NEWTON SQUARE, Pa. \u2014 Sudarshan Yellamaraju already has had a year full of firsts. But this week at the PGA Championship, he\u2019ll add another to his ever-growing list of professional accomplishments \u2014 the Canadian is set to make his major championship debut.<\/p>\n
Yellamaraju was initially the second alternate for this week but moved up to first alternate when Phil Mickelson formally withdrew. He then got into the field Sunday as the PGA Tour reserved a spot for the winner of both the ONEFlight Myrtle Beach Classic (won by Brandt Snedeker) and the Truist Championship. <\/p>\n
But the winner of the Truist, Kristoffer Reitan, already was in the field. That meant the 24-year-old Canadian got the major bump.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been pretty cool,\u201d Yellamaraju said Tuesday. \u201cI\u2019ve dreamed of playing in majors and the biggest tournament, but I\u2019m going to treat it like any other tournament and just go play golf.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yellamaraju, a rookie on the PGA Tour, burst onto the scene at The Players Championship where he finished tied for fifth \u2014 the best finish by a rookie at TPC Sawgrass since 2013. He backed that up with a tie for sixth the next week and has notched four other top-20 results so far this season.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s about to enter his fifth week in a row on Tour \u2014 but it\u2019s been for a good reason. Yellamaraju has been playing so well that he keeps earning his way into signature events, which weren\u2019t necessarily on his schedule radar four months ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cNaturally you have to (change your goals) because you can\u2019t just settle with what you\u2019ve got,\u201d Yellamaraju said. \u201cNow the aim is to just finish as high as possible (on the FedExCup standings) to pick and choose my schedule for next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just trying to play the best I can and if I can, it\u2019s great. It not, we\u2019ll just move on to the next thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yellamaraju\u2019s story was well documented earlier this year as the Canadian learned to play by just watching YouTube videos of Tiger Woods and Adam Scott. His father did not play but would take him to an indoor dome in Winnipeg before they moved to Toronto when he was a youngster to practise hitting balls.<\/p>\n
Yellamaraju did not go to college \u2014 with cost being a prohibiting factor \u2014 and instead turned pro at 19. He won on the Korn Ferry Tour last year to earn a PGA Tour card and has been off to the races ever since.<\/p>\n
The Fried Egg, a popular golf website and podcast, did a video and story on Yellamaraju earlier this year and between that and a follow-up clip that was unearthed of him admitting one of his favourite Instagram follows was actor and model Sydney Sweeney, it\u2019s been a fun ride for the Canadian.<\/p>\n
\u201cI only have Instagram and I can only see so much,\u201d Yellamaraju said with a smile of pseudo-fame, \u201cbut I\u2019m just trying to be the person I can be and if people are being nice about it, that\u2019s great. I\u2019m just trying to be me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The up-and-coming star will take another big step in his golfing life this week after making his major debut, but his golf has been tremendous to this point \u2014 he\u2019s 18th on the PGA Tour in strokes gained: total \u2014 and is in such a comfortable place mentally and physically that it may not be a surprise to see him make a little noise come the weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach week I\u2019m trying to learn each course \u2014 this is no different,\u201d Yellamaraju said. \u201cThis is the PGA Championship, but I\u2019m just going to try my best and just play good golf.<\/p>\n
\u201cNaturally you feel tired some of the days, but I just need to keep reminding myself that I\u2019m playing on the PGA Tour, in the biggest tournaments, and that\u2019s what is motivating me to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEWTON SQUARE, Pa. \u2014 Sudarshan Yellamaraju already has had a year full of firsts. But this week at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-665687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665687","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=665687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}