Joe Neuheisel, son of former football coach Rick Neuheisel, wins Arizona Amateur Championship
Joe Neuheisel is making a name for himself.
The son of Rick Neuheisel, who was the head coach of the college football programs at Colorado, Washington and UCLA, won the 98th Arizona Amateur Championship with a 2-and-1 victory over Camden Braidech at Desert Mountain Club’s Outlaw Course in Scottsdale on Saturday.
Neuheisel made four straight birdies from the eighth hole through the 11th, and then won the 12th to take a 5-up lead, before claiming the championship on the 17th hole.
“It’s a dream week, a lot of fun, a lot of golf, but everyone who knows me knows you can’t get me off the golf course, so it was as good as it gets,” said Neuheisel.
Rick Neuheisel grew up in nearby Tempe before playing quarterback at UCLA. Son Joe, 25, played his college golf for the Bruins as well as Boise State.
Rahm ties for fifth at FedEx St. Jude
Jon Rahm, who celebrated the birth of his second son with wife Kelley last week, had his best outing in three months on the PGA Tour on Sunday. The former Sun Devil tied for fifth at the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis after a final-round 66.
He posted four scores in the 60s for his best showing since winning the Mexico Open at Vidanta back in May. Rahm moved up two spots to No. 14 in the FedEx Cup Playoffs standings heading into the BMW Championship this week, putting him in solid position to advance to the season finale at the Tour Championship in Atlanta next week.
Only the top 30 golfers in the points standings advance to East Lake, where the winner will pocket $18 million in bonus money for becoming the FedEx Cup champion.
State college golfers earn PGA Tour cards
Former Arizona Wildcats golfer Trevor Werbylo and former Arizona State standout Kevin Yu earned their 2022-23 PGA Tour cards after the final round of the Korn Ferry Tour's regular-season finale in Omaha, Nebraska, on Sunday.
Yu, who turned 23 last week, was fourth in the inaugural PGA Tour University standings in 2021 after a stellar college career for the Sun Devils. He won three times while at ASU, posting a scoring average of 70.46, second to Rahm.
"It's amazing, it's a dream come true to me," Yu said. "I've been dreaming of this moment since I was five years old when I just started to play golf. Now it's a dream come true and I'm looking forward to next season."
Werbylo, 24, grew up in Tucson and was a key member of the Wildcats' 2021 Pac-12 championship squad. He won the 2021 PGA Tour Canada Order of Merit which gave him fully exempt Korn Ferry Tour status. Now he's getting promoted to the PGA Tour.
Arizona ties at U.S. Amateur
There are 312 golfers in the 2022 U.S. Amateur Championship this week at Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, New Jersey, and eight of them are from Arizona: Gavin Aurilia, Phoenix; Brock Goyen, Gilbert; Chris Kamin, Phoenix; Bryce Lewis, Prescott; Ben Lorenz, Peoria; Anawin Pikulthong, Gilbert; Preston Summerhays, Scottsdale; Jacob Tarkany, Scottsdale.
Summerhays will be a sophomore at ASU this fall. Pikulthong, a senior at Chandler Hamilton, is committed to ASU.
Two other future Sun Devils are also competing this week: Luke Potter of San Diego, and Wenyi Ding of China, who won the U.S. Junior Amateur last month. Potter will be on campus this fall; Ding is expected to sign with ASU this November and join the team in 2023, along with Pikulthong.
David Puig of Spain, who is a senior at ASU, is also in the field in New Jersey.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Joe Neuheisel, son of former football coach, wins Arizona Amateur title
