Kyle Reifers Wins Nationwide Tour Event In His Debut
6/26/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
June 26, 2006
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. -- Kyle Reifers, who turned professional less than two weeks ago after graduating from Wake Forest, waited out a 62-minute weather delay before rolling in a 15-foot birdie putt to defeat Brandt Snedeker on the first hole of a playoff and win the Nationwide Tour's Chattanooga Classic at Black Creek Club on Sunday.
Reifers is 2-of-2 as a professional. A week earlier he finished first and won $12,000 to win the Tarheel Tour's Charlotte National Open in his pro debut.
The 22-year old Reifers shot a course-record, 11-under-par 61 in the final round to finish at 26-under-par 262 and then had to wait and see if any of the third-round leaders would catch him in regulation. Snedeker (69), who tied the course mark with an opening-day 62, eagled the par-5, 18th to shoot 69 and force the overtime session.
Third-round leader Boo Weekley (69) failed to get up-and-down from behind the green for birdie and wound up tied for third with Andrew Buckle (65), who also had a chance for a birdie and a tie. Scott Ford (66), Charlie Wi (67) and Brad Adamonis (67) tied for fifth place, two shots back of the leaders.
In the playoff, both players found a greenside bunker with their second shots and then blasted onto the green. With both facing birdie putts, threatening conditions (lightning in the area) forced a stoppage of play and put the playoff on hold temporarily.
"A lot of things go through your head at that point. I tried not to think about too much. It was a bizarre situation to have to stop. It was always in my mind that I was going to have to make mine to keep things going," said Reifers. "Brandt's a great putter and you always have to expect that he's going to make it."
When they returned to the 18th green, Snedeker's 20-foot putt burned the left edge, leaving it up to Reifers to decide matters. The recent Wake Forest grad calmly stroked his putt to become the 11th player in Tour history to win in his first career start but only the fourth to do so in the past 10 years.
"I tried to pick my line and trust it," said Reifers, who two-putted from 45 feet at the end of regulation for birdie on the same line. "My putt earlier probably helped more than watching Brandt putt. I hit a good putt and it just started tailing off there at the end but I thought I made it."
Reifers also became the 19th player to win on Tour after gaining entry through the Monday open qualifier and the first since lefty Eric Axley won The Rex Hospital Open a year ago.
"I didn't feel out of place at all this week," said Reifers, who had the final tee time on Monday and had to birdie four of his final six holes to shoot 66 and gain a spot in the field of 156. "I Monday qualified and it's easy to say but I felt like I belong out here."
Reifers collected $85,500 from the purse of $475,000 and jumped to No. 22 on the money list while gaining full status on the Tour for the rest of 2006 along with the 2007 season.
"None of this has hit me yet," he said afterwards. "The first thing is you come out here and don't have status and you want to finish in the top-25 so you can play next week. In my mind I was thinking that I have just as good a chance as anyone else in the field to win."
Players Mentioned
