SEA ISLAND, GEORGIA | David Ford coaxed home a sliding, downhill 18-foot birdie putt on the final hole and then watched as Caleb Surratt’s tying attempt went begging. With his hands on his hips and eyes closed, Ford took in one last deep breath.
Someone, unfortunately, had to lose.
Ford delivered the dramatic knockout uppercut in a heavyweight bout between two of the top amateurs in the game, securing the Jones Cup Invitational title on Sunday afternoon at Ocean Forest Golf Club. The University of North Carolina sophomore has now won the Southern Amateur, the Stephens Cup and the Jones Cup in a six-month span. A Peachtree Corners, Georgia, resident who learned the game alongside his identical twin Maxwell, a sophomore on the University of Georgia golf team, Ford began the week at No. 8 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking and figures to climb after beating one of the best fields in tournament history.
Nobody was harder to beat than Surratt, the University of Tennessee freshman and No. 12 amateur in the world. The two close friends went blow-for-blow, taking turns with the lead until they locked horns at 11-under-par down the stretch.
On the final hole, after they hit their approach shots, Surratt told Ford that he hopes they are teammates eight months from now.
“We were saying that we need to tell captain (Mike McCoy) to put us both on the Walker Cup team,” Ford said. “We really would be a good pairing. He’s just an awesome dude.”
It’s not hard to see why both players are expected to be in St. Andrews wearing red, white and blue in September. Starting the day two strokes back of the lead, Surratt landed a series of haymakers early in the round. After a quick birdie at No. 2, his run to the lead got serious on the par-3 fifth when he hit a sensational tee shot to a tucked flag to set up another birdie. He then overpowered the par-5 sixth to set up a birdie before draining a 15-foot birdie effort on No. 7 to suddenly take the lead from Ford, who certainly hadn’t made any blunders to that point.
On the par-4 eighth hole, the southpaw Ford finally showed a crack when he hooked his tee ball into the penalty area and settled for bogey. Surratt found the same penalty but escaped with a par despite his approach shot wrestling with a palm tree.
At that juncture, Surratt, the Elite Amateur Golf Series winner from last summer and a favorite for the Phil Mickelson Award as the nation’s top college freshman, seemed to have taken control with a two-stroke lead.
But then Ford landed a couple of punches of his own. He hit an exquisite bunker shot on the par-5 10th to set up a birdie and then spun a wedge shot close on the par-4 11th to add another, creating a tie once again.
After Surratt poured in a birdie on No. 13 to take back the lead, the tenor of the tournament shifted on the reachable par-5 14th.
With an iron in his hands approaching the green in two, Surratt made his only self-inflicted error of the afternoon by pulling his ball into the penalty area despite plenty of room right of the green.
He settled for a bogey to lose his lead and, in retrospect, will surely regret finishing 1-over on Nos. 3, 10 and 14 during Sunday – statistically the three easiest holes at Ocean Forest during the event.
With Surratt narrowly missing birdie attempts on Nos. 15 and 16, the players exchanged pars until the final hole. Ford’s 8-iron approach went to the back corner of the green while Surratt appeared in much better position, no more than 10 feet from the hole.
(Surratt) is one of the best players I’ve ever played with. He’s a guy a lot of people would love to say that they beat just because of how good he is. He doesn’t go away.”
David Ford
As he read his birdie putt, Ford started laughing with Tar Heels teammate Peter Fountain, the third member of the group. He seemed relaxed and at peace.
“I told him I was trying to set the record for how long you can take to read a putt,” Ford said with a smile. “Because it was a really hard putt… I had been stressed the whole day, but I knew 18 could be a chance for a really special moment.”
The putt turned left-to-right, an ideal line for a lefty. Michael Brennan, who finished in solo third and played in the group ahead of Ford, had the same putt and missed on the low side.
Ford read the putt for a minute, but he said the adrenaline of the moment got to him. He had totally forgotten what the read was, so he went back for another couple of minutes to read it again.
His line was originally right edge, but then he noticed the grain would pull the putt more to the right, so he kept adjusting his line to the left.
“That’s the moment that you want,” Ford said. “I had been holding all of that emotion in.”
It couldn’t have been a better putt. Ford let out a big fist pump, applying the pressure back to Surratt.
Surratt, facing a left-to-right putt of his own from a different angle, knew he had missed on the low side well before the ball reached the hole.
“He is one of the best players I’ve ever played with,” Ford said of Surratt. “He’s a guy a lot of people would love to say that they beat just because of how good he is. He doesn’t go away.”
Winning the Jones Cup is a special accomplishment. Of the 18 champions before Ford, 10 of them have reached the PGA Tour. The winners have combined for 30 PGA Tour victories, including three majors.
It’s an important tournament for that reason. Played one month ahead of its typical early February date because of a course renovation about to take place, the Jones Cup hosted five of the top 12 players in the WAGR and boasted what observers concluded to be at least the second-best field ever assembled.
Conditions were incredibly benign by tournament standards. It is something of a running joke that the event must be played in dreadful weather for it to count as a Jones Cup, but this year’s edition was relatively warm, sunny and devoid of wind.
That helped Ford (-12) nearly reach the tournament scoring record held by Davis Thompson (-13) back in 2020 when the former Georgia Bulldog won by nine shots.
No matter how it was done, Ford will cherish this one.
And everyone who watched it will remember a Jones Cup instant classic.
RESULTS
Sean Fairholm