Georgia has been without a Web.com tournament since 2014 and Savannah has been without a tour event since 2013.
All that will change late this month, as the inaugural Savannah Golf Championship will be played at the Landings Club, part of a large multi-course community located on Skidaway Island a short drive from downtown Savannah.
The inaugural tournament will be played March 29-April 1 and will mark the return of professional golf to Savannah after the Champions Tour’s Legends of Golf left the city after being played at Savannah Harbor from 2003-13.
The Web.com Tour is back in the state after a 3-year absence, following the demise of tournaments held for eight years each in Athens and Valdosta. The Athens event was played from 2006-13 and Valdosta’s Kinderlou Forest hosted a Web.com tournament from 2007-14.
The Savannah Golf Championship will be the fifth Georgia stop on the Web.com Tour, dating back to the tour’s origins under the sponsorship of the Ben Hogan Company in 1990. Macon was one of the original host cities for the tour, with River North (now Healy Point) the host course until the tournament left Macon after the 1995 season.
The Nike Tour Championship was played at Settindown Creek in Roswell in 1995 and ’96, but the tour, which has played under the name of five different title sponsors, did not return to the state until 2006 when Jennings Mill hosted an event in Athens that later moved to the UGA course.
The Web.com Tour is golf’s version of Major League Baseball’s Class AAA, with young players looking to move up to the PGA Tour for the first time, and former PGA Tour members attempting to regain their status in golf’s major leagues.
The large Georgia contingent on the Web.com Tour consists of players from both categories. Approximately 20 golfers with ties to the state are playing full time on the Web.com Tour this year, and are looking to earn one of 50 spots on the 2018-19 PGA Tour through either a top 25 finish on the regular season money list or a top 25 showing in the 4-tournament Finals series that involves players from both the Web.com and PGA Tours.
Georgia golfers have a long history of success in Web.com events in the state. Former UGA golfer Matt Peterson, now the General Manager at the UGA course in Athens, won the final tour stop in Macon in 1995, with Allen Doyle winning the Nike Tour Championship at Settindown Creek later that year en route to his rookie season on the PGA Tour in his late 40s and an outstanding career on the Champions Tour.
Stewart Cink, who has lived in the Atlanta area since completing his college career at Georgia Tech, won the Nike Tour Championship in ’96 to earn his spot on the PGA Tour, and has captured a major championship and six PGA Tour titles during his 20-year career.
More recent winners include the UGA trio of Russell Henley, Hudson Swafford and Brendan Todd, who won the last three years the UGA course hosted a Web.com event, along with John Kimbell, Luke List and Will Wilcox, who all won in Valdosta. Henley, Swafford and List are current PGA Tour members, with Wilcox playing on the Web.com Tour this season after spending the last four years on the PGA Tour.
Wilcox, who played his college golf at Clayton State, will be among the players with Georgia ties expected to compete in the 2018 Savannah Golf Championship. Wilcox is 28th on the money list heading into the tournament in Louisiana the week before the Savannah event, opening the season with ties for 13th and fourth in the two tournaments in the Bahamas. Wilcox was seventh on the money list in 2013, the year he won in Valdosta, and is back on the Web.com this year after playing on the PGA Tour from 2014-17.
Recent UGA golfer Joey Garber, a St. Simons Island resident, is a Web.com rookie, and is 34th in earnings after consecutive finishes of 17th, eighth and 25th in Panama, Colombia and Mexico, the last of the five events played outside the U.S. that opened the tour’s schedule. Garber tied for 13th in the 2016 PGA Tour event in Reno after getting into the field in a Monday qualifier.
Josh Teater of St. Simons has a pair of top-20 finishes this season and is 38th in earnings. He played on the PGA Tour from 2010-15 after winning on the ’09 Web.com and finishing seventh on the money list. He has placed 36th and 40th the last two seasons, falling a bit short of the number needed to return to the majors.
Samuel Del Val, a native of Spain who played his college golf at Berry in Rome and lives in Atlanta, was 76th last year in his first season on the Web.com after four successful seasons on the LatinoAmerica Tour. Del Val, who was fifth on that tour in 2016, got off to a strong 2018 start with finishes of ninth and 16th in the Bahamas, but missed his next three cuts and is currently 39th. He has a victory as a pro in Savannah, winning the 2010 Georgia Open at Savannah Harbor.
Lee McCoy, a recent UGA standout, is in his first Web.com season, and has played steadily thus far with a pair of top 20s to stand 39th in earnings. McCoy played in Canada last year and won his first start on that tour before ending 2017 by placing first in qualifying for this year’s Web.com Tour. While at Georgia, McCoy played in the PGA Tour event in Tampa, his home town, and placed fifth in 2016.
Alpharetta’s Billy Kennerly, who played at Clemson, enjoyed a successful rookie year on the Web.com in 2017, playing his way onto the tour at mid-season and finishing 45th on the money list in just 14 starts. He placed 21st, 19th and 17th in the first three tournaments of 2018 and is currently 46th.
Duluth’s Seth Reeves, a recent Georgia Tech golfer, was 60th as a Web.com rookie last year and is 48th so far this season with a tie for 10th in the Bahamas and a T18 in the most recent event in Mexico. Anders Albertson, Reeves’ Georgia Tech teammate from Woodstock, was 56 and 62 on the money list in his first two seasons and is 48 in 2018 with top 25s in each of his first three starts.
Atlanta resident Michael Hebert, who played at Auburn, is in his fourth Web.com season and is currently 69th after placing between 80 and 100 on the money list each of the last three years.
Veteran tour player Erik Compton, an ex-Georgia Bulldog, has played the Web.com off and on since 2002, winning a tournament in 2011 before playing the next four years on the PGA Tour. He has been back on the Web.com since and is currently 74th in earnings.
Henrik Norlander, a key player on Augusta State’s back-to-back national championship teams in 2010 and ’11, has played on either the Web.com or PGA Tour the last five years, winning a Web.com Finals event in 2015 and losing a playoff in the PGA Tour RSM Classic at Sea Island GC in late 2016. He has played steadily this season on the Web.com, but lacks a top finish and is currently 77th.
The most prominent Georgian on this year’s Web.com Tour is Alpharetta’s Robert Castro, an All-American during his college career at Georgia Tech. Castro played on the PGA Tour from 2012-17 and twice qualified for the Tour Championship, but both times he did, he played poorly the following year and lost his PGA Tour card. He got it back in the 2015 Web.com Finals, but lost is after a tough year on 2017 and is back on the Web.com for the first time since 2011, when he placed 23rd in earnings. Castro has made all three of his cuts thus far this season, but has not finished higher than 29th and is 86th in earnings. He did not play in the previous week’s event in Louisiana.
Australia’s Jamie Arnold, who has lived in the Atlanta area in recent years, is 95th after placing 52nd as a Web.com rookie in 2017. Veteran tour pro Nicholas Thompson, a former Georgia Tech golfer, is 100 on the money list in his fifth Web.com season. Thompson has a win and three runner-up finishes during his time on the Web.com along with seven seasons as a PGA Tour member.
Valdosta’s Sepp Straka, a recent Georgia Bulldog is just outside the top 100 after placing 71st as a rookie in 2017. Tour veteran David Skinns of Suwanee was 58th last year thanks to a high finish in the final event of the regular season, and is back for a second full season after playing limited Web.com schedules twice previously. He tied for 25th in the second tournament in the Bahamas, but that is his only made cut in five starts.
Swainsboro resident Blake Adams enjoyed an outstanding season on the Web.com Tour in 2009, finishing third in earnings without a victory, and played well in each of his first three years on the PGA Tour. But Adams, who played his college golf at Georgia Southern, has been plagued by injuries since, and returned to the Web.com in 2016, placing 62 and 70 on the money list the past two seasons. He missed the cut in each of his first three starts this season.
The field for the Savannah Golf Championship will play the Tom Fazio-designed Deer Creek course, which opened for play in 1991 and is the newest of the club’s six championship layouts. Arnold Palmer designed the Marshwood and Magnolia courses in the 1970s, with the Willard Byrd Plantation layout opening in 1982 and the Palmetto and Oakridge designs by Arthur Hills coming later in the 1980s.
The Deer Creek layout hosted the 2010 GSGA Championship, the highest profile event that has been played at the Landings. Albertson, who tied for 15th, and Reeves both competed in the event while still in high school along with Augusta’s Chase Parker, who has limited status on the Web.com Tour this year and finished second in the 2010 event.
Deer Creek measures almost 7,100 yards from the tips and features mostly generous tree-lined fairways with marsh views, including the appealing but dangerous par-5 18th. The course features a stout group of par 3s, but with the absence of serious length by tour standards, should enable the Web.com pros to put up some relatively low numbers.
The Oakridge and Palmetto courses will host qualifiers on Monday prior to the tournament, with a large number of players from Georgia competing in both for six spots from each site.
Among the attempted qualifiers at Oakridge are St. Simons’ Riley Davenport, who Monday qualified the week before in Louisiana; two-time Georgia Open champion Jay McLuen of Forsyth; former GSGA Championship runner-up Parker; recent Web.com member Mark Silvers of Savannah; and former RSM Classic champion Tommy Gainey from South Carolina.
Among those in the field on the Palmetto course are veteran Web.com member Tim O’Neal of Savannah, recent UGA standout Greyson Sigg of Augusta; ex-Web.com player Drew Weaver of Atlanta and former Georgia Southern golfer Scott Wolfes of St. Simons.