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Smylie Kaufman Wins Shriners with Huge Comeback

The Shriners Hospital for Children Open is sponsored by the Shriners, a fraternal organization that gives millions of dollars for charity especially kid’s charities.

It was apropos that a kid won their golf tournament yesterday.smylie

Smylie Kaufman, a twenty-three year old PGA Tour rookie staged a massive comeback to win the Shriners. Consider it another gift to the kids.

Smylie, yes that his his given name not a nickname, it’s a family name, came to the PGA Tour fresh off the Web.com Tour by finishing thirteenth on the money list. And this was just his fifth start in three years on the tour and he certainly made the most of it.

Smylie, I’m using his first name, made a comeback of historic proportions as he was seven shots back at the start and tied for 28th. His final round 61 included a sizzling back nine 29 and that was highlighted by an eagle two at the fifteenth where he drove his tee ball to thirteen feet from the hole.

He then retreated to the driving range to wait out any threat of a playoff but Kevin Na, Brett Stegmaier and Jason Bohn couldn’t scratch out a tie.

Smylie admitted to being stressed out while he waited and still has trouble believing he made it to The Masters.

”I was just hitting it so good the last few days and just wanted to give myself a chance and post a number, and that’s what it came down to. I dodged a lot of bullets coming down the stretch with guys coming in.  So much more stressful than on the course. So much worse. I felt like I was watching an LSU football game.”

”It’s unbelievable,” he said. ”If you would have told me I had a round at the Masters, if somebody was going to take me out and not completely with the Masters, just to play Augusta National, I would have freaked out. But now that I’m playing the Masters, it’s a joke. It’s unbelievable.”

For his win in Las Vegas Smylie earned a two year PGA Tour exemption, invites to The Masters, The PGA Championship and The PLAYERS. Oh and a nice little paycheck of $1,152,000.

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