Life on the Korn Ferry Tour can be very stressful. To date, 18 tournaments have been held in the second division of the American circuit this season. Of all of them, only two have been won with a single-digit score, and in both cases, it was with -9. In the remaining 16, at least -17 was needed to lift the trophy, six times it was necessary to reach -20 or less, and on one occasion, the winner went as far as a crazy -30. The average score, therefore, to win a Korn Ferry Tour tournament is almost -20. In other words, you have to ride on a five-under daily to have a chance of winning.
Let’s continue with the cold facts. If we remove the two -9 scores and the -30, obviously the exceptions of the season, it turns out that the average to win is -20.6, which is slightly better than five-under each day. And let’s go further: if we take a look at the total average score of the Korn Ferry Tour players this season, it shows that 21 are below 69 strokes and 90 below 70. To give you an idea, in the PGA Tour there is only one player who scores below 69 strokes, and his name is Scottie Scheffler (who, by the way, was once Number One on the Korn Ferry Tour, how strange), and barely 35, almost a third, are below 70.
With these data laid out, you can understand the stress experienced by golfers on the Korn Ferry Tour with the dream of securing one of the 20 PGA Tour cards awarded at the end of the year. There’s no way around it. You have to make a lot of birdies. You have to step on the gas and not look back. And now, another twist, put yourself in the shoes of Pablo Ereño, who suffers this same stress but multiplied by a thousand because he only plays half the season. Remember, he joined the circuit through PGA Tour University after finishing his studies at UCLA and just turned professional.
The situation is not easy to manage. In fact, the most challenging part is bringing it down to earth and not getting carried away by that frantic pace of low rounds. Pablo admits that, in a way, he paid that price in his first three tournaments where he missed the cut. It’s hard to get the idea out of your head that making pars means you’re losing ground. Something like that can affect you mentally and even disrupt your usual way of approaching tournaments and strategies on each hole, perhaps taking more risks than necessary.
This lesson is now etched in the mind of the Madrid golfer, the only Spaniard on the Korn Ferry Tour. In fact, he applied it in his fourth tournament, where he made his first cut and posted three excellent rounds of golf. “It was a small mental adjustment. I decided to keep the results aside and focus on playing my game, aiming at the flags where I really felt I could and aiming for the centre of the green where it wasn’t necessary. If you then sink a long putt, great,” Pablo tells Ten Golf.
This happened at the Highland Springs Country Club, where the Price Cutter Charity Championship presented by Hiland Dairy Foods was played last week. Ereño delivered three cards of 67, 69, and 68 and was in the top 25 with 18 holes to go. And not only that, he went 47 holes without making a single error. Things didn’t quite go his way on Sunday with a round of 73 strokes, dropping him to 47th place. However, the conclusions have been positive. It has definitely been a step forward. “The two keys last week were that I worked very hard in recent days on the ‘ball striking’, which is my main quality and hadn’t been very good, and that mental part. I felt much more comfortable with my game, hitting the ball better, more in sync with the caddie, and the idea of playing my game regardless of what’s happening on the leaderboard worked well, having a clear plan and sticking to it,” he explains.
With those first points of the season added on Sunday in Missouri, Pablo has moved to 199th place in the Korn Ferry Tour ranking. The most immediate goal is to get into the top 156 to play the first of the four tournaments that make up the Korn Ferry Tour Finals Series. There are eight events left to complete the calendar, four regular and those four Finals Series. To play the second Finals Series, you need to be in the top 144, for the third in the top 120, and the grand final is played only by the top 75, who are also the ones who retain the card for next year.
What would Pablo Ereño need in the next four tournaments to achieve each of the goals ahead: play the first Finals Series, get into the second, third, fourth, and retain the card or finish in the top 20?
– 156th place (First Finals Series): He is 43 points away. This amount is earned by finishing 21st alone in regular tournaments.
– 144th place (Second Finals Series): He is 66 points away. The player in 11th position earns 70 points.
– 120th place (Third Finals Series): He is 110 points away. The 5th place alone earns these points.
– 75th place (Fourth Finals Series and retain the card): He is 227 points away. The 2nd place earns 300. The third earns 190. A second tied with one could suffice.
– 20th place (PGA Tour Card): He is 674 points behind Álvaro Ortiz, currently twentieth in the ranking. The victory awards 500 points, so he is a little more than a win away (a win and a third, for example) from that position.
A good goal for Pablo Ereño in the next four tournaments would be to finish in the top 10. For that, you no longer have to think about making five-under every day. The average top 10 in the Korn Ferry Tour is about -14. It’s demanding, but certainly less stressful. Between three and four under could suffice. It’s true that Pablo, having only half the season, is a bit more in need, but mentally it could be wise not to set such an ambitious goal as winning… and who knows if in the end, step by step, it might just happen.
In any case, the best news, now fully aware of Pablo Ereño’s situation on the Korn Ferry Tour, is knowing that he is feeling much better both in terms of his game and mentally. That comfort and playing to his strengths are the keys to success.
