Advertisement

Collegian getting first shot on PGA Tour

 
Ollie Schniederjans has no expectations this week. “I’m going to see what happens and hope for the best,” the Georgia Tech senior says.
Ollie Schniederjans has no expectations this week. “I’m going to see what happens and hope for the best,” the Georgia Tech senior says.
Published March 11, 2015

PALM HARBOR — Georgia Tech senior Ollie Schniederjans gets a week off from school to play in the Valspar Championship.

Schniederjans won the 2014 Valspar Collegiate tournament at the Floridian Golf Club in Palm City. With the win came a sponsor's exemption to play at Innisbrook, which will be his first PGA Tour event this week.

Schniederjans and his fellow competitors didn't know a spot in a PGA event was on the line until the night before the final round.

"They just threw that out there," Schniederjans said. "But I've always been kind of calm and if it was meant to be, it was meant to be. I knew that I was going to play a PGA Tour event some day, so if this was my first one or not, I wasn't going to be overly concerned. I birdied the last hole to win by two, so that was pretty exciting."

This year, Schniederjans is off to a slow start, but only because the harsh Georgia winter has not allowed for many competitive rounds. He is realistic about his chances this week.

"I don't have any expectations," Schniederjans said. "I have high hopes, and I believe I can put up some good scores, but I'm going to see what happens and hope for the best."

As a winner of the McCormack Medal for being the world's top amateur, Schniederjans will play in the U.S. Open and the British Open this year. He also plans on defending his Valspar Collegiate title next week.

On Tuesday, he played a practice round on the Copperhead Course with fellow 21-year-olds Jordan Spieth, Daniel Berger and Justin Thomas. All four friends grew up playing junior tournaments against each other. Schniederjans is the only one who didn't leave college early to turn pro.

"If I had a freshman year like those guys, then it might have been different," Schniederjans said. "But the way things happened, I didn't want to jump the gun and leave after a good junior year."

Bringing momentum: While the Valspar Championship doesn't have last week's winner of the WGC Cadillac Championship at Doral, Dustin Johnson, it does have Puerto Rico Open champion Alex Cejka. Clearly not as well-known as Johnson, Cejka won his first PGA Tour event after surviving a five-man playoff Sunday. He now has four top-25 finishes this season. He last played at Innisbrook in 2012, when he missed the cut. Cejka does not qualify for the Masters since the Puerto Rico Open was played opposite the WGC tournament and is not a full field event.

Go figure: Three colleges boast six current or former players each in this week's field: Georgia, Georgia Tech and UNLV. Florida State is represented by three players (Daniel Berger, George McNeil and Jonas Blixt).

Chip shots: Four players entered the field through Monday qualifying. Michael Kinkopf, Jonathan Randolph and Roberto Castro shot 66s at Southern Hills Golf Club. Greg Chalmers won a six-way playoff, which concluded Tuesday morning, to earn the final qualifying spot. … Steve Wheatcroft and Blayne Barber were selected off the alternate list after Aaron Baddeley and Dudley Hart withdrew. … There will be a morning wave and an afternoon wave of groups for today's pro-am. Some notable morning players include Adam Scott (7:40 a.m., first tee), Padraig Harrington (8:30 a.m., first tee), Jim Furyk (9:40 a.m., first tee) and Justin Rose (9:40 a.m., 10th tee). Notable afternoon players include Ernie Els (12:30 p.m., first tee), Lee Westwood (12:50 p.m., 10th tee) and Stewart Cink (1:20 p.m., first tee).