The Georgia PGA contingent for the 2017 PGA Professional Championship will include three players competing in the national club pro championship for the first time, but one of the three hardly fits the description of rookie.
From 1995-2014, Vidalia native Paul Claxton competed on either the PGA or what is now the Web.com Tour, playing 16 years on the latter and four years as a PGA Tour member. Claxton won twice during his time on the Web.com Tour and is still the second leading all-time money leader on that tour, retaining his standing in career earnings since leaving the tour two years ago.
Claxton has returned to his hometown and accepted the position of head pro at Hawk’s Point GC in Vidalia, and has been playing Georgia PGA events this year after more than two decades as a tour player. He has three finishes of fourth or better in Section events this year, with his most recent finish a tie for third in the Georgia PGA Professional Championship at Reynolds Plantation’s Oconee Course earning him his first ever trip to the national club pro championship in Oregon next June.
In his first year of competing in Georgia PGA events, Claxton placed fourth in the final points standings, and should again be a factor in the Player of the Year race next year. Claxton turns 50 early in 2018 and has his eye on Champions Tour qualifying late next year with the hope of resuming his career as a tour player.
The other two Georgia first-timers in next year’s PGA Professional Championship are Justin Martin, the Director of Golf at the First Tee facility at Atlanta’s John A. White Park, and Jeff Frasier, an instructor at Chicopee Woods in Gainesville.
Martin, 31, is an Atlanta native and a product of the First Tee program in Atlanta. He was a teen-ager when John A. White Park became part of the First Tee program, and went on to play in college at Hampton University in Virginia before joining the club professional ranks.
“It means a lot to give back to a place that means a lot to me,” said Martin, who has been the Director of Golf at Atlanta’s First Tee facility since early this year. The job is Martin’s first as a head pro after serving as an assistant in Williamsburg, Va., and for two years at Crooked Creek in north Fulton.
This was Martin’s second attempt at qualifying for the PGA Professional Championship, following a disappointing and somewhat painful first try last year.
Martin achieved his Class A PGA status last year in time to enter the Georgia PGA qualifier, which was played at Dunwoody CC, where he worked briefly after returning to the Atlanta area from Virginia. He was looking forward to playing at a course he was familiar with, but was in a car accident the day before the tournament started, and said that “threw me out of sorts.
“My goal was to get to the (PGA Professional Championship),” Martin said. “I had built my game for that tournament.”
Martin was also hampered by what he described as a “nerve and muscle injury” and was healthy for only one tournament last year. Prior to this year’s PGA PC, he said he felt his game “had turned in the right direction,” and he came through with his best showing in a Georgia PGA points event, finishing sixth at the Oconee Course at Reynolds Plantation with a score of even par 144.
An opening round 70 left Martin only one shot out of the lead after 18 holes, and earned him a pairing in the final group the next day with Claxton, the first round leader, and Tim Weinhart, who went on to win the tournament and lock up his ninth Georgia PGA Player of the year title.
“I’ve played with (Sonny) Skinner and (James) Mason and (Craig) Stevens. The last guy I had not played with was Weinhart,” Martin said of four of the Georgia PGA’s most accomplished players. “It was a fun pairing and a I learned a lot. I’m a kid. I’m only 31.”
Martin hung around par the entire second round for 17 holes and was well inside the cut line needed to qualify for nationals was he played the difficult 18th hole at Oconee.
“I played very good until the last hole, but I had never been as nervous,” Martin said. “I was just trying not to fall over.”
Martin did not know exactly where he stood regarding the number he needed to shoot to qualify, and said, “I needed to know. I was driving myself crazy.”
He got into some trouble on the hole and wound up making a double bogey, but his final round 74 was good enough to avoid a multi-player playoff at 146 and gave him a sixth place finish at 144.
“To hit all the shots required during the final round when I knew what I was playing for is a confidence boost,” said Martin, who offered that qualifying for nationals is “absolutely awesome. That was a goal I had at the beginning of the year.”
Martin said his most important shot of the tournament was a 15-foot bogey putt he made on the ninth hole in the opening round. He managed to save bogey after driving in the water, and said “that putt was huge for my confidence.” He shot 4-under 32 without a bogey on the back nine to put himself in position to make his first trip to nationals.
Frasier let a solid first round slip away a bit when he bogeyed the final two holes for a 75, which left him four shots out of the top eight, the number of qualifiers the Georgia PGA was going to send to nationals.
“I hit the ball well,” Frasier said of his play the first day. “But I had a couple of unfortunate breaks and drew a couple of tough lies in bunkers.”
Frasier said he thought he needed to shoot around 1-under the second day to have a chance, with his 36-hole target number 146. He carded back-to-back birdies on holes 4 and 5, with his only bogey of the day at the long, par-3 13th, where he missed a 5-footer for par.
Other than that, Frasier did not make any mistakes, hitting 16 greens with no three-putts. He birdied the par-3 15th, parred in from there for a 70, and waited until the groups came in behind him to see if his 145 total would hold up.
As it turned out, Frasier finished seventh outright, avoiding a large playoff for the final spot at 146.
Frasier said he “is very excited” about playing at nationals for the first time, and the day after earning his spot admitted “it hasn’t hit me yet.”
There is about nine months between the Georgia PGA qualifier and nationals next June, and Frasier says “that gives me a way to prepare and get my game stronger. On the other hand, that’s a long time between now and then.”
Frasier had come close to qualifying for nationals before, losing in a playoff one year. He came into the most recent Georgia PGA Professional Championship with some confidence, having familiarity with the Oconee Course from his days as an instructor at the teaching facility at Reynolds Plantation.