Story Links

Dec. 11, 2002

Dear Virginia Fans,

In case you haven’t been glued to the Golf Channel lately…CAMERON YANCEY earned his PGA TOUR CARD Monday, Dec. 9th, after shooting a final round 69 in La Quinta, California!

Over 1,000 professional golfers (including former UVa golfers James Driscoll, Tom McKnight, Simon Cooke, Brian Quackenbush and Steve Marino entered the tour qualifier this fall. More than 100 others were exempted from the first or second stage of qualifying.

Cameron made it through the first stage back in October by shooting 67-74-72-69 (-6) in Pinehurst and finishing 3rd of 81 players at that site. He advanced through the second stage in Texas in November, shooting 69-71-73-70 (-5) and finishing 8th of 77 players.

One hundred seventy-one players made it to the finals at La Quinta. The field included 19 former Tour winners, players like Billy Glasson, Steve Pate, former US Open winner Scott Simpson, and a handful of European Tour players like Carl Petterssen, and Alex Cejka, the world’s 54th ranked player. The field was mostly guys who’ve played the PGA Tour for any number of years, (but didn’t finish in the top-125 this year to retain their cards); I’d guess there were more than 100 former college All-Americans in the field.

At age 23, our 2001 graduate was one of the youngest players to reach the final stage (he may in fact, have been the youngest – we’re checking!). With only the top 35 of 171 earning their tour cards for 2003, Cameron shot 67-76-66-72-74-69 (-8) to finish tied for 34th!

Cameron started yesterday’s round 3 strokes off the cut line, knowing that he had to shoot no worse than 69 to earn his card. After shooting 36 on his first nine, he came back and shot 3 under 33 on the back. As he said in his interview on The Golf Channel, “I knew I had to make some birdies on the back nine, and well, I did just that.”

We’ve had quite a few players who’ve played in any number of tour events by way of exemptions or qualifying – players like Driscoll, McKnight, Cooke, Fred Widicus, Tripp Shreves, Tim Dunlavey, and Lewis Chitengwa (who reached the final stage of tour qualifying in 1999), but CAMERON YANCEY is the first Virginia Cavalier in history to gain fully exempt status on the PGA Tour.

CONGRATULATIONS TO CAMERON YANCEY, PGA TOUR PLAYER!!!!

Mike Moraghan

UVA Men’s Golf Head Coach

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