Shaun’s Late Birdie Lifts Him To Forme Open Win

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Category: Inside Golf

Published: 2021-08-23

MAINEVILLE, Ohio — The birdies that came frequently on the front nine for Corey Shaun and Carson Young weren’t as easy to make over the final nine holes during the final round of the Forme Open at TPC River’s Bend. It was Shaun, though, who rolled in a 12-foot birdie putt on the 17th hole to break a deadlock with Young, and after the two players parred the par-5 18th, Shaun had his first Forme Tour title. Shaun fired a 67 to finish at 26-under. Corey Pereira ended alone in third, two shots back.

Shaun had no status at the beginning of the season and used a Monday qualifier and a sponsor exemption to play in tournaments. Suddenly, he’s is No. 5 on the Points List and poised to make a run at 2022 Korn Ferry Tour membership that go to the top-five points earners. Two tournaments remain on the schedule.

“With three events to play, I was thinking, let’s try to top-60 and keep my card,” Shaun said of a realistic goal of maintaining his Forme Tour membership. “The win changes everything. All my goals change, my benchmarks change, everything. I knew I needed to have one decent finish to keep my privileges for next year.”

Does a victory qualify as “one decent finish?”

Inadvertently, the final round of the Tour’s sixth event of its inaugural season turned into match play between Young, a Clemson graduate, and Shaun, a UCLA product. The two shared a three-shot lead when the day began, but Young had moved two shots ahead when he made the turn at 5-under for the day, while Shaun was 3-under. Young’s birdie at No. 9 was his last of the day, and after he bogeyed No. 10 and Shaun birdied 11, the duo was again tied. A flurry of pars followed until Shaun broke through.

The thing was, Shaun didn’t specifically know where he stood on the leaderboard, only that he was glad to break his birdie-free streak.

“I figured I had a good chance to be leading. Going into 18, I was 5-under for the day, meaning somebody would have had to shoot 8(-under) to catch up for a playoff,” Shaun explained. “I knew where we stood relative to each other. I didn’t know how the groups in front were playing. I knew those guys were only three shots back, so if one of them played a great round, it was very possible they could catch up to us.”

Young also chose not to look at a leaderboard, so he was somewhat in the dark, as well as the round wound down.

“It did in a sense,” Young said when asked if the back nine had a match-play feel to it. “I wasn’t sure what anybody else was doing. I was still out there trying to get to 28-under. That was my goal. Since we didn’t know where anybody else was, it was match play with me and Corey.”

On the par-5 18th, both players hit their drives in the fairway. Shaun and Young both went for the green in two, with both players sending their shots into a collection area left of the green.

“I was trying to make eagle. If not birdie,” Young said of his 18th hole. When he arrived at the green, he had what he called an “awkward chip,” a shot that stopped short against the grain and was on the fringe, about eight feet.
“Unfortunately, I had mud around the top of my ball, so I knew it wasn’t going to roll straight. I was just praying it would, and it didn’t unfortunately,” he said.

That left Shaun with two putts for the win, but he wasn’t entirely sure his situation. “I thought if I made [the birdie putt], I would have for sure won.” He didn’t make it but tapped in, still unsure if the victory was his. Shaun’s father, Norman, serving as his son’s caddie, asked an official where his son stood.
“I feel like I was ungrateful or something,” Shaun said of his non-demonstrative reaction. “I just didn’t want to early celebrate and jinx myself or anything. I honestly didn’t know.”

Key Information

Points List Standings
Through the Forme Open at TPC River’s Bend

• Forme Open champion Corey Shaun didn’t qualify for the first two Forme Tour events. He Monday-qualified into the Bolingbrook Golf Club Invitational but missed the cut. He then received a sponsor’s exemption into the Birck Boilermaker Classic, tying for 31st there. The made cut was key because it earned him better status, allowing him to play last week in The Fuzzy Zoeller Classic at Covered Bridge Golf Club. His tie for 51st there gave no indication that he was ready to do this, but Shaun felt his game was close. “I knew I was hitting it pretty good, that I had the potential to shoot four good rounds. It just hadn’t happened yet,” Shaun said.

• Carson Young was looking for his first win since he broke through and won the Jacksonville Championship in Florida last year playing in the LOCALiQ Series. With the runner-up finish Saturday, Young moved into the top 10 on the Points List, checking in at No. 10.

• Since turning pro, Corey Shaun played two seasons on PGA TOUR Series-China, finishing 145th on the 2018 Order of Merit and 43rd in 2019, with a tie for 10th at the Haikou Championship his top performance.

• At the Golden State Tour’s Coral Mountain Classic at Coral Mountain Golf Club in La Quinta, California, in April, Corey Shaun drove two hours from his Encinitas home and put together three solid rounds in the 54-hole event to edge Mark Anguiano by a shot. That was his first win as a professional. “That probably gave me confidence the most of all the tournaments this year,” Shaun said of the win that paid him $7,500. “Last year with all the COVID -19 restrictions, I wasn’t playing too much golf out of safety considerations and not a lot going on. Last year was hard to gauge where my game was at playing one tournament every three or four weeks.”

• The low rounds of the day belonged to Patrick Flavin and Corey Pereira. They both shot 8-udner 64s, Flavin’s coming in his Forme Tour debut. Pereira finished alone in third, while Flavin, who recently completed his PGA TOUR Latinoamérica season, tied for fifth.

• For the second consecutive week, A.J. Crouch finished inside the top 20, qualifying for the next event. With no status, he Monday-qualified into last week’s Fuzzy Zoeller Classic and finished second. This week, he fired rounds of 67-66-68-68 to tie for 12th. He will be in the field at the Rolling Green Championship in Springfield, Pennsylvania, in two weeks.

• Kyle Westmoreland had an unusual, even-par 72 on his way to a tie for 30th. On his front nine at TPC River’s Bend, he did not make a par, recording six birdies and three bogeys. On the back nine, the Air Force Academy graduate made four pars, two birdies, one bogey and two double bogeys.

• Twenty-two players had shot three rounds in the 60s this week but when the dust settled, only half that amount shot a final-round below 70: Corey Shaun, Carson Young, Keller Harper, Brad Miller, Tain Lee, Mac Meissner, Cody Blick, David Pastore, Ashton Van Horne, A.J. Crouch and Jonathan Keppler.

• The par-3 12th hole played as the toughest hole Saturday, at 3.367. It was the only hole on the course that didn’t give up a birdie in the final round. The par-5 eighth hole was the easiest, with three eagles, 42 birdies and a stroke average of 4.267.

Quotable

“I thought the pins were fairly difficult, especially on the back nine. We didn’t putt well, but it was also tough to make putts. There were a lot of big breaks and undulating putts that you had to maneuver.” –Corey Shaun
“The pin was only a couple of yards off the edge. We had downhill lies, and it was straight into the grain. I figured wherever I chipped it, wherever I landed it, it would be pretty difficult to judge how it was going to react into the grain.” –Corey Shaun on his decision to putt his third shot from off the green on the par-5 18th

“With the putter you can glide it over. It’s tough to drill distance, but if you hit it good—if you commit to hitting it hard enough—you can hit it somewhat decent. I hit it OK. I was OK with where I hit it because it was a tough location.” –Corey Shaun on his 18th-hole, greenside putt for eagle

“I just felt I had to keep trying to make birdie. It’s not always easy to make birdie when you’re trying to make birdie.” –Corey Shaun

“We were really pushing each other and trying to separate from each other.” –Corey Shaun on playing the final nine holes with Carson Young, knowing they were tied

“The putter got cold, and with the driver I was missing a couple of fairways by a few yards. I couldn’t hit it as close as I wanted to and couldn’t make any of the 20-footers that I had left on the back nine.” –Carson Young

“I think it was just a matter of time. I didn’t miss a single fairway the first three days. It just kind of creeped in on me. I felt like I was swinging good. I just didn’t have it on the back nine, unfortunately.” –Carson Young on some driver difficulties he had going down the stretch

Final-Round Weather:
Sunny, warm and humid. High of 88. Wind E at 4 mph.

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