Max Kennedy won’t be looking for participation kudos when he plays in his first PGA Tour event in a couple months.
The University of Louisville senior claimed an automatic exemption Wednesday into the tour’s inaugural $3.9 million Myrtle Beach Classic by winning the General Hackler Championship hosted by Coastal Carolina at The Dunes Golf and Beach Club.
Buoyed by a PGA Tour win in January by then Alabama sophomore Nick Dunlap, his expectations are much higher.
“I want to win. That’s it,” Kennedy said. “I want to get on and I want to win. The same way Nick Dunlap did a couple weeks ago I think it’s very possible. The collegiate game is extremely good and the standard is so high, I think Nick Dunlap from Alabama showed that so I think I can go on and win that golf tournament, 100 percent.”
The native of Ireland who came to the U.S. to play college golf defeated John Houk of Tennessee-Chattanooga by a shot with an 8-under-par 208 that included a 3-under 69 in the final round.
It’s his second college victory, joining a win at Texas A&M’s Aggie Invitational last spring.
Louisville claimed the team title as well, denying the host Chanticleers the school’s second Hackler title in the event’s 23 years by five strokes on the strength of a 5-under 283 in the final round.
CCU entered the final round with a two stroke lead over Louisville following a blistering 8-under 280 in Tuesday’s second round and settled for second by a shot over Furman at even-par 864 following a 2-over final round.
It’s CCU’s first top-five team finish in seven events, and CCU grad student Seth Taylor tied for sixth at 4-over 212 following a 72 Wednesday.
“I’m happy with how my guys performed under the pump today. It’s tough when you’re leading and have to execute,” CCU second-year coach Jacob Wilner said.
The prospect of earning the exemption offered by Myrtle Beach Classic officials added to the prestige of the event and potentially the pressure coming down the stretch, which Kennedy and others near the lead admitted to thinking about at times.
“Any chance you get to compete with the pros is amazing, and to have the opportunity to do that in May is phenomenal. I can’t wait to do it,” Kennedy said.
“. . . I really stayed calm today. I was expecting to be nervous and I never really got nervous until the last green, until I had to hit that [chip shot and putt], so I was really happy about that. I know how to deal with it, I’ve been in that situation a lot and I dealt with it just the way I would, just the way I have in the past.”
Louisville, which entered the event receiving votes in the Bushnell/Golfweek Division I top 25 poll, toppled a pair of top 25 teams in 2023 Hackler champion East Tennessee State (16) and North Florida (24), which finished tied for fourth and seventh, respectively.
“This team is so good we just haven’t played to our full potential,” Kennedy said. “This week we showed we can play to a high, high level.”
Earning the exemption
Kennedy began the final round two shots behind Clark Akers of Furman, who dropped into a tie for third with a 1-over 73 Wednesday.
Kennedy chipped in for an eagle on the 529-yard fourth hole as part of a 2-under front nine, and birdied the 15th hole to take the lead at 8 under.
With a one-shot lead in the final group, he missed the fairway to the right on the 430-yard 18th hole and hit a 7-wood from 174 yards into a stiff wind into the 18th green, which he missed into thick rough near a bunker lip to the left of the green.
The ball was nearly resting on a sprinkler head, however, so he was allowed a drop that gave him a fairly clean lie for a chip shot down to the pin near the front of the green. He chipped 6 feet past the hole and drained the putt to secure the victory and tour event berth.
“They always say that winning takes luck and I certainly got it there,” Kennedy said. “I took advantage of my luck and that’s something you have to do when you do get lucky, and I got up and down so I was happy with how it all played out.”
Kennedy became one of the better collegiate golfers last season, when he was one of 12 players selected to the Arnold Palmer Cup International Team while also garnering All-ACC, All-Region and All-America Honorable Mention honors.
His 70.9 single-season stroke average in 2022-23 ranks in the top five in Louisville history, and he shot under par in six consecutive tournaments while registering top-10 finishes in six straight events leading into the postseason.
This past fall, his stroke average had risen to 72.4 with one top-10 in five events, but he’s now back on track with three top-seven finishes in four events this spring.
“No one has ever went through this game without having an up and a down, so I know that’s what to expect, I know there’s going to be bad days in this game and I know is certainly going to be a lot of good days,” Kennedy said. “It was just one of those things I was a little confused on where my game was at and I didn’t really rely on a certain part of my game to get me through. This week I relied on my chipping and putting, that’s always been the strength of my game and it was really, really good this week.”
His ball-striking came through down the stretch, as well.
“I knew that in order to win you have to hit really, really good golf shots around this course, especially on the last couple holes when they’re into the wind,” he said. “That 18th hole, what a phenomenal golf hole it is. It just demands so much off the tee and on the second shot, then you’ve got to figure a way out of making par.”
If Louisville qualifies for an NCAA regional, it will begin May 13, the Monday following the final round of the Myrtle Beach Classic. And Kennedy plans to be playing on the weekend at The Dunes Club.
“I have a lot of confidence in myself,” said Kennedy, whose favorite fellow Irish golfer is two-time major champion Padraig Harrington. “Sometimes I don’t hit it as good, but I back myself until the end.”
Myrtle Beach Classic tournament director Darren Nelson said Wednesday the event intends to continue extending an invitation to the Hackler champion for the length of the current four-year agreement to host a tour event in Myrtle Beach.
CCU challenges for wins
Both Coastal as a team and Taylor as an individual entered the final round in position to challenge for wins.
The Chants shot up the leaderboard with Tuesday’s 8-under 280, taking a two-shot lead over Louisville after being tied for eighth and eight shots behind co-first round leaders Louisville and Chattanooga after an opening-round 294.
Taylor led the charge with a bogey-free 5-under 67 to move into a tie for third individually at 4-under 140, which was three shots off Akers’ lead. He was unable to make a run Wednesday, playing the first 12 holes 1-over with a bogey on the second hole en route to his even-par 72.
“I was trying to just repeat what kind of happened [Tuesday] and got off to a slow start and not many putts fell, but I battled pretty well I thought,” Taylor said. “With a bogey-free 67 you pretty much have everything going pretty good, and I’d say today was more the driver than anything. I missed a few fairways I needed to hit at key points.”
Taylor, a fifth-year grad student, was trying to join the only two CCU individual winners: Andrew Dorn at TPC in 2014, who shared the title with two-time PGA Tour winner Corey Conners, and Zack Taylor in 2020 at The Dunes Club by two strokes with a score of 8-under 208.
Taylor’s finish Wednesday adds to what has been a pair of strong seasons over the past two years.
His 71.7 scoring average last season was the fourth-best mark in program history, as he had six rounds in the 60s and 21 (of 34) of par or better. He had three top-five finishes and three additional top-10s to qualify as an individual for the 2023 NCAA Salem Regional, where he tied for 43rd at 2-under 214.
This season he now has three top-10s and a scoring average below 71.7 with 14 of his 21 rounds at par or better.
“After this week I feel I had a solid week so I feel pretty confident moving towards the rest of the season,” Taylor said.
He led CCU to its best finish of the season. In six previous tournaments between the fall and spring, Coastal’s best finish was sixth.
Sophomore Trey Crenshaw rebounded from a couple tough outings with a tie for eighth at 1-under 215 that included a 3-under 141 on the weekend. Freshman Jack Lee tied for 35th (72-70-80–122), super senior Garrett Cooper tied for 41st (76-72-75–223) and sophomore Owen Kim tied for 54th (75-78-73–226).
“There were 14 teams in the field and I think 12 of them were in the top 100 [national rankings], and we’re not in the top 100 currently. We’re obviously trending in that direction,” Wilner said.
Wilner estimates the Chants have played 25 rounds at The Dunes Club this school year. “We play a lot out here. We should play well. I think when we get really good this is a home course advantage,” he said.
CCU’s lone win in the Hackler came in 2005 at TPC of Myrtle Beach by five strokes over Notre Dame. That CCU team featured future longtime world No. 1 Dustin Johnson and future All-American Zack Byrd, who each finished in the top seven in the tournament that year. The event has been at The Dunes Club since 2015.
The Chants compete next at the Hootie at Bulls Bay Intercollegiate hosted by South Carolina outside Charleston from Sunday-Tuesday, then have an event at N.C. State before the Sun Belt Conference Championship.
“This gives us a lot of confidence going into conference. We’ll try to win it and make it to regionals,” Taylor said.
Chants lose two
A heralded recruit and heralded transfer who played in the fall are no longer on the CCU team this spring.
Freshman Brady Duval, the son of former world No. 1 David Duval who committed to the Chants from the International Junior Golf Academy in Florida, and Carlos Garre, a grad student transfer from Francis Marion via Wofford College, are no longer on the roster.
Duval played in two events in the spring and had a 73.8 scoring average while Garre, a native of Spain who attended North Myrtle Beach Christian High and won the 2022 Spanish Men’s Individual Golf Championship, played in one event and had a 71.7 stroke average.
“They’re no longer on our team,” Wilner said. “We keep that internal. We have standards and we have rules and everybody has to abide by them.”
At year’s end, Wilner said Taylor and super seniors Cooper and Connor Bennink will move on from college golf, and he has the spots vacated by Duval and Garrre.
He said he already has a pair of commitments for both the classes of 2024 and 2025, however, and will look to add more.
“That transfer portal when it comes out, I’m going to be like a day trader. I’m going to have computers and phones and emails and everything rocking and rolling,” Wilner said.
