NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
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Brandon Matthews is a relative unknown at the moment, but it won’t be a surprise if golf fans come to learn his name over the coming years.
The 28-year-old has patiently grinded his way through the PGA Tour Latinoamérica and the Korn Ferry Tour to earn his PGA Tour card for next season. Behind a win and two other top-three results, Matthews ranks No. 6 on the Korn Ferry Tour points list and doesn’t have to sweat it out as the circuit concludes its final four events this summer. He had won three times on the PGA Tour Latinoamérica and led that tour’s points list in the 2020-21 season to gain full access to the Korn Ferry Tour.
Matthews joins Harry Higgs, Nate Lashley, Ryan Blaum, Julian Etulain and José de Jesús Rodríguez as players to finish with the No. 1 spot in Latin America before graduating from the Korn Ferry Tour.
There are a few reasons why Matthews could capture the golf world’s attention once he reaches the big leagues, and one of them is impossible to ignore: he could legitimately, and immediately, become the longest player on the PGA Tour.
During the 2018 and 2019 Korn Ferry Tour seasons, Matthews averaged more than 331 yards per drive. He qualified for this year’s U.S. Open at Brookline and made the cut. He averaged 323-plus yards in the final round and smashed a few over the 350 mark that week. The cruel and unusual part is that Matthews regularly eschews his driver for a 3-wood that comfortably travels 320 yards. Earlier this year at a Korn Ferry event, he didn’t use a driver because a short, tight course made it unnecessary.
We interviewed Matthews six years ago during his senior season at Temple. At the time, he talked about developing power before technique. His father, Ted, would take his son to the par-4 15th hole at Emanon Country Club in Falls, Pennsylvania, where a small lake separates the tee boxes from the fairway. With 60 yards to clear the lake, a 5-year-old Brandon would try anything he could to reach land. When he did, his dad would move him back to the next set of tee boxes.
“I kind of bomb it out there,” Matthews told Global Golf Post in 2016. “Maybe that’s a good thing or maybe that’s a bad thing, but it’s a big advantage to have when I’m hitting it well. I wouldn’t say there is a particular person I model my game after, but the closest comparison would be someone like Gary Woodland.”
Woodland wishes he had Matthews’ speed. Regularly breaking the 190-mph barrier – and routinely threatening 200 mph – the 6-foot-4, 210-pound Matthews is the epitome of modern smash-it-and-find-it golf. One recent drive from Matthews was posted on social media and had these numbers: 199-mph ball speed, 360-yard carry, 2,500 RPMs of spin and a 14.8-degree launch angle.
Interestingly, Matthews uses a fairly standard driver setup. A Cleveland/Srixon staffer since 2019, Matthews plays an 8.5-degree Srixon ZX7 with an LA Golf Trono 75X shaft at a modest 44.5 inches. The shaft, although stiffer than most, is not off the charts in that category.
The ZX7 clubhead has a rounder, more compact head, which promotes a lower spin and ball flight. Most players are trying to lower driver spin, but Matthews actually likes to see slightly more spin than normal because he feels like his ball moves too hard left-to-right when the spin rate dips. He almost exclusively plays a fade off the tee, opting for a fairway wood or driving iron if he wants to hit a draw.
Another reason to keep an eye out for Matthews is his background. He hails from Dupont, a small town between Scranton and Wilkes-Barre in northeast Pennsylvania. He couldn’t play a national junior schedule growing up, so major college programs passed on him. Matthews instead went to Temple and won eight times for the Owls, becoming the first player in program history to make the NCAA Championship.
Matthews will join a very short list of active Northeast-grown PGA Tour players, with Cameron Young and Keegan Bradley being the most prominent.
“When you are out here playing on April 1 and it’s cold and blowing 30 mph, that’s when you learn how to hit different golf shots,” Matthews said to us six years back.
The PGA Tour will be ecstatic to have Matthews, an energetic and likable person off the course. To this point, he is best known for a moment in 2019 when, during a playoff on the PGA Tour Latinoamérica, a fan with Down syndrome let out an uncontrollable yelp just as Matthews tried to make an 8-foot birdie putt to extend the tournament. Matthews missed the putt and later learned what happened.
“I gave (the fan) a hug and I asked him, ‘Hey, are you doing OK? Are you having fun?’ ” Matthews told Golf Channel at the time. “I just wanted to make sure he was enjoying himself, that he had no hard feelings, that he didn’t feel bad about what happened. I didn’t want anyone to be mad at him. I didn’t want him to be mad at himself. I wanted to make sure he knew that I wasn’t mad. That’s all I wanted to do.”
For that reason and a few others, Matthews will have a growing throng of fans rooting for him when the new PGA Tour season kicks off in the fall.
Sean Fairholm