‘No one can ever take this away.’ Rare five-man playoff decides Kentucky’s PGA Tour event.
The par-4 18th hole at Champions at Keene Trace golf course in Nicholasville — not a perfect golf hole, but perhaps ideal for the pressure-packed situations it produces — did its job again Sunday during the final round of the PGA Tour’s ISCO Championship.
The result? Yet another dramatic ending to Kentucky’s annual PGA Tour event.
But the five-man playoff (contested among Zac Blair, Harry Hall, Rico Hoey, Matt NeSmith and Pierceson Coody, who all finished regulation at 22 under par) couldn’t be resolved on the 18th, despite that hole twice being used to begin the sudden-death playoff.
With Blair and Hoey eliminated, the scene shifted to the 9th hole, located just steps away from the 18th. And it was that picturesque par 3 that provided the backdrop for the thrilling end to this year’s tournament.
England’s Harry Hall — a 26-year-old who played college golf at UNLV — chipped in for birdie from 45 feet and 6 inches away to secure the 2024 ISCO Championship title, plodding across the edge of the green while fist pumping in celebration.
Coody and NeSmith, who also missed the 9th green with their tee shots, failed to match Hall’s heroics, and the celebration was on from there as twilight beckoned at Keene Trace.
“Cementing myself on the PGA Tour for the next couple of years, proving I can win out here,” Hall said of what winning in Nicholasville means for his golf career after emerging from a 156-golfer field this week. “Proving that I’m solid under pressure and my game’s right where it needs to be. No one can ever take this away from me now.”
By emerging as the winner of just the 12th five-man playoff in PGA Tour history, Hall secures much-needed stability on both the PGA Tour and DP World Tour. (The ISCO Championship is a co-sanctioned event with the DP World Tour).
Hall, now a PGA Tour winner in his 58th Tour start, has banked 300 FedExCup points and exemptions into several prestigious tournaments on the 2025 PGA Tour schedule: The Sentry, The Players Championship and the PGA Championship.
From a longer-term standpoint, Hall’s PGA Tour membership exemption now extends via the winners category through 2026. Hall’s victory also opens up more pathways for him to play DP World Tour events in Europe.
This was on Hall’s mind during his championship news conference Sunday night, largely because of a major upcoming change in his personal life.
Hall and his wife, Jordan, are set to become parents for the first time next week. Hall said the baby is due to be born Friday, but Jordan was planning to induce the baby to be delivered Tuesday because Hall was planning on playing next week.
“She’s a star,” Hall — who made an impressive scrambling par on the 18th to get into Sunday’s five-man playoff — said of his wife. “Hopefully, she can do whatever she wants now.”
Hall’s triumph in Nicholasville also continues a recent theme of international success at Central Kentucky’s professional golf event: The Englishman joins Ireland’s Seamus Power (2021) and Sweden’s Vincent Norrman (2023) as international-born players to win the ISCO Championship in the last four years.
“If you asked me a week ago, two weeks ago that I’d be a PGA Tour winner and have 300 more FedEx Cup points and be in position (to not be) 160th on the FedEx Cup (leaderboard),” said Hall, who earned the $720,000 winner’s share of the tournament’s $4 million total purse.
“I’m super happy.”
2024 ISCO Championship sets PGA Tour record for lowest cut
Golf history was made this week in Central Kentucky.
Following Friday’s second round of play at the ISCO Championship, the cut-line score to qualify for the weekend and play the final two rounds of the event was set at -8 overall.
This set a record for the lowest 36-hole cut in an individual, stroke-play event in PGA Tour history. Detailed records have been kept on PGA Tour events since 1970.
Previously, the lowest cut for this kind of PGA Tour event had been -7 overall, which was set at the 2020 Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in Las Vegas.
Friday’s -8 overall cut reduced what began as a 156-player field down to just 67 golfers.
This year marked the sixth time that a PGA Tour event was contested at Keene Trace. Those previous five events all carried a reputation for being low-scoring affairs, but none even approached the historic cut-line score set this week.
In its previous five editions at Keene Trace, the ISCO Championship had cut-line scores of -3 (2018), -4 (2019), -4 (2021), -5 (2022) and -4 (2023).
Why was the scoring so low this week in Nicholasville?
Two of the golfers most familiar with the course said perfect weather conditions played a big role.
“The greens are relatively soft, and not a whole lot of wind out there. So, these guys are on the PGA Tour for a reason. They’re pretty good,” said Cooper Musselman, a Louisville native and former UK men’s golfer who was the only player with ties to the commonwealth to make the cut at the ISCO Championship.
“So if you give them perfect conditions, they know how to execute.”
Musselman was one of the golfers who took total advantage of the easy scoring conditions on Thursday and Friday, when the temperatures were hot and the wind — one of the key course defenses at Keene Trace — was minimal.
Musselman shot a 62 (-10) on Friday during his second round to safely make the cut.
“I think the course in general is just short. The par 5s are very gettable and the greens are super soft,” added Josh Teater, the local fan favorite who missed out on playing the weekend despite recording a -7 overall score after two rounds.
“When the greens are soft, it doesn’t really matter what the length is, guys just attack. You can be pretty aggressive with your putter too, because they’re not rolling super fast. That’s just a recipe for low scores.”
Former Kentucky golfer Cooper Musselman puts on strong showing at ISCO
The aforementioned Musselman distinguished himself this week among the golfers with ties to Kentucky who competed at the ISCO Championship.
Of the 156 golfers in the ISCO Championship field, eight had connections to the Bluegrass State. And of those eight, only the 29-year-old Musselman — a Louisville native who played high school golf at St. Xavier and college golf at Kentucky — played the weekend after making the historic -8 cut-line score.
Across the four-day tournament, Musselman recorded rounds of 71 (-1) on Thursday, 62 (-10) on Friday, 72 (even par) on Saturday and 69 (-3) on Sunday for a combined -14 overall score.
Musselman, who was in the tournament on a sponsor’s exemption, finished in a tie for 31st.
It was Musselman’s best-ever finish in a PGA Tour event, and it came in the first Tour event that Musselman played in since the 2019 ISCO Championship.
“Pretty pleased with everything this week,” Musselman said. “Going to be pretty confident moving forward.”
Musselman said his opening tee shot for Saturday’s third round, which came with a large gallery of fans surrounding the tee box, was one of the cooler moments of his golf career.
Musselman had a familiar face alongside him for the 72-hole tournament.
His caddie this week was Lucas Jones, a longtime friend of Musselman’s since childhood.
“He’s awesome to have on the bag. We were high school teammates, we went to grade school together. We’ve known each other since we were about in fourth grade,” said Musselman, who described Jones as his best friend.
“We’ve played a ton of rounds together and I trust his opinion on pretty much everything. I think he’s probably played the most golf with me in my entire life.”
Jones was also Musselman’s caddie at the ISCO Championship in 2018, when Musselman made the cut and finished in a tie for 57th while making his PGA Tour debut.
“In between shots, we’re really just not even talking about golf,” Musselman said of his relationship with Jones. “We’re just keeping it light, keeping it fun.”
As far as what comes next, Musselman said his next planned golf event is playing the Kentucky Open, which will be held from July 23-25 at the University of Louisville Golf Club in Simpsonville.
After that, Musselman — whose first son, Archie, turned six weeks old on Sunday — said he’s signed up for the first stage of PGA Tour qualifying school in late October.
The other golfers with Kentucky connections who competed at this year’s ISCO Championship were:
▪ Josh Teater (-7, missed cut): The 45-year-old Teater — a native of Danville who went to Lexington’s Henry Clay High School and played college golf at Morehead State — was one of the victim’s of this week’s historic cut.
Teater made bogey on what became the final hole of his ISCO Championship: He hit his tee shot on the par 3 9th hole into the left greenside bunker and was unable to scramble for par from there.
Teater has now missed the cut in consecutive editions of his hometown tournament.
▪ Stephen Stallings Jr. (-7, missed cut): Stallings, another Louisville native who went to St. Xavier High School and who played college golf at UK, was also eliminated from the tournament despite posting a solid -7 overall score through two rounds.
Stallings — who entered this week’s tournament having made three of the last four cuts at the ISCO Championship — missed a 34-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole of his second round by just 10 inches. Had that putt dropped, Stallings would have played the weekend.
▪ John Marshall Butler (-6, missed cut): Butler — a Louisville native and Trinity High School graduate who starred at Auburn and won the 2024 NCAA men’s golf team championship with the Tigers — missed the cut in his PGA Tour debut this week.
Butler was the 2021 Kentucky Amateur champion and was the 2018 recipient of Kentucky’s Mr. Golf award.
▪ Vince Whaley (-3, missed cut): The 29-year-old Whaley was born in Lexington, before moving to Florida and Texas during his childhood.
He played college golf at Georgia Tech and has five career top-10 finishes on the PGA Tour, although he wasn’t able to add to that total this week.
▪ Alex Goff (-2, missed cut): Goff, a former five-year standout golfer at Kentucky who won the 2020 Kentucky Amateur, missed the cut this week in his PGA Tour debut.
Goff was named a 2023-24 All-American Honorable Mention selection following his final college season at UK, which made him the 11th All-American selection in Kentucky men’s golf history.
▪ Will Gordon (-1, missed cut): Gordon, a former star college golfer at Vanderbilt who was named the 2019 SEC Player of the Year, was born in Lexington before moving to North Carolina as a young child.
▪ Daniel Iceman (+2, missed cut): Iceman is a 38-year-old from Louisville who attended St. Xavier High School in that city and played college golf at both Morehead State and U of L.
He is an assistant professional at Weissinger Hills Golf Course in Shelbyville. Iceman was in the ISCO Championship field as a result of being the PGA Section Champion/Player of the Year.
This story was originally published July 14, 2024 at 9:49 PM.
