Salisbury’s Elliot Gealy won his first professional golf championship in dramatic
fashion Saturday with a birdie on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff in Myrtle
Beach, S.C.Gealy, who
started the day in second place, four strokes back of Tee Burton, shot a 6-under-par 66 at
Wild Wing Plantation’s Hummingbird Course to tie Burton after the regulation 72 holes
at 267, 21 under par.
Burton, a former University of
North Carolina golfer from Shelby who once won the North Carolina Amateur at the Country
Club of Salisbury, had surged out front with a sizzling 60 on Friday.
Gealy and Burton held their
sudden-death playoff on the par-5, No. 1 hole, and Gealy, a recent Clemson University
graduate, reached the green in two shots, then made his birdie for the championship, worth
$15,000.
Gealy had four straight rounds in
the 60s with scores of 68, 66, 67 and 66. He hit 17 of 18 greens in regulation on Saturday
before making the birdie in sudden death.
Gealy, a member of Clemson’s
perennially strong team for five years counting his redshirt freshman year, has now
collected $30,400 on the TearDrop Tour since turning pro in June. He missed the cut in his
first tournament, but has won money in six straight.
He’s collected approximately
$23,000 the last two weeks at Myrtle Beach, where he has been 38 under par for 144 holes.
Gealy took second place the
previous week at Wild Wing’s Wood Stork Course, where he shot 271 and won $8,000. He
made 10 birdies in his final round.
Gealy’s victory yesterday
vaulted him into 16th place on the TearDrop’s money list. It’s the first time
he’s been in the top 20. The TearDrop’s season began inJanuary while Gealy was
still an amateur.
The son of Catawba College golf
coach Sam Gealy and wife Judy, Elliot will spend some time in Salisbury this week before
heading to Scottsbluff, Neb., for a three-day pro-am beginning Sept. 10.
Later in September, he will play
in a Golden Bear Tour event in West Palm Beach, Fla., then will try to qualify for the
Michelob Classic, a PGA Tour event scheduled in Williamsburg, Va.
Gealy plans to enter the first
stage of the PGA Tour Qualifying School in mid-October at Kannapolis Country Club or
Magnolia Green Golf Club in Wilmington.
He’s uncertain whether he
will play in the TearDrop’s final two tournaments scheduled at Hilton Head, S.C., in
December. |
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