Chip Lynn finishes Top 5 PGA Latin America Event
Monday, March 23rd, Joel "Chip" Lynn found himself in a playoff for the last available spot in the PGA Latin America Mazatlan Open. He was literally playing for the chance to compete later that week. As with the PGA and Web.com, PGA LA events are set up by order of merit. The higher your merit level, the more events you can enter. Those who do not have enough Tour Status are therefore forced to try and qualify for events via the Monday Qualifier process, where sometime 100 guys will be competing for just a few spots. High risk, high reward since a top finish in any PGA event can add significant Tour Status and the ability to be part of additional tournament fields.
In Chip's case, he has his Web.com card, which gets him into some events but not all. For example, the week prior, Chip was in the PGA LA field in Bogata, Columbia but missed the cut. Since it was unlikely he would make the field for the next Web.com event, Lynn turned his attention to the Mazatlan Open and the Monday Qualifying.
18 holes later and a birdie on the 2nd playoff hole, Chip Lynn was in the field. On the first day, two double bogies (a mysterious lost ball and an unholy bunker lie) led to an even par round and put him near the cut line and 6 strokes behind the leaders.
Yea, those were two crazy double bogies, but I knew I could score on this course and just tried to put them behind me.
Chip Lynn
The next two rounds Lynn would post bogey free rounds of 67 and 66 and head into Sunday T3.
After the 1st round I realized I was pressing too much. The next three rounds I just tried to let the game come to me rather than make something happen"
On Sunday, Lynn again went bogey-free and finished T5, his best on the PGA LA Tour.
I feel like a learned a lot last week. I made some big changes to how I approach the game that I think will really help me this season.
Chip will be back in the United States for a few weeks playing the eGolf Tour before he heads back to South America for the PGA Latin America Tour.