Local golfer etches his name among greats like Tiger Woods
Brad Reeves should have been done with his collegiate golf career a year ago.
But when the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the golf season for Reeves’ University of Arizona men’s golf team, the NCAA granted him and many others one extra year of athletic eligibility.
Reeves, a Lodi High graduate from Woodbridge, accepted the offer and returned for a super senior season to pursue a masters degree in real estate development on top of his business management degree.
On the links, he completed the two biggest accomplishments of his collegiate career on Wednesday.
Reeves helped Arizona win the Pac-12 Conference Championship, and he also won the Pac-12 Conference individual title after a two-hole playoff against Stanford’s Henry Shimp.
In winning the Pac-12 individual title, Reeves placed his name next to a long line of well-known golfers, such as Tiger Woods (1996, Stanford) and Phil Mickelson (1990, Arizona State).
But for Reeves, the team title is the big one.
“I think we go into every event thinking team-first. I got asked how it feels to win the team and individual title, and it’s really epic to win both,” Reeves said. “To win in
dividual and not team would have been bittersweet. Our team has a really good chemistry, and we embrace each other’s successes, so it’s a really good environment, and it was a really big thing for our team to win it all.”
Reeves and the Wildcats will now wait for the NCAA regional tournaments to be announced, and will ride a wave of confidence into the next level.
“If you win in a Power-5 conference championship, you know you have what it takes to win at the national level,” Reeves said.
To take the Pac-12 title, Arizona held off in-state rival Arizona State by four strokes across four days at Mayacama Golf Club in Santa Rosa — Arizona, ranked No. 21, shot 344-352355-348 for a 1,399-stroke total, and No. 9 Arizona State shot 346-349-360-348 for a 1,403.
Individually, Reeves shot 66-71-67-68 for a 272, 16 under par, to tie with Shimp and begin a sudden-death playoff.
“The playoff started on Hole 1, with me and Henry Shimp, who shot 64 in the final round, which is unbelievable,” Reeves said. “We both made par, then we went to the 18th, which is a par-5 reachable. We both hit drives in the fairway, then he hit iron over the green, and I hit iron to maybe 4 or 5 feet. He made par, and I needed a twoputt to win.”
Reeves missed his first putt, but was careful not to overhit.
“I had 5-foot putt for eagle. Obviously I was trying to make it two, but also don’t do anything crazy like hit it way past it,” Reeves said. “I tried to give it the best possible speed, and missed, but it was only a foot past. It was definitely nerve-racking, but knowing I needed a twoputt from five feet was nice.”
While he had never played the course in Santa Rosa, Reeves said it was nice playing in Northern California again.
“It was nice to get back on bent-grass greens. We play on a lot of Bermuda,” Reeves said. “The course conditions were perfect, it was a fun layout.”
The team win was Arizona’s first conference championship since the Wildcats won the Pac-10 in 2004.
“It’s such a special feeling to see Brad work so hard over his career to reach this pinnacle and for him to become a champion is an accomplishment we are all so proud of,” said Arizona head coach Jim Anderson. “For our team, led by this amazing group of seniors, to win a Pac-12 Championship is something we will look back on as a paramount moment for our entire program and in our careers.”
What’s next for Reeves? After the NCAA regional and national tournaments, he will be looking at turning professional sometime in the summer. That is in addition to working toward his masters degree, which he anticipates finishing by spring of 2022.
Reeves played this spring in the Canadian Tour Q-School tournament, which qualifies players to play professionally on that tour. He did not succeed in turning pro then, but he has another chance later this year, when he plans to play in the Korn Ferry Tour QSchool tournament. The Korn Ferry Tour is the second level of the PGA.