IVINS, Utah (AP) — Matt McCarty started the year on the Korn Ferry Tour and now is headed to the Masters, winning his first PGA Tour title Sunday at the Black Desert Championship with a 4-under 67 and one swing that all but sealed it.
McCarty won three times on the Korn Ferry Tour to earn an instant promotion in August. In his third start on the PGA Tour, he made winning look just as easy. Staked to a two-shot lead going into the final round, he never trailed at Black Desert Resort and won by three shots.
Stephan Jaeger closed within one shot with birdies on the 14th and 15th. McCarty effectively ended any threat with a 3-wood on the 310-yard 14th that was close to perfect, bounding onto the green and settling 3 1/2 feet from the cup for an eagle.
The victory means the 26-year-old left-hander from Arizona is assured of being in three of the majors next year. He gets into the Masters and PGA Championship with his PGA Tour title, and McCarty already earned a spot in the U.S. Open by leading the Korn Ferry Tour points list.
McCarty becomes the first player since Jason Gore to win three times on the developmental tour to earn an instant promotion and then win on the PGA Tour in the same season. He finished at 23-under 261 and earned $1.35 million.
“I don't know how you can expect this,” McCarty said. “It's just a lot of fun. I've been working really hard. This year was great for me. To get out here a little early, to get some experience was great and obviously this now.
“It's just been a crazy last few months for me.”
McCarty didn't face much stress — he can attribute that to some beautiful lag putting — except for that one brief moment when Jaeger made a late move.
All the potential challengers went the other direction for much of the sunny day in southwestern Utah, the Beehive State's first time hosting a PGA Tour event in 61 years.
Joe Highsmith, playing in the final group, made double bogey on the opening hole. Harris English had three bogeys on the front nine that offset three birdies and kept him from making a move. Jaeger, who went toe-to-toe with Scottie Scheffler to win the Houston Open in March, managed only one birdie on the front nine.
McCarty motored along, leading by three, not dropping a shot until a three-putt from 55 feet from below a ridge on the 12th hole. And then when Jaeger holed a 5-foot birdie putt on the 13th and drove the 14th green for a two-putt birdie to close within one, McCarty answered.
He hit a draw with his 3-wood, stared it down and said, “Turn!” That it did, landing short of the green and slowing into the grain to nearly tap-in range. Jaeger, two groups ahead of him, had three straight birdie putts burn the edge of the cup.
Jaeger closed with a birdie on the par-5 18th for a 68 to finish alone in second.
“I gave myself a shot,” Jaeger said. “I didn’t drive it well enough to give myself shorter clubs in and ample opportunity for birdie. But sometimes you have that. I made some nice putts coming in, so I’m happy with that.”
Lucas Glover shot 62 and tied for third with Kevin Streelman, who had a big opportunity even without having a serious chance to win. The FedEx Cup Fall is largely about players finishing in the top 125 to keep full PGA Tour cards for 2025.
Streelman came in at No. 177, and every shot mattered. He angrily slapped his thigh when he missed a 6-foot birdie putt on the 16th hole, and then he watched his wedge hit the pin on the par-3 17th and bound off the green. He managed to save par, and he birdied the 18th for a 69.
That moved him to No. 138, getting him a little closer to 125th with at least four more tournaments left in the fall.
AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
Matt McCarty goes from Korn Ferry to the Masters after winning in Utah for first PGA Tour title
Matt McCarty goes from Korn Ferry to the Masters after winning in Utah for first PGA Tour title
The Black Desert Resort that was built from an ancient black lava field near Zion National Park and is hosting a PGA Tour event in Utah for the first time since 1963 is shown in Ivins, Utah. (AP Photo/Black Desert Resort via AP)
LONDON (AP) — A car-ramming at a Christmas market in Germany, which police are treating as an attack, is the latest in a grim series of events in which vehicles have been used as deadly weapons.
There have been a spate of such attacks over the past decade, some committed by groups but most by individuals. The motives – where they could be established – have varied widely. Some were inspired by Islamic militant groups such as al-Qaida and ISIS, which encouraged followers to carry out low-cost, low-tech attacks with cars and trucks. Others have been linked to mental illness, far-right extremism and online misogyny.
What law-enforcement authorities term “vehicle as a weapon attacks” have reshaped cities around the world, as planners erect concrete barriers around public spaces and build anti-vehicle obstacles into new developments.
Here are some major vehicle attacks:
MAGDEBURG, Germany, Dec. 20. 2024 — At least five people are killed and more than 200 injured when a car slams into a Christmas market in eastern Germany. The suspect, who was arrested, is a 50-year-old doctor originally from Saudi Arabia who had expressed anti-Muslim views and support for the far-right AFD party.
ZHUHAI, China, Nov. 11, 2024 — A 62-year-old driver rams his car into people exercising at a sports complex in southern China, killing 35 people in the country’s deadliest mass slaying in years. Authorities said the perpetrator was upset about his divorce but offered few other details.
LONDON, Ontario, June 6, 2021 — Four members of a Muslim family die when an attacker hits them with a pickup truck while they are out for a walk, in what Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau calls “a terrorist attack, motivated by hatred.” White nationalist attacker Nathaniel Veltman was sentenced to life in prison.
TORONTO, April 23, 2018 — A 25-year-old Canadian man, Alek Minassian, drives a rented van into mostly female pedestrians on Yonge St., the main thoroughfare in Toronto, killing 10 people and injuring 16. Minassian told police he belonged to the online “incel” community of sexually frustrated men.
NEW YORK, Oct. 31, 2017 — Sayfullo Saipov, an Islamic extremist from Uzbekistan, drives a pickup truck onto a popular New York City bike path, killing eight.
BARCELONA, Aug. 17, 2017 — A man driving a van slams into people on the Spanish city’s crowded Las Ramblas boulevard, killing 14 and injuring many others. Several members of the same cell carry out a similar vehicle attack in the nearby resort town of Cambrils before they are shot dead by police. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Virginia, Aug. 12, 2017 — During a “Unite the Right” rally, white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr. intentionally drives his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one woman and injuring dozens of people.
LONDON: March 22, 2017 — British man Khalid Masood rams an SUV into people on Westminster Bridge, killing four, before stabbing to death a policeman guarding the Houses of Parliament nearby. He is shot dead. June 3, 2017 — three attackers drive a van at pedestrians on London Bridge before stabbing people in nearby Borough Market. Eight people are killed and the attackers shot dead by police. June 19, 2017 — Darren Osborne, a man radicalized by far-right ideas, drives a van at worshippers outside a mosque in London’s Finsbury Park area, killing one man and injuring 15 people.
MELBOURNE, Australia, Jan 20, 2017 – Six people are killed and more than 30 injured when a car hits lunchtime crowds at a pedestrian mall in Australia’s second-largest city. Perpetrator James Gargasoulas is found to have been in a state of drug-induced psychosis.
BERLIN, December 19, 2016 — Anis Amri, a rejected asylum-seeker from Tunisia, plows a hijacked truck into a Christmas market in the German capital, killing 13 people and injuring dozens. The attacker is killed days later in a shootout in Italy.
NICE, France, July 14, 2016 — Tunisian-born French resident Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel drives a rented truck for more than a mile (almost 2 kilometers) along a packed seaside promenade in the French Riviera resort on the Bastille Day holiday, killing 86 people in the deadliest attack of its kind.
APELDOORN, Netherlands, April 28, 2009 – Former security guard Karst Tates drives a car into parade spectators in an attempt to hit an open-topped bus carrying members of the Dutch royal family. Six people are killed and Tates dies of injuries the next day, leaving his full motive a mystery.
CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina, March 3, 2006 — University of North Carolina graduate Mohammed Taheri-Azar drives an SUV into a crowd at the university, lightly injuring nine people, in a self-professed bid to avenge Muslim deaths overseas.
FILE - Injured people are treated in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, Aug. 17, 2017 after a white van jumped the sidewalk in the historic Las Ramblas district, crashing into a summer crowd of residents and tourists. (AP Photo/Oriol Duran, File)
FILE - In this April 23, 2018, file photo, police stand near a damaged van after a van mounted a sidewalk crashing into pedestrians in Toronto. (Aaron Vincent Elkaim/The Canadian Press via AP, File)
FILE - Forensic officers move the van at Finsbury Park in north London, where a vehicle struck pedestrians in north London Monday, June 19, 2017. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, File)
FILE - In this Dec. 20, 2016 file photo the trailer of a truck stands beside destroyed Christmas market huts in Berlin, Germany. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, file)
FILE - In this July 14, 2016 file photo, authorities investigate a truck after it plowed through Bastille Day revelers in the French resort city of Nice, France, killing 86 people. (Sasha Goldsmith via AP, File)
FILE - In this Wednesday, March 22, 2017 file photo, police secure the area on the south side of Westminster Bridge close to the Houses of Parliament in London. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)
FILE - People fly into the air as a vehicle drives into a group of protesters demonstrating against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. (Ryan M. Kelly/The Daily Progress via AP, File)
FILE - In this Dec. 20, 2016 file photo Christmas decoration sticks in the smashed window of the cabin of a truck which ran into a crowded Christmas market Monday evening killing several people in Berlin, Germany. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, file)
