You’ve probably heard of shooting your age. Have you heard of leaderboard positioning your age? Not that impressive if you’re 53-year-old Phil Mickelson, but what about when you’re 15-year-old Miles Russell playing your first professional event?
Russell didn’t quite make it to 15th place on the leaderboard at the 2024 LECOM Suncoast Classic, but a final-round 66 placed him T20 in the field, leading to a qualification for next week’s event on the Korn Ferry Tour, the Veritex Bank Championship in Arlington, Texas.
“I drove it great today,” he said. “That was probably the big difference between the first three holes yesterday and the first three holes today. … My iron play on the back side was the best iron play I had all week.”
Russell opened 68-66 to make the cut, becoming the youngest player ever to do so in a Korn Ferry Tour event. He’s also just oen of two golfers younger than 16 to make a cut in a PGA Tour or Korn Ferry Tour event, joining Guan Tian Liang.
Making the cut was Russell’s goal, he said earlier in the week. The 66 on Sunday was simply icing for the No. 1-ranked junior player in the world, who is breaking every record he looks at these days between being homeschooled.
“I came out thinking, ‘Get off to a good start,'” he said Sunday, implying that he was thinking about finishing in that top 25. “… Be patient and let it come to me, and it did.”
Not only is he the youngest player in Korn Ferry Tour history to make the cut at an event, he also also took over a record held by perhaps the best to ever do it when, last fall, Russell surpassed Tiger Woods as the youngest AJGA Boys Junior Player of the Year.
Though Russell is not yet old enough to join the Korn Ferry Tour, he could theoretically keep playing his way into tournaments with continuous top 25 finishes as the season rolls on. Players from the prior week’s top 25 are eligible to play in the following week’s tournament.
Russell, who is the reigning Junior Players Championship and Boy’s Junior PGA Championship winner, played this week at Lakewood National Golf Club in Lakewood Ranch, Florida, on a sponsor exemption.
