Pepperdine product won inaugural PGA TOUR Americas’ tournament in a playoff before moving up
Former Pepperdine Waves men’s golfer Clay Feagler will tee off in the Korn Ferry Tour next year.
Feagler, who won a national championship with the Waves three years ago, earned his 2025 Korn Ferry Tour card thanks to his finish in the season-long points race in the PGA Tour Americas. He previously played in the Korn Ferry Tour in 2022 and 2023.
Feagler said returning to the Korn Ferry Tour, a developmental competition known as the primary passageway to PGA TOUR qualification, is a swing of the club toward his professional golf dream.
“The goal is to get your PGA Tour card,” he said. “The Korn Ferry Tour is a grind. The same as the PGA Tour. Whether it’s with a few wins or consistent play, when you tee up everyone’s goal is to get to the next level. My goal for 2025 is to get my PGA Tour card.”
The 26-year-old golfer was one of 10 players PGA Tour Americas announced in September had advanced to the Korn Ferry Tour and garnered exemptions into the Dec. 14-17 Final Stage of PGA Tour Q-School presented by Korn Ferry. The top five finishers and ties at the 72-hole Jacksonville, Florida, event earn PGA Tour cards, which Feagler has his sight on.
“Any chance to skip one piece of the puzzle to go to the end is something I want to take advantage of,” he noted.
Feagler became the first winner in PGA Tour Americas history when he defeated Davis Shore in a four-hole playoff by making a bogey on No. 10 to win the Bupa Championship at Tulum, Mexico, in May.
Feagler entered the tournament at PGA Riviera Maya as a conditional member, so he earned his place in the field by winning a Monday qualifier. The former Wave nailed a 40-foot birded to force a 6-for-3 playoff and then birded the first extra to hole to join the field of the PGA Tour Americas’ first showcase.
Feagler was confident in his golf game throughout all 95 holes.
“Going onto to win the tournament after Monday qualifying was pretty crazy,” he remembered. “I felt confident going into the week. Whenever I’m close to the lead, I feel like I have really good chance to win. I like being in competition atop the leaderboard. Everything was going for me that week and unfolded into this perfect storm of getting through the Monday qualifier in a playoff and then winning the event in a playoff.”
Feagler believed his performance in Mexico set the stage for him to finish top 10 in points on a tour that featured six competitions in Mexico and 10 in Canada and the United States. However, he noted that he hasn’t played his best recently.
“Right now, I’m trying to figure things out,” Feagler explained. “The last couple of months of the PGA TOUR Americas season was frustrating and not up to my level of play. I’m working on things and trying to get the golf game better in certain spots, so I can play well in December and play well next year.
Feagler had three top-five finishes and one third-place finish on the Americas tour circuit, which featured 368 players from 28 countries.
He said traveling to play in countries such as Mexico and Peru, and across Canada and the U.S., isn’t easy.
“It’s very exhausting,” Feagler noted. “Some days, you have to take a little bit of rest for your body to reset. You have to keep your body and mind healthy to play the best golf you can play.”
In college, Feagler, a Newport Beach native, played 164 rounds, the most in Waves history, and won four tournaments. He is also one of seven golfers in Pepperdine history to be named to the All-West Coast Conference first team four times.
Most importantly though, Feagler was one of the three Waves golfers to win their matches to allow Pepperdine to beat Oklahoma 3-2 in the 2021 NCAA national championship. He actually scored the winning point.
Feagler took his clubs to the professional golf ranks after the national championship victory. He played on the PGA Tour Canada and finished top 10 in points, which propelled him to the Korn Ferry Tour. Feagler lost his passion for golf in the wake of his father’s death in March 2023. He then lost his Korn Ferry Tour card after entering his second season and playing in over 30 tournaments on the tour. He went to the PGA Tour Canada again last summer and performed exceptional enough to garner conditional membership in the first-ever PGA Tour Americas season.
Feagler, who lives in Woodland, Texas, now, said professional golf is a mentally and physically tough game.
“Everyone is really good,” he said. “You are going to have bad days and good days. For me, I want everything to be perfect and go right, but when you play golf, you never know what is going to happen. I know what level I can play up to though.”
He likes the competition though. Feagler is driving and putting for his idea of the perfect game.
“When I go out there to hit a put or a golf shot and the ball is doing what I intend it do is a perfect game for me,” he said. “I can go out and shoot five or six under, but not hit every shot. The ball doing what I want it to do is perfect for me.”