Top five stories we’ll remember from 2024 Korn Ferry Tour season

It was a rollicking 2024 on the Korn Ferry Tour, with three sub-60 scores epitomizing the circuit’s mandate to go low early and often. For the top 30 on the season-long standings, that challenge was accepted, and the reward was a 2025 PGA TOUR card.

We witnessed history in 2024: the first 57 in PGA TOUR-sanctioned golf, the circuit’s youngest winner at age 19, and all tournament winners earning a PGA TOUR card for the first time. There were heroics, like Braden Thornberry’s final-round 66 at the Korn Ferry Tour Championship presented by United Leasing & Finance to earn his first TOUR card, and there was heartbreak, like Alistair Docherty needing just one of two players to miss a mid-range putt on the season’s final hole to earn his first TOUR card (both made).

Through it all, we received copious reminders that golf’s youth movement isn’t slowing down anytime soon. The 2024 season featured the two lowest scoring averages in Korn Ferry Tour history (Matt McCarty, 68.38; Quade Cummins, 69.39); each played exactly 92 rounds this season, and McCarty had one fewer stroke. Twenty-three of the 30 graduates will be PGA TOUR rookies in 2025, and 22 graduates have yet to turn 30.

It's a Korn Ferry Tour class set to wreak havoc on the PGA TOUR, now and the future. Before we move forward, though, let’s reminisce on the top five stories we’ll remember from the 2024 Korn Ferry Tour season, the 35th year of competition on professional golf’s premier pathway circuit.

5. Harry Higgs authors historic back-to-back, shares profound message

Harry Higgs earned his first PGA TOUR card via the 2019 Korn Ferry Tour, but a repeat achievement can sometimes be twice as nice. Especially when the second time involves a previously unseen two-step.

This spring, Higgs became the first player to win back-to-back Korn Ferry Tour events in playoffs, and both wins featured a flair for the dramatic. First he won the AdventHealth Championship (in his hometown of Kansas City, no less), forcing a playoff with a 60-yard, hole-out eagle on the 72nd hole and winning with a birdie on the first playoff hole. Seven days later at the Visit Knoxville Open, he drained a 40-foot eagle from the back of the green on the first playoff hole, outlasting Frankie Capan III when the latter’s eagle try slid by.

It's one thing to earn two trophies in such riveting style. It’s another to find the composure to deliver a profound message around a sensitive topic in the immediate aftermath. Higgs faced the challenge of delivering a winner’s speech in Knoxville just one day after the tragic passing of two-time TOUR winner Grayson Murray. Higgs could have avoided the topic and stuck to generic platitudes for the tournament and venue, but instead he used his platform to challenge fans to make a difference in others’ lives.

“We lost, yesterday morning, one of our own,” Higgs said in his speech. “Somebody who went through a lot of difficult things, somebody that was open and honest about it, and last night … I thought about this moment, and how to maybe remember Grayson. … One thing that I thought of last night, especially laying in bed, is I would challenge everybody here … and I’m going to do this myself as well each day … say something nice to someone you love and also make a point to say something nice to someone you do not even know.

“So if we can, everybody here could be a difference, the difference, brighten up somebody’s day. It could mean the world.”

Although it ranks as the season’s fifth story competitively, Higgs’ message will create positive ripple effects across the golf world and society for years to come.

4. Aldrich Potgieter becomes youngest Korn Ferry Tour winner, earns TOUR card

South Africa’s Aldrich Potgieter burst onto the Korn Ferry Tour with no shortage of hype, medaling at PGA TOUR Q-School presented by Korn Ferry’s Second Stage at age 19 to earn eight early-season starts – less than six months after turning professional. This came less than two years after winning the British Amateur at age 17, becoming the second youngest winner in the event’s century-plus history.

It’s one thing to bring the hype; it’s another to validate it. Potgieter delivered on both.

Potgieter won the second event of the 2024 Korn Ferry Tour season, carding a final-round 65 at The Bahamas Great Abaco Classic at The Abaco Club for a two-shot win over Quade Cummins and Kyle Westmoreland. He raised the trophy at age 19 years, 4 months, 11 days, to surpass Jason Day (2007 Legend Financial Group Classic) as the youngest Korn Ferry Tour winner. Furthermore, he became the youngest winner of a TOUR-sanctioned event since Ralph Guldahl at the TOUR’s 1931 Santa Monica Open (19 years, 2 months, 3 days).

“We saw Nick Dunlap win last week (at The American Express), and that was a reminder that it can be done,” Potgieter said afterward. “I’m just happy to be playing here and to get the opportunity to play here. To make history, that’s just another bonus on top of the win.”

Guldahl proceeded to capture three major-championship titles, and don’t be surprised if Potgieter follows a similar path. The soft-spoken but affable South African displayed a willingness to grind through the season’s more difficult stretches – undergoing a lengthy range session on his 20th birthday after missing the cut at the Simmons Bank Open for the Snedeker Foundation in September – and the fruit was his first TOUR card for 2025. He finished No. 29 on the season-long standings after some tense moments on the bubble at the season-ending Korn Ferry Tour Championship, but it was worth the wait. (Not that finding the winner’s circle required too much waiting, of course.)

3. Karl Vilips goes from college kid to TOUR pro in four months

The term “meteoric rise” can be thrown around loosely in professional glove. For Karl Vilips, it fits like a glove.

Vilips finished No. 19 on the 2024 Korn Ferry Tour Points List to earn his first TOUR card, just four months after concluding his college career at Stanford. He’ll join his Stanford teammate Michael Thorbjornsen on the 2025 PGA TOUR (and perhaps for several years to come), after Thorbjornsen earned automatic PGA TOUR membership as No. 1 on the 2024 PGA TOUR University Ranking.

Vilips placed No. 10 on the same PGA TOUR University Ranking, his path to the highest level nowhere as certain. He began the summer with conditional Korn Ferry Tour status but planned to focus on PGA TOUR Americas, where he made two starts in June. Then he went on a run of four straight top-15 finishes that fundamentally shifted his career path – T13 at The Ascendant presented by Blue, T15 at the Price Cutter Charity Championship presented by Dr Pepper, solo second at the NV5 Invitational presented by Old National Bank, and a victory at the Utah Championship presented by Zions Bank and Intermountain Health. He was a combined 80-under across those four starts, showing his self-described “bomb-and-gouge” game was much more than that. The Australia native has some of the best short-game touch you’ll see, per Thorbjornsen, a frequent practice partner and confidant through the years.

Vilips and his dad Paul took a chance on moving to the United States when the younger Vilips was a middle schooler, seeking the tools to prepare for an eventual professional career. Vilips took a chance on the Korn Ferry Tour this summer, eschewing a guaranteed PGA TOUR Americas schedule with the hope of getting hot and becoming #TOURBound right here, right now. He did just that – and was voted Korn Ferry Tour Rookie of the Year as well.

2. Cristobal Del Solar becomes Mr. 57

Prior to 2024, two players had carded single-round scores of 58 in PGA TOUR-sanctioned competition: Germany’s Stephan Jaeger at the 2016 Ellie Mae Classic (Korn Ferry Tour), and Jim Furyk at the TOUR’s Travelers Championship just 10 days later.

It took nearly eight years for that score to be surpassed, but Chile’s Cristobal Del Solar broke down the barrier at the Astara Golf Championship presented by Mastercard in Bogota. Del Solar carded nine birdies and two eagles in the first round at Country Club de Bogota’s Pacos y Fabios course, against zero bogeys, to establish a new mark as golf’s rarest number. He began his day with birdies on Nos. 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 8 – then made eagle at the drivable par-4 ninth to turn in 8-under 27, moving the historical gatekeepers onto high alert. He added a birdie at No. 10, made eagle at the par-5 12th, and circled back-to-back birdies on Nos. 14 and 15. Del Solar closed with three straight pars to grab history by himself.

It's one thing to post a single historic score, another to display strong form across a season. In his eighth year as a pro, Del Solar established that this would be a year to remember – not only for a 57 but for achieving a lifelong dream. The Florida State alum proceeded to finish No. 14 on the season-long Korn Ferry Tour Points List and earn his first PGA TOUR card for 2025.

A day after Del Solar’s 57, South Africa’s Aldrich Potgieter shot 59 on the same Pacos y Fabios layout, becoming the youngest player to break 60 in TOUR-sanctioned competition. Two months later, Frankie Capan III shot 58 in the Veritex Bank Championship’s opening round. None of the three won the event where they broke 60, but all three earned their TOUR card for 2025 – the most important thing.

1. Matt McCarty earns first Three-Victory Promotion in a year since 2016

The third time was the charm for Matt McCarty, three times over.

A season after narrowly missing his first PGA TOUR card in heart-wrenching fashion at the Korn Ferry Tour Championship presented by United Leasing & Finance – taking a quadruple bogey on the 18th hole in Saturday’s third round (a par would have earned his card) – he won three times in six starts this summer to earn the circuit’s first Three-Victory Promotion in a single year since Wesley Bryan in 2016. (Mito Pereira earned three wins in the 2020-21 combined season.)

For McCarty, 26, the magical run was the fruit of several factors. Recent speed gains allowed him to attack more flags with shorter irons, crucial on a circuit that demands birdies. He consciously worked to improve his attitude daily, observing some of the game’s most positive players like veteran Californian Cody Blick. He had college teammate Devrath Das on the bag for the third straight season, with the duo cultivating an aggressive mindset and a hunger to not just settle for a TOUR card or a win – but to stack trophies.

The result: victories at the Price Cutter Charity Championship presented by Hiland Dairy Foods, Pinnacle Bank Championship presented by Woodhouse and Albertsons Boise Open presented by Chevron. He received his TOUR card greenside after that win in Boise; then he eschewed the start of the TOUR’s FedExCup Fall to lock up the Korn Ferry Tour’s season-long No. 1 position (with spots in the U.S. Open and THE PLAYERS Championship), which he did at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship (T5).

Then in his second PGA TOUR start as a member, McCarty won the Black Desert Championship in Utah, joining Jason Gore as the only players to earn a Three-Victory Promotion and win on TOUR in the same year. It marked McCarty’s fourth win in a span of 10 TOUR-sanctioned starts, a mind-boggling run.

Earlier this month, McCarty was named Korn Ferry Tour Player of the Year in a vote of his peers, five years after now-world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler earned the same distinction. There’s plenty of work ahead to catch Scheffler, to be sure, but they’re the only two players with four TOUR-sanctioned titles in 2024. Keeping that company with Scheffler is plenty to be deemed the Korn Ferry Tour’s top story of the season