Livescore
Before everyone scattered for the holidays, Florida State redshirt senior Gray Albright and some teammates welcomed one last challenge from the Seminole alums who play professional golf but still call Tallahassee, Florida, home. In those games around Seminole Legacy Club, pros such as John Pak, Vincent Norrman and Frederik Kjettrup frequently battle the college guys, a group that still includes junior Luke Clanton, who has already proven himself more than capable at the next level with four top-10s last season on the PGA Tour, including a pair of runner-up showings.
Right now, it’s Clanton, not any of the current pros, who provides the greatest litmus test.
“Seeing him do what he’s done has been incredible,” Albright said of Clanton. “He’ll go to these Tour tournaments and then come back, and we’ll play a bunch of matches, and then you get to compare your game to him…
“And not going to lie, he has been kicking my butt lately.”
If anything, Albright adds, those butt-kickings have made him better. When he showed up at Ocean Forest Golf Club in Sea Island, Georgia, for last week’s Jones Cup Invitational, he was well conditioned for the punishing layout, bone-chilling temperatures and wind, and star-studded field, which featured five of the top 12 amateurs in the world and plenty of depth.
Sure, he didn’t have to deal with Clanton, who was away competing at the Sony Open in Hawaii, but Albright did draw another teammate, junior Jack Bigham, in a playoff after both players finished 54 holes at 4 under, two shots clear of Vanderbilt’s Jackson Van Paris, Duke’s Luke Sample and 16-year-old Miles Russell.
Albright won with par on the first extra hole, but it was his performance on the back nine in regulation that allowed him to join past Jones Cup champions such as Justin Thomas, Ludvig Aberg and Patrick Reed. Albright played Nos. 10-18 on Sunday in a bogey-free 3 under, sticking a 7-iron from 192 yards to a foot at the par-4 12th, rolling in a 15-footer for birdie at the next, and then delivering the moment of the tournament at the par-3 17th.
With his back foot in a bunker, Albright, a lefty, stood over a 50-foot birdie putt. With Bigham looking at about 15 feet for birdie, Albright knew he need to put a good stroke on the ball. But the historically deft putter did better than that; he jarred it – and good thing because Bigham would pour his putt in on top of it.
“I kind of blacked out and went nuts from there,” Albright said. “That was one of the cooler holes I’ve ever played.”
The victory, though, was easily the biggest.
Said Florida State head coach Trey Jones: “There’s no way you could’ve seen him winning on that golf course two years ago.”
Albright would agree.
“I am a completely different golfer than I was when I came here as a freshman,” Albright said. “I didn’t know as much about golf as I thought I did.”
Albright boasted some nice credentials coming out of Forest High in Ocala, Florida, including a strong golf lineage – his father, Steve, played golf at North Carolina, and his brother, Miles, competed at Gardner-Webb. But buried on a roster led by first-team All-Americans John Pak and Vincent Norrman, Albright didn’t hit a single tournament shot his first season.
In fact, Albright only logged six total starts in his first three seasons as his high golf IQ and lethal putter were not enough to overcome a loose golf swing.
“It was tough mentally because everybody has their doubts about whether they can do it or not,” Albright said. “But my teammates and coaches were great to me, kept telling me to keep going, keep working, and I’m really thankful for that. It’s not always easy when it’s not going well for you.”
Albright’s breakthrough came during the spring of his redshirt-sophomore season, when he won the Seminole Intercollegiate. He added another victory last spring, at the Watersound Invitational, while finishing the season with four top-10s and a scoring average nearly two shots better than his previous low.
Prior to winning at Ocean Forest, Albright had climbed to No. 61 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, a true testament to the work he’s put in on campus and with instructor Sean Hogan, who teaches out of the David Leadbetter Academy at ChampionsGate in Orlando, Florida. Albright is more consistent ball-striker these days, especially off the tee. He hits shots with less curve and has tighter misses.
His pro prospects are better than ever, too. Albright stands at No. 18 in PGA Tour University, which will award Korn Ferry Tour status to the top 10 performers after this spring’s NCAA Championship.
Albright is well aware of what’s at stake this semester, but he also knows he’s now on the radar for this fall’s Walker Cup, which obviously, should Albright make that 10-man team, would mean a delay in Albright’s pro career.
“If he thought he was on that team, I’d expect him to do that,” Jones said. “He sees the big picture. That’s why he came back for a fifth year, to get better. He has the ability to be patient.”
Albright said as much.
He knows, especially after Sunday’s triumph, that he’ll be among those pros at Seminole Legacy playing against the college boys soon enough.
Read the full article here
Discussion about this post