Rookie Matt McCarty shows no signs of cooling at Black Desert Championship

IVINS, Utah – Matt McCarty was preparing to tee off in the third round of the Black Desert Championship when his dad, Scott, yelled to him from outside the gallery ropes.

Well, this was a surprise.

“He's hard to miss,” said the lefthander McCarty, who shot 64 to take a two-shot lead into Sunday at the Black Desert Championship, of his father. “He's a big dude. Yeah, that was nice.”

So far, at least, McCarty, who is making just his second PGA TOUR start since his Three-Victory Promotion on the Korn Ferry Tour, is taking everything in stride. Having grown up in Scottsdale, Arizona, he’s comfortable playing desert golf. Having won three times in a span of six Korn Ferry Tour starts this year, he knows how to close out a win.

Now, with a handful of more accomplished players on his heels, he’ll try to become the first player since Jason Gore in 2005 to win three times on the Korn Ferry Tour and then on the PGA TOUR in the same season.

“I think it's just a very comfortable environment being back in the desert,” said McCarty, whose experience level mostly pales in comparison to chasers Joe Highsmith (62), Kevin Streelman (63), Harris English (66) and Stephan Jaeger (68).

“I just like the views,” McCarty added, “and it's just a cool place to be.”

This otherworldly Tom Weiskopf design, which looks like the surface of the moon, feels like the surface of the sun. To a man, players come off the course with their faces slicked with sweat and sunscreen.

“I got a brutal headache the first day from I think either dehydration or some altitude sickness,” said Highsmith, who is 149th in the FedExCup Fall. “I’ve been drinking like a ton of water and like all these hydration packs to stay level-headed.”

McCarty, though, has remained cool and level-headed come what may. That includes scorching weather, veteran competition (English has four wins, Streelman just made his 301st cut), and the arrival of dad Scott, who woke up at o’dark thirty to catch a plane from Phoenix to Las Vegas, then drove two hours to the course. They embraced, and Scott, who has never seen Matt win, watched the kid comfortably get his nose out front.

At the par-4 10th hole, McCarty hit a wedge over the green and into a scrabble of lava, but he didn’t panic. Instead, he took his medicine – penalty shot, drop – and hit a flop shot to within 8 feet of the pin, and converted the bogey putt.

It was one of two bogeys to go with seven birdies and a chip-in eagle from just off the green at the par-5 seventh hole.

McCarty is unquestionably the hottest player. His torrid streak on the Korn Ferry Tour, culminating with his triumph at the Albertsons Boise Open in August, gave him that circuit’s first Three-Victory Promotion in a year since Wesley Bryan in 2016.

In later finishing atop the Korn Ferry Tour season-long standings, McCarty guaranteed himself not only full PGA TOUR status next year but also starts at THE PLAYERS Championship and the U.S. Open at Oakmont.

Jaeger, too, was once known for his exploits on the Korn Ferry Tour, where he won six times over his career, including the 2016 Ellie Mae Classic, where he shot an opening-round 58 (not a typo). He is coming to the end of a breakout season in which he won his first TOUR title at the Texas Children’s Houston Open, edging none other than Scottie Scheffler.

Jaeger is also one of only two players in this field (with Chris Kirk) who finished in the top 50 in the FedExCup, ensuring entry into all Signature Events next season. He has won from ahead, as he did in Houston, and won from behind, as he’ll need to do Sunday, with the relatively unknown McCarty in the lead.

“To win three times out there in a pretty short season for them, it's pretty incredible,” Jaeger said of the front-runner. “He's obviously really talented. I've not played with him so I'm not sure. I don't know his game.

“It obviously translates really well,” Jaeger added. “I think you see that more and more often over the last couple years, that that Korn Ferry category plays well, especially some guys that are good drivers of the golf ball.”

McCarty has so far kept it between the rocks off the tee, but whether and how nerves affect him Sunday remains to be seen. In a sense, winning is winning, but he’s trying to be realistic.

“I just think the level is higher out here,” he said. “Like you got to play well and probably even a little bit better to close it out. It's the same thing. All the stuff that kind of comes on the other side of a win out here, of having the exemption for a couple years, getting in the Masters, stuff like that – It's hard not to think about those things.

“But, yeah, it's fun,” he added. “This is what I've wanted to do, and to put myself in this chance so early, I'm just going to enjoy the opportunity. It’s going to be really difficult. ... If I play well, I'm confident I'll be able to win. If not, you know, we're just getting started, so...”