Eason narrowly fails to defend Dr Pepper title
COUNTY STAR FINISHES JOINT RUNNER-UP IN TOURNAMENT IN LOS ANGELES
GREG Eason (Kirby Muxloe), a former top county amateur and now a playing professional in America, has launched the new season in fine style, writes Jennifer Prentice.
Competing against more than 200 pros – a record-sized field – he finished joint runner-up in the Coke Dr Pepper Open on the AllAmerican Pro Tour with his 21-under-par 267 total.
Eason was the defending champion and he mounted a strong challenge at the weekend in a bid to repeat his 2020 success when he won his biggest ever cheque.
He opened with a sevenunder-65 over the Links on The Bayou course at OakWing, in Alexandria, Los Angeles, and had another seven-under-65 – bogeyfree – on day two.
In his first round, Eason had a purple patch of eagle-birdieeagle over the fifth-par 4, sixthpar 3, and seventh-par 5 holes, going out in 5-under-31 and coming back in 2-under-34 for his 65 tally. And he made the halfway cut comfortably when he carded 34 out and 31-back in the second round to move to 14-underpar.
He clinched five birdies for a three-under-69 on day three and was again bogey-free for a four-under-68 as the championship reached its climax.
The title was won by Joe McCrory, from Texas, with his 23-under-total, with Eason tied in second along with Allistair Docherty from Canada.
Eason left home in the county as a young golfer to take up a scholarship at the Unversity of Central Florida.
He competed for the UCF with great success and was the third ranked amateur in the world when he joined the paid ranks at the end of his university degree. Competing on the Canadian Tour soon afterwards, for which he had qualified while completing his university course, he came tantalisingly close to claiming his full PGA Tour playing card. But in 2019 he was again successful in his bid for a PGA Canada Mackenzie Tour card. When the coronavirus pandemic led to the 2020 tour being cancelled, Eason was forced to compete on smaller tours which still went ahead.
Now he has high hopes of competing regularly on the Canadian Tour which is set to get under way again in the next few weeks. He retains his full playing rights, although there are still some of the remaining later qualifying tournaments to be completed by other hopeful golfers wanting to obtain their cards.