alt=Jay DrewFARMINGTON — If you had Korn Ferry Tour rookie Andrew Kozan winning the Utah Championship this week before the tournament began, give yourself a couple mulligans next time you hit the links.
Heck, if you even had Kozan, who finished up at Auburn last year, winning the tournament before Sunday’s final round began, you were also in the minority.
But that’s what happened on a beautiful Sunday evening at Oakridge Country Club, as Kozan came from tied for 13th when the fourth round began to pocketing the $135,000 first-place check. It was the biggest final-round comeback on the KFT this season.
“I knew I was in the hunt pretty much the whole back nine. Kinda did what I could. All in all it was a good day. I kinda left it all out there and tried my best, for sure.” — Former BYU golfer Patrick Fishburn on finishing in a tie for second at the Utah Championship Sunday.
“It is insane, when you think about it, especially (with) what we have gone through as a team the last few months,” said Kozan, who zoomed from 153 to 41 on the tour’s points list. “To come out on top this week is really special, and it just means a lot to have my wife (Caylin) here and everyone back home supporting me the whole week.”
Kozan, wearing pink golf shoes that he now says will become a Sunday tradition, fired a final-round 63 (8-under) and finished at 21-under to edge former BYU star Patrick Fishburn, Justin Suh and Ashton Van Horne by a stroke.
Among the other golfers with BYU ties in the event, Peter Kuest finished in a tie for fifth, Zac Blair and Daniel Summerhays tied for 30th, while Monday-qualifier Austen Christiansen tied for 47th.
How big of a longshot was Kozan before the tournament began? He hadn’t made a cut on the tour since April 3 in the Club Car Championship, where he went on to a tie for 40th place. That’s 11 straight missed cuts before this week; He had played the weekend in only four of 19 tournaments. His best finish was tie for 15th at The Panama Championship.
But coming to Utah was the charm. That, the pink shoes and the presence of his wife, who has been traveling with him since they skipped the BMW Charity Pro-Am in South Carolina to get married.
“I just got a lot of grit,” Kozan said of the comeback. “You just gotta leave it all out there. Me and my friends have been saying all week, ‘fight or flight.’ When your back is to the wall, what are you going to do? I went out there today with nothing to lose and left it all out there.”
He did get at least one fortuitous bounce.
Coming up 18, and needing a par to become the clubhouse leader with seven twosomes still on the course behind him, he hit his tee shot far right. It bounced off a tree and went even further right — which was a good thing because it gave him a clear path to the green, albeit in the rough.
He made a routine par, somewhat to the displeasure of the large crowd gathered around the 18th green who had just watched hometown hero Fishburn make an 18-footer for birdie to get to -20.
“Yeah, it was a good bounce,” Kozan acknowledged.
Speaking of Fishburn, he was the highest local finisher, taking the T2 and moving from 71st to 46th on the points list and ensuring he will get his KFT card next season. A win would have vaulted him into the top 25 and earned him a PGA Tour card, which is obviously the goal of every player on this tour.
“Kinda mixed emotions,” Fishburn said of the day, after signing dozens of caps, golf balls and grounds passes. One kid even asked him to sign his neck. With a Sharpie.
Fishburn patiently granted every request but that one, instead finding a ball in his bag for the youngster while knowing he might have been a shot away from realizing his dream of making the PGA Tour.
“I knew I was in the hunt pretty much the whole back nine. Kinda did what I could. All in all it was a good day. I kinda left it all out there and tried my best, for sure,” he said, a day after noting he would “go for it” and put the pedal to the metal all day.
Fishburn will rue the 17th hole (No. 8 for Oakridge members) for a long, long time. He made a bogey after an errant tee shot and a missed 12-footer for par that “broke right across the hole.”
“I was trying to hit a low cut (off the tee) and just didn’t commit,” he said. “I wanted to hit it on the left side, and I was a little bit worried about hitting it through into the (rough). But just one bad swing, really.”
A swing that might mean he will be back on the KFT next year, unless he can make some magic in Omaha, Nebraska, this week as he did in 2021 when he finished T4 at the Pinnacle Bank Championship.
“It is a very fine line,” Fishburn said. “There are shots here and there early in the week that you don’t realize it may come down to that. You just have to control what you can control, and try your best and if you come up short you just try again next time. There is always another tournament.”
Fishburn earned $48,750, his biggest paycheck as a pro.
His former BYU teammate, Kuest, also had a memorable week and won his largest check ever — $24,225 — with a T5 finish. Kuest eagled the second hole, birdied the third and the seventh, and found himself tied for the lead. A bogey on the nasty par-4 10th — a par-5 for members — derailed his momentum. Birdies on 12 and 17 got him back up the leaderboard.
“It was a good week,” said Kuest, who won 10 college tournaments at BYU and was an All-American. “It wasn’t the result we wanted, but it was the result we got. The game is definitely going in the right direction and it is just a process, so we will just keep hammering the process until we get a win.”
Kuest will play in Omaha next week by virtue of finishing in the top 25 Sunday. He went from 170 to 125 on the points list. He lipped out a birdie putt on No. 18 that was really hard to take because it kept him out of that tie for second.
“I learned that I can win out here,” Kuest said. “I can take it low and give myself a lot of opportunities to win. If I jus keep doing what I am doing, that will happen.”
Local favorite Summerhays shot a 67 Sunday to finish the tournament at -13 and tie for 30th. Summerhays rebounded from bogeys on 11 and 14 to make an eagle on 15 and then birdied 17 and 18 to finish strong.
Former BYU golfer Austen Christiansen, from Houston, shot a 70 Sunday to finish at -11. Christiansen tied for 47th. He was in position for a better finish, but made bogeys on 13 and 15 to drop down the leaderboard.
Former PGA Tour regular Zac Blair, who is rehabbing on the KFT and will return to the big tour this fall on a major medical exemption, shot a 69 on Sunday to finish at -13 and in a tie for 30th. Blair went out in 33, but disaster struck on the tough par-4 10th when he “made one bad swing” and took a double bogey. He followed that with a bogey on 11, and a good day was ruined.
Birdies on 15 and 17 moved him back up the leaderboard a bit. Blair said he will play in Omaha next week and in the Utah Open the following week, then take a couple weeks off and get ready for Napa.
“My game is coming around,” he said. “I had one bogey going into that back nine today. I was definitely avoiding the bogeys, but just not making enough birdies. Good shots didn’t end up doing what I thought they would do.”