No one has ever doubted the talent of Brandon Matthews, least of all Matthews himself.
Just when you think the 2010 PIAA champion and Brian Quinn’s star pupil at Temple might be hitting the wall in his quest to make it to the PGA Tour, he does something like this.
Playing in just the second event of the restart of what will now be PGA Tour Latinoamerica’s wraparound 2020-2021 season, the 26-year-old Matthews surged to the top of the leaderboard on the strength of a scintillating 8-under-par 63 at the Playa Dovada Golf Course in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic in Saturday’s third round and then kept the pedal to the metal with a finishing 65 in Sunday’s final round for a five-shot victory in the Puerto Plata Open.
Matthews had opened with a pair of 65s over the par-71 Playa Dovada layout before his red-hot weekend gave him a 26-under 258 total, five shots better than Jacob Bergeron, who turned professional in 2018 following one season of college golf at LSU.
“Today I was playing myself because I knew that if I played a good round of golf, I was going to be almost impossible to catch,” Matthews told the PGA Tour Latinoamerica website. “I had 26-under on my mind and that’s why I kind of gave it a little bit more of a fist pump there at the last.”
It was November of 2019 when Matthews, a state champion as a junior at Pittston in 2010, was involved in a playoff in the Argentine Open on PGA Tour Latinoamerica. A noise from a fan in the gallery may have distracted Matthews, who missed a putt that would have kept him alive in the playoff. He didn’t look happy as he stormed off the course.
Informed a few minutes later that the noise came from a man with Down syndrome, Matthews hustled back to the golf course, found the fan, hugged the man and gave him an autographed glove. Matthews’ compassion in that moment went viral and earned him so much notoriety that the people at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill gave him a sponsor’s exemption into their PGA Tour event.
Matthews missed the cut in his first PGA Tour event, but the news was going to start getting much bleaker in the weeks that followed. The following week the world as we knew it came to a screeching halt as it became apparent that the coronavirus was here to stay.
This was not a year to be a player in any sport competing in the minor leagues. While the PGA Tour got back on track in June and played a pretty decent schedule without fans, PGA Tour Latinoamerica was on an indefinite hold after just one event.
In an attempt to help players stay sharp, the PGA Tour launched the LOCALIQ Series, seven 54-hole events played in the southeast United States. Matthews made four of seven cuts and reached the series championship.
Tom Robinson of the Abington Journal – looks like that might be Matthews’ hometown paper near Scranton -- reported that Matthews picked up a win in a Minor League Golf Tour event in early November when he fired rounds of 69 and 71 at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. for an even-par 140 total.
When PGA Tour LatinoAmerica finally restarted with last week’s Shell Open at Trump National Doral’s Golden Palm Course in Doral, Fla., Matthews finished in a tie for 18th place. Matthews, who resides in Jupiter, Fla. these days, had taken advantage of whatever competitive opportunities he could and clearly was ready when PGA Tour Latinoamerica finally revved it up again.
After his brilliant career at Temple, which included eight tournament victories, Matthews failed in 2016 to qualify for the then Web.com Tour, now Korn Ferry Tour. Plan B turned out to be PGA Tour Latinoamerica, which he earned status for in a qualifying school in Mexico early in 2017.
Matthews quickly found some success, capturing the Molina Canuelas Championship at the Canuelas Golf Club in Buenos Aires, Argentina in March.
That win gave him some status on the Web.com Tour and he earned partial status on that tour in the Final Stage of Web.com Qualifying School at the end of 2017 and 2018 at Whirlwind Golf Club in Chandler, Ariz. But a bad back led to a disastrous 2019 on the Web.com, which changed names to the Korn Ferry in midstream that year. Matthews made only four of 21 cuts on the Korn Ferry Tour.
That’s what led him back to the PGA Tour Latinoamerica and that fateful playoff loss in the Argentine Open late in 2019.
Always a bomber, Matthews’ assault on Playa Dovada in the third round began when he needed just a pitching wedge for his second shot into the 514-yard, par-5 first hole, which he stuck to three feet and made the eagle try.
He added birdies at the second and third holes and, after a 90-minute weather delay, birdies at five and six. Just your basic 6-under-after-six-holes start to the round.
Matthews made a bogey at the ninth hole, the only blemish on his card, before making birdies on 10, 12 and 16 on his way to the clubhouse.
After a birdie at the second hole in Sunday’s final round, Matthews made a bogey at the third. Then he got down to the business of winning the golf tournament, making birdies at four, five, 10, 11 and 16. The Golf Association of Philadelphia retweeted the PGA Tour’s video of that fist pump that Matthews admitted had a little extra relish on it as he finished the win off in a style with a birdie at the last.
Bergeron matched the 63 that Matthews carded Saturday in Sunday’s final round, but he had started seven shots behind and never came close to catching Matthews with his runnerup total of 21-under 263.
Brendon Doyle, a native of Louisville, Ky. who played collegiately at Indiana, was one of Matthews’ closest pursuers going into the final round as he scorched Playa Dorada for rounds of 65, 64 and 68 the first three days. Doyle closed with a 67 and shared third place with Conner Godsey, a native of Rogersville, Ala. who starred at Division II Montevallo, at 20-under 264.
Godsey had a similar start to the one Matthews had Saturday in Sunday’s final round as he went 5-under through the first five holes with birdies at the first, third and fourth holes and an eagle at the fifth. Godsey finished with a sparkling 7-under 64 in the final round to join Doyle at 20-under.
There are no sure things in golf, but the really good players, GAP amateurs and Philadelphia Section PGA pros alike, who tee it up in the Philadelphia Open each year couldn’t have been more impressed by Matthews’ victories in 2013 at Waynesborough Country Club and in 2015 at the A.W. Tillinghast classic Wissahickon Course at Philadelphia Cricket Club. If Matthews can’t make it, how good do you have to be?
The PGA Tour Latinoamerica restart will take a two-month break with the wraparound 2020-’21 season continuing from February through June. Matthews’ goal for 2021 will likely be to keep playing well enough to get back to the Korn Ferry Tour Qualifying School Final Stage next December, assuming the Korn Ferry gets somewhat back on schedule in 2021.
Matthews still hasn’t made it to the PGA Tour, but if he does, the weekend before Christmas in the pandemic year of 2020 will certainly be remembered as a crucial crossroads in that journey.
Maybe there is a little truth in that old adage that good things happen to good people.
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