Erik

Barnes

After 11 years as a professional, the 34-year-old Barnes will be a PGA Tour rookie next season. Barnes joins China’s Carl Yuan, South Korea’s Byeong Hun An and Seonghyeon Kim, and South Africa’s MJ Daffue as players to have crossed the fail-safe threshold of 875 points to secure a spot in The 25 upon the conclusion of regular season play. Two years ago, with the KFT on hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Barnes made ends meet by working a job as a grocery replenishment specialist at his local Publix supermarket, stocking shelves in the mornings and working on his golf game in the afternoon. On the season, Barnes has made 14 cuts in 14 starts with six top 10s including a solo third at the Huntsville Championship. Barnes is in the field for this week’s BMW Charity Pro-Am presented by TD SYNNEX, hosted by Thornblade Club in Greer, S.C.

The 34-year-old Barnes, who moved to Birmingham, Ala., during the offseason, opened with rounds of 64-65 at to take a one-stroke lead into the weekend at The Ledges in Huntsville, Calif. It marked the second 36-hole lead for Barnes on the KFT this season, and he remains the only player on the KFT to make the cut in all 10 tournaments this season. He now has five top-10 finishes, with four top fives including a T-4 at the Bahamas Great Abaco Classic, T-5 at the Panama Championship and a T-5 at the Chitimacha Louisiana Open. At the Club Car Championship in April, Barnes opened with rounds of 66-65 to take outright 36-hole lead, but he played the weekend at 1-over par and finished T-7 at 12-under 276. He’s listed in the field for this week’s Simmons Bank Open for the Snedeker Foundation, hosted by The Grove in College Grove, Tennessee.

It was an up-and-down 2021 for Barnes as he spent his time on the Korn Ferry Tour with his best results coming as a solo fourth-place finish at the Emerald Coast Classic in April and a runner-up effort at the Memorial Health Championship in July. The 34-year-old mixed in numerous missed cuts and forgettable finishes, yet the most recent high came when he Monday qualified for the Butterfield Bermuda Championship. Unable to make the cut in Bermuda, Barnes finished his 2021 on a high note with his play at the Big Money Classic and will hope it trickles into the new year.

Carding seven birdies and two bogeys, Barnes was able to squeak through Monday’s qualifier for the Bermuda Championship. Getting the better of four players by one-stroke to qualify outright, Barnes has had a long road up to this point in this career. When speaking with the PGA Tour, Barnes said, “I went and worked at Publix for three or four months, however long it was, to kind of support the family in the periods of not being able to provide for them playing golf. Think I was getting up at 3:00 a.m. every day, getting to work at 4:00 and working until 1:00 and then trying to get to the golf course in the afternoon and practice three or four hours just to kind of keep my game sharp. It paid off fortunately and I’m not still doing it and can focus on golf so it’s good.”

Barnes arrives at Ohio State’s Scarlet Course off a T-43 finish last week at the Albertsons Boise Open and sits T-29 on the KFT Finals 25 list. He has played on the Korn Ferry Tour since 2015 but has never earned his PGA Tour card and has made just one Tour start – at the Vivant Houston Open last November where he Monday qualified and finished T-38. Barnes finished the 2020-21 KFT regular season 31st in points (28-of-36 cuts made) and has four top 10s including a solo second at the Memorial Health Championship in July and a T-3 at the TPC Colorado Championship in July 2020. But it’s Barnes’ personal story of perseverance that makes his story so compelling: When the tour suspended play during the surge of the COVID-19 pandemic, Barnes worked as a “grocery replacement specialist” at a local Publix in spring 2020 to make extra money, waking up at 3 a.m. for his 4 a.m. shift and heading to the golf course to practice when his shift finished at 1 p.m. He resigned his position once KFT action resumed.

The Woodlands resident dismantled Woodforest Golf Club on Monday afternoon to easily secure his spot in this week’s big event which kicks off on Thursday morning. Burgoon matched Erik Barnes (-9) for the low round of the day while the final two spots were decided this morning in a playoff. Sam Fidone (-5) and Isaiah Salinda (-5) came out on top of that 4-for-2 playoff with Brian Richey and Sebastian Vazquez falling short. Burgoon has been boom or bust over the last few months. He’s lapped the field by four or more shots in three of his last 17 rounds played but also lost strokes to the field in 10 of those rounds. Perhaps gamers will want to give him a look in a single-round showdown format on DFS sites this week.

The Austin Peay State University alum ranks T18 on the week in fairways hit (30-of-42) and T12 in GIR (41-of-54). He’s circled 13 birdies and an eagle, while avoiding bogeys entirely. Barnes entered the week with one top 10 in 33 career Web.com Tour starts, so this is a bit out of the blue. Regardless, he will now have a very good chance to pick off his first career victory as he opens the finale just one off the leader Rhein Gibson.

Making his 13th start of the campaign, Barnes is still searching for his first top 10 of the season. He’s off to a good start thus far, playing two rounds of blemish-free golf, circling 10 birdies along the way. He ranks T18 in fairways hit this week and T13 in GIR, so his ball-striking has been in tip-top shape. Currently ranked 116th on the money list with just $16,084 banked in six paydays, Barnes could really use a nice weekend at Peek’n Peak Resort.