It came by the slimmest of margins, but a second player who grew up in Colorado will be a rookie on the PGA Tour in the 2018-19 wraparound season.
Wyndham Clark earned his card by finishing in the top 25 — 18th in his case — on the regular-season Web.com Tour money list.
Then on Sunday, Jim Knous of Littleton also landed a promotion by placing in the top 25 on the cumulative money list for the four-event Web.com Tour Finals.
How did Knous do it? By earning the 25th — and last — card available through the Web Finals. In fact, just $490 in Finals earnings separated Knous from player No. 26, Justin Lower, who will have to make do with a return to the Web.com circuit in 2019.
Talk about being on the bubble.
“It was a brutal day emotionally,” said Knous, who made a key 5-foot save for par on his final hole Sunday. “I wasn’t quite sure how much my performance would affect the overall outcome. It kind of just depended on what everybody else did. That’s pretty terrifying. So I really just kind of did my best to stay calm and inside I was really freaking out and just super psyched that at the end of the day finished right there on No. 25.”
Knous is one of five Web Finals graduates who will be PGA Tour rookies.
Knous (pictured) was inside the Finals top 25 after each Finals event as he set himself up nicely with a 10th-place showing in the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship late last month.
But throughout the season-ending Web.com Tour Championship that ended on Sunday in Atlantic Beach, Fla., Knous was right around the Finals bubble — meaning the 25th spot.
But despite finishing 57th in the Tour Championship, Knous withstood the challenges to end up 25th on the Finals money list. The former Colorado School of Mines golfer carded rounds of 67-69-70-71 for a 7-under-par 277 total in Atlantic Beach.
Not surprisingly, when Knous walked up to be presented his PGA Tour card on Sunday afternoon, he pumped his fist in the air.
Knous will go into the upcoming PGA Tour season with the lowest priority of the 50 Web players who earned cards. But that’s certainly eminently better than being on the outside looking in. The 2018-19 PGA Tour season begins Oct. 4-7 with the Safeway Open in Napa, Calif.
Knous, an NCAA Division II individual runner-up as a senior at Mines in 2012, has spent the last two years on the Web.com Tour, recording four top-10 finishes — three of them coming since mid-July. The 28-year-old Basalt native tied for fourth in both the Utah Championship and the WinCo Foods Portland Open.
Coincidentally, Clark and Knous played off for the title at the 2010 CGA Amateur at Boulder Country Club, with Clark prevailing on the second extra hole after Knous had shot a course-record 60 in the final round.
Second Straight Champions Top-5 for Jobe: The final round certainly wasn’t what Brandt Jobe was looking for, but for the second straight week, the Colorado Golf Hall of Famer recorded a top-five finish on PGA Tour Champions.
Jobe shared the lead going into the final round of the Sanford International in Sioux Falls, S.D., but a 2-over-par 72 on Sunday dropped him back to a tie for fourth place.
That showing comes after finishing a season-best second last weekend at The Ally Challenge following a six-week layoff due to a hurt left shoulder.
In South Dakota, Jobe went 63-67-72 for an 8-under-par 202 total, which left him five shots behind champion Steve Stricker.
