The first tournament of the PGA Tour playoffs came to a close on Sunday with the final round at the St. Jude Championship at TPC Southwind in Memphis.
The top 70 players in the season-long FedEx Cup standings punched their tickets to this week’s event, which will go down to 50 at next week’s BMW Championship in Missouri.
Three Canadians - Sudarshan Yellamaraju, Nick Taylor and Corey Conners - were in the field this week at TPC Southwind, and none of the three were able to climb into the top 50 to advance to the BMW Championship.
Conners, of Listowel, Ont., played a rather uneventful final round of the tournament. He was one of the first to tee off, and got off to a strong start, hitting a birdie on the par-4 opening hole.
He was a consistent par from there - a putting slip-up on the par-4 seventh hole netted his first bogey of the round, but he answered with a birdie immediately afterward. On the back nine, Conners logged pars on all nine holes outside of the par-4 14th, where his tee shot landed in the bunker and he could not clean it up quickly enough.
“Frustrating,” Conners said to TSN’s Bob Weeks after his round concluded, when asked to sum up his performance at the St. Jude Championship. “It was not the week I wanted.”
That should be the end of the season for Conners, who is not projected to finish in the top 50 in the FedEx Cup standings.
Yellamaraju, of Mississauga, Ont., could not keep up the momentum he established in the opening two rounds of the tournament. After finishing the second round as the top Canadian at 5-under, Yellamaraju struggled mightily on moving day, finishing his third round with a 6-over 76.
“Obviously the third round was not very good... it kind of shot any chance for myself to move on,” Yellamaraju said after completing his final round. “Two, maybe two-and-a-half other rounds, I played pretty good. I wish the putting was a little bit more consistent, but it is what it is.”
On Sunday, Yellamaraju was done in by four bogeys - including three among the final six holes. The 25-year-old, who is playing in his first season on the PGA Tour, used a masterful approach to notch an eagle on the par-5 16th hole, but followed it up with a bogey on the par-4 17th.
Yellamaraju’s tournament is also expected to be done, as he is currently projected outside the top 50 of the FedEx Cup standings.
“I have mixed emotions, to be honest,” Yellamaraju said when asked to reflect on his first full season on the PGA Tour. “Going into the year, it’s the first year, playing a lot of new courses, I got to play in a lot of big events, majors, kept my [tour] card, which was one of the goals... it was good, but you look at the past few events, and I kind of let myself down there.”
Abbotsford, B.C.’s Taylor could not make any positive progress in Sunday’s round after a strong showing on Saturday.
Taylor entered the day as the top Canadian, but was the worst of the three on Sunday’s round, logging four bogeys and no birdies for a 4-over finish on the day and an even par for the tournament.
Taylor’s season will also end at St. Jude, as the 38-year-old will not make the top-50 cut.
Here is a look at each Canadians’ scorecard in the final round from TPC Southwind.
Winner: Scottie Scheffler (-17)
| Player | TOT | Thru | R4 | Current Proj. Rank (Top 50 Advance) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Corey Conners | +2 | F | E | 59 |
| Sudarshan Yellamaraju | +2 | F | +1 | 58 |
| Nick Taylor | E | F | +4 | 63 |
