Entering KFT finale, life on bubble often better than depths that preceded it

There was no hiding Trey Winstead’s slump.

He was noticeably heavier, had lost significant flexibility, and he could not keep his driver on the planet – all consequences of a reckless quest to add a few yards. The back half of his LSU career was a nightmare, with the final blow coming at the 2022 NCAA Stockton Regional, where Winstead was subbed out after two rounds by his own dad. Set to turn professional that summer, Winstead, embarrassed and stripped of confidence, thought to himself, Gee, I wonder how this will turn out?

To answer that question, beautifully.

The 25-year-old rookie enters this week’s Korn Ferry Tour Championship sitting No. 32 in points, less than 62 points and one strong week away from earning one of 30 available PGA Tour cards. Slimmer and more precise, Winstead has turned a glaring weakness into his greatest strength, as he ranks 20th on the tour in driving accuracy. And personally, Winstead became engaged last Friday, is set to marry his fiancée, Audrey, on Dec. 20, and has been afforded more time on the road with his dad and lifelong instructor, Chuck, who because of health reasons stepped down last year after nearly two decades leading the LSU men’s golf program.

“I’m just very blessed and excited to be in the position I’m in,” Winstead said. “My life couldn’t really get better than it is right now. Anything that happens this week is just icing on the cake.”

Danny Walker knows what the depths of this sport can look like, too. Following a standout career at Virginia, where he amassed 12 top-10s, Walker quickly experienced success as a pro, capturing medalist honors at the final stage of Korn Ferry Tour Q-School in 2018. But Walker’s debut season was a disaster, as he missed 13 of 22 cuts, posted only one top-10 finish and earned a measly $44,566. He got into just four events the next season – and that was the tour’s pandemic-lengthened super season – and couldn’t even garner a single start on the Forme Tour, 2021’s PGA Tour Canada substitute. By that winter, Walker, an economics major who was a credit or two short of an astronomy minor, was eyeing a career change and found himself applying for a part-time job at Bahama Breeze, waiting tables and peddling coconut shrimp.

He didn’t last three weeks before diving back into the pro-golf waters.

“I knew if I hated it that would be a sign to go back to golf, and to be fair, I didn’t hate it, but I also didn’t like it,” Walker said. “After that, I made sure I was more committed than I had ever been.”

Walker starts this week No. 26 in points, just over 65 points ahead of No. 31 Trent Phillips. He’s likely safe, though considering the difficulty players in the PGA Tour’s reorder category had getting into full fields this past season, especially early in the year, Walker knows it’s imperative that he earns as many points as possible.

“And next year, there’s talk of fields getting smaller,” Walker added, “so if you finish 30th out here, how good is that really going to be? This week isn’t just about getting your card, it’s finishing as high as you can on that points list.”

There are 19 cards already clinched, including the top spot, which has Matt McCarty, a three-time winner this season, playing the Sanderson Farms Championship instead. Jackson Suber, at No. 20, is the first player mathematically still with work to do. But more realistically, No. 24 Ricky Castillo, the former Florida standout who has experienced extreme ups and downs during his young career and is about 70 points inside the number, is the highest-ranked player with at least some anxiety.

Walker, Noah Goodwin (who two years ago was forced to WD from final stage with food poisoning), 20-year-old South African Aldrich Potgieter, Kaito Onishi (who finished 100th last season and was the last player to retain conditional KFT membership), five-year KFT veteran Trevor Cone and Sam Bennett, the bubble boy at No. 30, are the rest of the names battling to remain PGA Tour bound on a wet-and-long French Lick layout that is noted for its small, treacherous greens.

“One more week,” Bennett said, “and hopefully, it’s good enough.”

Winstead would’ve had no chance this week if he was playing like he was last summer, still fighting a debilitating left-miss (Winstead is left-handed) and constantly replenishing his golf ball inventory. The strange thing was, right before the driver went sideways, Winstead was dominating, posting three top-5s in the fall of 2019, including a win at the David Toms Intercollegiate and a runner-up at the Tavistock Collegiate at Isleworth, which used to boast one of the season’s toughest fields.

“One of the things that’s easy to do when things are going really well is to feel like you’re invincible and you can make any choice you want and it’s going to work out,” Chuck Winstead said.

The results to begin the spring weren’t pretty:

The Prestige at PGA West, 80-83-77, 79th of 79 players
Cabo Collegiate, 89-74-79, 80th of 80 players

“And it just snowballed from there,” Chuck added.

Now also dealing with a right-elbow injury, Trey didn’t compete again for the Tigers that season. He had a decent summer, winning a match at the 2020 U.S. Amateur at Bandon Dunes, but he’d log just 12 starts over his final two seasons and ended his career on the bench watching his team miss advancing to nationals by a single shot.

For the next year, Chuck says, Trey’s swing would look good on the range, but it could never consistently translate to the golf course. Finally, after a 2023 U.S. Open qualifier in which Trey rinsed at least a half-dozen shots, Chuck challenged his son to take his launch monitor with him for a round at the Tigers’ home course, University Club. What Trey discovered was that on difficult tee shots with trouble left, he was dumping the club and swinging straight right through the ball.

“That was the ah-ha moment for him,” Chuck said.

Less than two weeks later, Trey Monday-qualified into the KFT’s Wichita Open, made the cut and tied for 43rd. He then closed his All-Pro Tour season with five top-10s in six starts. He breezed through Q-School, too, leaning on the driver late at final stage, and firing a third-round 64 at TPC Sawgrass’ Dye’s Valley Course before hanging on in howling winds for a closing 72 at water-laden Sawgrass Country Club.

“Almost everyone goes through a period where their game slips, and I’m fortunate that it did happen because I learned so much about my game through that,” Trey said. “To be on the other side of that has been a blessing.”

Added Chuck: “Most guys who go through issues driving the golf ball, they don’t come back; that’s just the reality. … Talk about gratitude.”

Trey Winstead has already satisfied his goals for this year, keeping at least full status on the Korn Ferry Tour for next season, and contending multiple times, including a playoff loss in Chile back in March and a T-4 last month in Boise, Idaho.

Walker switched to a Scotty Cameron mallet putter prior to the Memorial Health Championship in late June, and since then he’s missed just one cut while producing eight top-25s, highlighted by a runner-up at the Pinnacle Bank Championship in early August.

Bennett can’t complain, either. The former U.S. Amateur champion has made three straight cuts in U.S. Opens, tied for 16th at last year’s Masters and has shown some of that promise with four top-10s on the KFT this year.

“There’s really no added pressure going into this week,” Bennett said. “If I get my Tour card, cool, that’s where I feel like I belong, but if I don’t, I got next year to come out here and learn more about myself. … I won’t be near as nervous as I was during the U.S. Am semifinals, the Masters first tee, my first ever U.S. Open, my first ever PGA Tour event – yeah, I won’t be as nervous.

“Either way, I’m going to be in a good place next year.”

Worst case, a full-time job.

Best case, a dream realized – and for players like Winstead and Walker, a dream that, not too long ago, felt as if it’d never happen.

Regardless of what plays out Sunday evening, Winstead planned to cook a brisket next week. He’s become obsessed with grilling over the last year, so much so that his dad has nicknamed him, “Meat Church,” after the BBQ brand that has one of the largest social-media reaches in the world. Winstead has seen every YouTube video, some multiple times, and even drove an hour on the eve of the KFT event in Arlington, Texas, to check out Meat Church’s supply store in Waxahachie.

“My Traeger is going to get some good use this offseason,” Winstead said.

Even if it meant some extra time in the gym.