There\u2019s a new name making waves on the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n
Canadian rookie Sudarshan Yellamaraju had his coming out party this weekend at The Players Championship, finishing in a tie for fifth against arguably the strongest field on Tour.<\/p>\n
The 24-year-old Yellamaraju fought valiantly down the stretch on Friday to get inside the cut line, before playing his final 36 holes at 10-under par to vault himself up the leaderboard and into the mainstream among Canadian golf fans.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a really awesome week for sure,\u201d Yellamaraju said on TSN1050\u2019s OverDrive Monday afternoon. \u201cObviously playing at The Players, a big tournament, playing on TPC Sawgrass, a great golf course, and then to top it off with a great weekend from fighting to make the cut and having a chance to come down the stretch and get in some sort of contention was pretty cool.\u201d <\/p>\n
Yellamaraju fired rounds of 66 and 68 over the final two days at The Players, and finished ahead of names such as reigning FedEx Cup winner Tommy Fleetwood, 2021 Players champion Justin Thomas, and five-time major winner Brooks Koepka at the conclusion of play on Sunday.<\/p>\n
How did he handle the pressure of seeing his name alongside some of the best golfers in the world at a big-time tournament like The Players?<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest, I wasn\u2019t really thinking about it too much,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have the leaderboards out there and you see it, but you get used to it when you\u2019re playing tournaments. I was just trying to play one shot at a time, play the best golf I could. I never really thought I had a chance of winning, it almost did happen, but I had to do something pretty miraculous so all of that experience was pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI played with J.J. Spaun [on Sunday], who won the US Open last year so he has fans that were watching him too and then I guess with me playing well, they started piling up and watching me. It was pretty cool, for sure. Fans were supporting me throughout the two rounds, keeping me motivated, trying to keep my energy up. Playing with all of the great players around me was pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
For his efforts at the Tour\u2019s flagship event, Yellamaraju took home $925,000 in prize money – a greater total than he has earned in 73 total events as a professional – but that wasn\u2019t his biggest takeaway from the week. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a big payday, but I\u2019ll be honest, the big thing I got is a good chunk of points which is huge for the end of the season, and at least right now, to try to get into the bigger events, the signature events, etc. and obviously a big jump in the world rankings. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe money is money, but I think the main thing is the points, and the world ranking jump is huge.\u201d<\/p>\n
After earning 250 FedEx Cup points, he has jumped up to the 30th spot on the season-long list, ahead of names like Shane Lowry, Rickie Fowler, and Jordan Spieth. He has also climbed 71 spots to 145th on the Official World Golf Rankings, the fifth-highest among Canadian men.<\/p>\n
Originally born in India, Yellamaraju moved to Winnipeg at age four for his father\u2019s work. He practiced at an indoor golf facility using rented clubs, and honed his swing with videos of Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy that he found online, all while never taking a formal golf lesson.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s taken an unusual path to the PGA Tour, foregoing college altogether to turn pro at 19, and then grinding his way through the Canadian and Korn Ferry Tours to earn full-time status five years later.<\/p>\n
\u201cGolf is a sport where there\u2019s not really one way of playing the game,\u201d he said. \u201cAt the end of the day you\u2019ve just got to get the ball into the hole in the fewest number of shots possible. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen so many different players play the game with different styles. There\u2019s no one way of doing it, you\u2019ve just got to play the best golf you can.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a new name making waves on the PGA Tour. Canadian rookie Sudarshan Yellamaraju had his coming out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[712,49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-542548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}