Jackson Koivun isn’t the only newly minted pro trying to go from playing in the NCAA Championship in June to gate- crashing the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs. Don’t look now, but here comes Ben James, who backed up Thursday’s 62 at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina, by shooting a 3-under 67 on Friday at the Wyndham Championship.
“It's hard to shoot back-to-back 62s, so 67's a nice round,” said James, who improved to 11-under 129, tied for second with Englishman Jordan Smith and one off the pace set by Beau Hossler. “Just a kind of pretty chill 67.”
James, 23, has been a stud, especially in the first round since joining the PGA Tour after
completing his college career at the University of Virginia. James has averaged 66.9 in the first round and could be on the verge of his second 36-hole lead – previously did so at the RBC Canadian Open and contended for the title at the Corales Puntacana Championship, finishing T-4.
Asked what he has learned from those experiences — he struggled to 78 in the third round in Canada — that he can apply to this weekend at the Wyndham, he said, “Sometimes you just make golf bigger than it is. It's not that big. I'm going to do the best I can, play as smart as I can and keep doing the right things. I'm doing a lot of things really well and just going to keep going for the weekend.”
It would be quite a run by the under 25-set to finish the regular season with Koivun winning two weeks ago at the 3M Open, 24-year-old Michael Thorbjornsen taking the Rocket Classic last week and James threatening to leap from No. 141 into the playoffs if he can land his maiden win at Sedgefield, a place where he feels comfortable having played there three times in the AJGA Wyndham Junior Championship. James got off to a flying start on Friday with a hole-out eagle at the par-4 10th.
“Hit a little 50, I knew I had a backstop,” he said. “I tried to hit it 115, I hit it a little too far and it worked out perfectly. I guess it landed about seven steps past but spun right in the hole.”
A win has James projected to leap all the way to No. 60 and make the top 70 who advance to the first leg of the playoffs in Memphis next week. It would also likely leapfrog him over Koivun, who entered the week as the Bubble Boy. That might mess up James’s plan to move into his new pad next week, but that’s a good problem to have.
“I'll be in Jupiter with every professional golfer in the world,” he said. “I'm happy to be in the position I am and I don't really think about finishing in certain spots before the week, I just try to do the best I can and have the most fun.”
Adam Schupak is a senior writer for Golfweek, covering the PGA Tour.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Ben James the latest 'young gun' chasing a win at Wyndham Championship
