Matt Davidson, 2003 State Am Champion, Seeks Return To PGA Tour
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.
Fast forward to 2013, and Davidson is in hot pursuit of regaining that coveted PGA Tour card as a full-time member of the Web.com Tour, which kicks off this weekend in Panama City. But the road back has been rocky.
A little over a year ago, Davidson, now 31, blew out his knee playing pick-up basketball after two successful seasons on the Nationwide Tour (since renamed Web.com Tour).
Last month, Davidson showed signs he was fully recovered. He shot 10-under-par 67-70-69-206 to win the Citrus Open by one stroke at the Rio Pinar Country Club in Orlando and earned a $11,000 winner’s check.
“I missed most of last year with the ACL reconstruction, but I’m feeling pretty good now,” said Davidson, a graduate of Furman University who lives near the college in Greenville, S.C., with his wife Natalie, a professor of epidemiology at Furman.
“The Citrus Open came out of the blue. I wanted a little warm-up action before the Web.com season started. I hit it well and putted well, which was surprising. But it gave me great feedback for where my game is,” he added.
At West Windsor-Plainsboro High School, Matt helped the school to a state scholastic golf championship in 1996. He won the Trenton District Golf Association Amateur title in 2001 and ’02, leading up to his State Amateur championship in 2003.
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.
Arnold Palmer himself won two national championships (1949, ’50) while playing for Wake Forest, then a member of the Southern Conference.
In 2008 and 2009, Davidson won the eGolf Tour Championship event. In 2009, the $45,000 champion’s check from the tournament upped his earnings that year to $138,000.
Currently, Davidson has his sights on getting back to the PGA Tour. He came close to doing exactly that 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.
“My playing on the PGA Tour in 2005 seems so long ago. Looking back, I actually did pretty well. I wasn’t very strong. I was fresh out of college,” said Davidson, who made six cuts in the 20 events in which he played. His top performance was 14thplace at the 2005 Milwaukee Open.
“I got hot at Q-School, placing 11th to earn the card, but I wasn’t one of the best players in the nation. The last four years, I’ve played some really good golf. I’ve kept working and improving. I’m still playing well and getting better. The travel is the tough part. But the goal is making it back to the PGA Tour.”
Matt’s brother, Sean, who teaches law at Charles University in the Czech Republic, plays out of the Karlstein Golf Club there and is one of the top amateurs in that country. Sean teamed with Matt on the champion West Windsor team in 1996.
Kevin Foley of Neshanic Valley is another New Jersey player who is fully exempt for the Web.com Tour. Foley, who won the 2011 State Open at Hollywood, was 52nd on the money list last year with four Top 10s. He was a three-time All-American at Penn State.
