Kevin Foley Earns PGA Tour Card; Matt Davidson Still In Mix
Kevin Foley of Neshanic Valley, a resident of Somerville and the 2011 NJSGA State Open Champion, has earned a PGA Tour card for the 2014 season by virtue of finishing in the Top 25 in the recently-completed Web.com Tour regular season.
Another New Jersey professional, Matt Davidson of Peddie, the 2003 State Amateur champion, is in the mix for his second PGA Tour card.
Foley, 25, finished the regular season at No. 24 on the Web.com Tour money list with $144.052 in earnings. Davidson, 31, comes in at No. 45 at $101,969. Last year, Morgan Hoffman of Arcola earned his PGA Tour card and currently ranks No. 94 on the money list with $871,000 in earnings, including a T5 at the HP Byron Nelson Championship.
Foley’s season was highlighted with a victory at the Panama Claro Championship and he had another Top 10 finish. PGA Tour cards are guaranteed to the leading Top 25 players at the end of the Web.com Tour regular season.
Davidson is also in good position to earn a card, thanks to the upcoming four-event Web.com Tour Finals. After the 25 players who earned cards in the regular season, including Foley, another 25 PGA Tour cards are awarded to players who earn the most cumulative money in the four Finals events.
The Web.com Tour Finals stage commences this weekend (Aug. 29-Sept. 1) with the Hotel Fitness Championship in Fort Wayne, Ind., the first of three consecutive finals events leading up to the Web.com Tour Championship beginning Oct. 23 in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.
Following the hotel Fitness Championship are the Chiquita Classic (Sept. 5-8) in Davidson, N.C., and the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship (Sept. 12-15) in Columbus, Ohio. All events are televised on The Golf Channel.
Davidson, who now lives in Greensboro, N.C., has been hot of late with two Top 3 finishes in the past month. He earned $34,800 with a T3 at the Midwest Classic on July 21, and was again T3 at the Price Cutter Charity Championship on August 11.
Foley had no status on any tour to begin the 2012 season but fought through Monday qualifiers and top 25 finishes and earned full status.
Last season, he finished 52nd on the money list and had four Top 10s in 16 starts. Foley joined the Web.com Tour in 2012 after earning Special Temporary Membership status. Foley was a Monday qualifier at the South Georgia Classic and parlayed a T7 finish into a start the following week, where he finished T7 at the Stadion Classic at UGA.
A solo fifth-place effort at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Invitational had a big enough payday for him to move into the membership category.
Foley, the youngest of eight children who plays out of Neshanic Valley, was a three-time All-American at Penn State where he won a school-record six titles.
In 2003, Matt Davidson of Peddie won the New Jersey State Golf Association Amateur Championship at Panther Valley Golf and Country Club.
Just two years later, Davidson had earned his PGA Tour card after a phenomenal performance at Q School. He earned nearly $100,000 on the big tour, but was quickly back on the satellite golf tour.
He came close to getting back on the PGA Tour in 2011 when he finished 34th on the Nationwide Tour, just nine spots out of the Top 25, who automatically qualify for the PGA Tour. He earned $153,000 that year.
In 2004, while playing out of Furman, Davidson, the 2002 Southern Conference player of the year, won the league’s individual championship, not an easy task considering the league is loaded with top golf schools such as Charleston, Wofford, Elon, Davidson College, Georgia Southern, Chattanooga, Citadel, and Western Carolina. Matt (212) defeated current European Tour star Rhys Davies of East Tennessee State by two shots to win the title.
