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Monday qualifiers: Transitions
By Michael Curet, PGATOUR.COM Contributor
There was plenty drama as darkness set in Monday and the sun came up on Tuesday at Southern Hills Plantation, site of this week’s qualifying for The Transitions Championship at Innisbrook Resort and Country Club.
A couple of former PGA TOUR winners, Frank Lickliter and Robert Damron, secured spots along with Kyle Reifers and Pierre-Henri Soero. Reifers was the medalist with a 7-under 65 while Lickliter finished one shot behind. Damron and Soero, who each shot 67s, were part of a six-man playoff that would result in the second Tuesday morning finish in the qualifier already this year.
Soero, a 28-year-old native of the French territory of New Caledonia, birdied the first playoff hole to while the others played three more holes until dark. On Tuesday morning, Damron birdied the first hole to earn the final spot and eliminate Kyle Thompson and Todd Demsey.
The 42-year-old Lickliter, a two-time winner on the PGA (2001 Kemper Insurance Open and 2003 Chrysler Classic of Tucson) made eight of 12 cuts on the PGA TOUR in 2011, but failed to make it to the weekend in his only two 2012 TOUR starts. The Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., resident was one of the last afternoon golfers to tee off Monday, responding with a round that featured five birdies on the back nine.
Damron won his PGA TOUR title at the 2001 Verizon Byron Nelson Classic with a birdie on the fourth playoff hole to defeat Scott Verplank. The Orlando, Fla., resident has made cuts in all three 2012 starts – a T63 at the Mayakoba Golf Classic on the PGA TOUR, as well as a T46 finish at the Pacific Rubiales Colombia Championship presented by Samsung and a T43 at the Panama Claro Championship pn the Nationwide Tour.
Reifers, a former Wake Forest standout who now resides in Charlotte, is back on the PGA TOUR after finishing No. 16 on the Nationwide Tour money list in 2011. He comes in this week fresh off a T48 finish at the Puerto Rico Open, with three of six cuts made this year.
Soero, who spends part of the year in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., has been playing the mini-tours since 2008. Soero, who came to the United States on a golf scholarship at University of Hawaii, missed the cut in the 2005 U.S. Open at Pinehurst and last played on the PGA TOUR in the 2010 Puerto Rico Open. He tied for 58th in 2010 in the Nationwide Tour’s Miccosukee Championship.