – all penalties of a reckless quest so as to add a couple of yards. The again half of his LSU profession was a nightmare, with the ultimate blow coming on the 2022 NCAA Stockton Regional, the place Winstead was subbed out after two rounds by his personal dad. Set to show skilled that summer season, Winstead, embarrassed and stripped of confidence, thought to himself, Gee, I ponder how this can end up?
To reply that query, fantastically.
The 25-year-old rookie enters this week’s Korn Ferry Tour Championship sitting No. 32 in factors, lower than 62 factors and one robust week away from incomes one in all 30 out there PGA Tour playing cards. Slimmer and extra exact, Winstead has turned a obtrusive weak spot into his biggest power, as he ranks twentieth on the tour in driving accuracy. And personally, Winstead turned engaged final Friday, is about to marry his fiancée, Audrey, on Dec. 20, and has been afforded extra time on the highway together with his dad and lifelong teacher, Chuck, who due to well being causes stepped down final yr after practically 20 years main the LSU males’s golf program.
“I’m simply very blessed and excited to be within the place I’m in,” Winstead stated. “My life couldn’t actually get higher than it’s proper now. Something that occurs this week is simply icing on the cake.”
Danny Walker is aware of what the depths of this sport can appear like, too. Following a standout profession at Virginia, the place he amassed 12 top-10s, Walker shortly skilled success as a professional, capturing medalist honors on the ultimate stage of Korn Ferry Tour Q-Faculty in 2018. However Walker’s debut season was a catastrophe, as he missed 13 of twenty-two cuts, posted just one top-10 end and earned a measly $44,566. He acquired into simply 4 occasions the following season – and that was the tour’s pandemic-lengthened tremendous season – and couldn’t even garner a single begin on the Forme Tour, 2021’s PGA Tour Canada substitute. By that winter, Walker, an economics main who was a credit score or two wanting an astronomy minor, was eyeing a profession change and located himself making use of for a part-time job at Bahama Breeze, ready tables and peddling coconut shrimp.
He didn’t final three weeks earlier than diving again into the pro-golf waters.
“I knew if I hated it that may be an indication to return to golf, and to be truthful, I didn’t hate it, however I additionally didn’t prefer it,” Walker stated. “After that, I made positive I used to be extra dedicated than I had ever been.”
FRANKLIN, TENNESSEE – SEPTEMBER 15: Danny Walker of the USA and his caddie stroll the sixth fairway throughout the ultimate spherical of the Simmons Financial institution Open for the Snedeker Basis 2024 at Vanderbilt Legends Membership on September 15, 2024 in Franklin, Tennessee. (Photograph by Johnnie Izquierdo/Getty Photographs)
Walker begins this week No. 26 in factors, simply over 65 factors forward of No. 31 Trent Phillips. He’s possible protected, although contemplating the problem gamers within the PGA Tour’s reorder class had stepping into full fields this previous season, particularly early within the yr, Walker is aware of it’s crucial that he earns as many factors as attainable.
“And subsequent yr, there’s discuss of fields getting smaller,” Walker added, “so when you end thirtieth out right here, how good is that actually going to be? This week isn’t nearly getting your card, it’s ending as excessive as you may on that factors listing.”
There are 19 playing cards already clinched, together with the highest spot, which has Matt McCarty, a three-time winner this season, taking part in the Sanderson Farms Championship as an alternative. Jackson Suber, at No. 20, is the primary participant mathematically nonetheless with work to do. However extra realistically, No. 24 Ricky Castillo, the previous Florida standout who has skilled excessive ups and downs throughout his younger profession and is about 70 factors contained in the quantity, is the highest-ranked participant with a minimum of some anxiousness.
Walker, Noah Goodwin (who two years in the past was compelled to WD from ultimate stage with meals poisoning), 20-year-old South African Aldrich Potgieter, Kaito Onishi (who completed a hundredth final season and was the final participant to retain conditional KFT membership), five-year KFT veteran Trevor Cone and Sam Bennett, the bubble boy at No. 30, are the remainder of the names battling to stay PGA Tour sure on a wet-and-long French Lick format that’s famous for its small, treacherous greens.
“Another week,” Bennett stated, “and hopefully, it’s ok.”
COLUMBUS, OHIO – SEPTEMBER 19: Sam Bennett of the USA performs his shot from the 14th tee throughout the first spherical of the Nationwide Youngsters’s Hospital Championship 2024 at Ohio State College Golf Membership on September 19, 2024 in Columbus, Ohio. (Photograph by Raj Mehta/Getty Photographs)
Winstead would’ve had no probability this week if he was taking part in like he was final summer season, nonetheless combating a debilitating left-miss (Winstead is left-handed) and consistently replenishing his golf ball stock. The unusual factor was, proper earlier than the motive force went sideways, Winstead was dominating, posting three top-5s within the fall of 2019, together with a win on the David Toms Intercollegiate and a runner-up on the Tavistock Collegiate at Isleworth, which used to boast one of many season’s hardest fields.
“One of many issues that’s simple to do when issues are going rather well is to really feel such as you’re invincible and you can also make any selection you need and it’s going to work out,” Chuck Winstead stated.
The outcomes to start the spring weren’t fairly:
The Status at PGA West, 80-83-77, 79th of 79 gamers
Cabo Collegiate, 89-74-79, eightieth of 80 gamers
“And it simply snowballed from there,” Chuck added.
Now additionally coping with a right-elbow harm, Trey didn’t compete once more for the Tigers that season. He had a good summer season, profitable a match on the 2020 U.S. Newbie at Bandon Dunes, however he’d log simply 12 begins over his ultimate two seasons and ended his profession on the bench watching his group miss advancing to nationals by a single shot.
For the following yr, Chuck says, Trey’s swing would look good on the vary, nevertheless it might by no means persistently translate to the golf course. Lastly, after a 2023 U.S. Open qualifier wherein Trey rinsed a minimum of a half-dozen pictures, Chuck challenged his son to take his launch monitor with him for a spherical on the Tigers’ house course, College Membership. What Trey found was that on tough tee pictures with bother left, he was dumping the membership and swinging straight proper via the ball.
“That was the ah-ha second for him,” Chuck stated.
Lower than two weeks later, Trey Monday-qualified into the KFT’s Wichita Open, made the lower and tied for forty third. He then closed his All-Professional Tour season with 5 top-10s in six begins. He breezed via Q-Faculty, too, leaning on the motive force late at ultimate stage, and firing a third-round 64 at TPC Sawgrass’ Dye’s Valley Course earlier than hanging on in howling winds for a closing 72 at water-laden Sawgrass Nation Membership.
“Virtually everybody goes via a interval the place their recreation slips, and I’m lucky that it did occur as a result of I realized a lot about my recreation via that,” Trey stated. “To be on the opposite facet of that has been a blessing.”
Added Chuck: “Most guys who undergo points driving the golf ball, they don’t come again; that’s simply the fact. … Speak about gratitude.”
Trey Winstead has already happy his objectives for this yr, holding a minimum of full standing on the Korn Ferry Tour for subsequent season, and contending a number of instances, together with a playoff loss in Chile again in March and a T-4 final month in Boise, Idaho.
Walker switched to a Scotty Cameron mallet putter previous to the Memorial Well being Championship in late June, and since then he’s missed only one lower whereas producing eight top-25s, highlighted by a runner-up on the Pinnacle Financial institution Championship in early August.
Bennett can’t complain, both. The previous U.S. Newbie champion has made three straight cuts in U.S. Opens, tied for sixteenth eventually yr’s Masters and has proven a few of that promise with 4 top-10s on the KFT this yr.
“There’s actually no added strain going into this week,” Bennett stated. “If I get my Tour card, cool, that’s the place I really feel like I belong, but when I don’t, I acquired subsequent yr to return out right here and study extra about myself. … I received’t be close to as nervous as I used to be throughout the U.S. Am semifinals, the Masters first tee, my first ever U.S. Open, my first ever PGA Tour occasion – yeah, I received’t be as nervous.
“Both manner, I’m going to be in a superb place subsequent yr.”
Worst case, a full-time job.
Greatest case, a dream realized – and for gamers like Winstead and Walker, a dream that, not too way back, felt as if it’d by no means occur.
No matter what performs out Sunday night, Winstead deliberate to cook dinner a brisket subsequent week. He’s turn into obsessive about grilling during the last yr, a lot in order that his dad has nicknamed him, “Meat Church,” after the BBQ model that has one of many largest social-media reaches on this planet. Winstead has seen each YouTube video, some a number of instances, and even drove an hour on the eve of the KFT occasion in Arlington, Texas, to take a look at Meat Church’s provide retailer in Waxahachie.
“My Traeger goes to get some good use this offseason,” Winstead stated.
Even when it meant some further time within the fitness center.
