The 2020 golf season had already delivered surprising finishes, before COVID 19 ground it to a halt. The tournaments conducted during the first two months seemed to represent a changing of the guard, with players such as Nick Taylor and Sungjae Im winning some of the biggest prizes with wins at Pebble Beach and the Honda Classic.
Taylor, at 32, had missed cuts and then, knocked around various tours, and, out of nowhere, inexplicably wins Pebble Beach. As crazy as Taylor’s win was, someone we have never heard of - Maverick McNealy - managed to claw his way into the Top 5.
While Im’s a rising star, finishing behind him at the Honda Classic was Mackenzie Hughes, who somehow managed to sneak into the field, potentially with a falsified “player pass” and post a series of scores that landed him in 2nd, enabling him to cash a $763k check.
We want to be clear that while we do not condone whatever “tactics” Taylor and Hughes have employed to gain access to PGA tournaments, we applaud them for their fine play. Simply put, they kept it together.