News >> Adams Looking For First Title

Irving, TX (May 24, 2010) Coming into the 2010 PGA TOUR season, former NGA Hooters Tour player Blake Adams had never played in a PGA TOUR event. The thirty-four year old earned his PGA TOUR card for 2010 thanks in part to earning $399,749, a record for a player without a win, in his first full season on the Nationwide Tour finishing third on the season long money list.
 
 Entering this past week’s HP Byron Nelson Championship, Adams had made 7 of 13 cuts on the season and collected $335,835 in earnings. Adams started his season off with a T-25 finish at the Sony before bringing home a T10 finish at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am three weeks later for his best finish of his rookie season thus far.  After a hot start, Adams had cooled a bit missing 5 of 9 cuts with a best finish of T-14 at the Shell Houston Open but that all changed this week as Adams came a few shots from claiming his first title.
 
After opening with rounds of 66-64-70 for a ten-under par 200 total, Adams entered the final round trailing 54-hole leader Jason Day by two shots, but would find himself paired with Day in what would be an up-and-down final round for both players.
 
Adams started off with two pars and a birdie over his first three holes to close the gap with Day, but an untimely bogey at the sixth and three straight pars to finish his front nine left Adams at even par for the round and tied with Day after Day turned in two-over 37.
 
Adams once again made the first strike on the back nine Sunday with a birdie at the tenth but once again a bogey moved him back while Day rolled off two straight birdies to regain his lead again. Another bogey by Adams at 15 followed by a birdie at 16 and a par 17 sent the former Georgia Southern golfer into the 18th hole trailing Day by a stroke.
 
Adams' tee shot on the difficult closing hole left him under a tree with branches blocking his view of the green and his approach nicked one of the branches in his line and bounced left across the fairway and into the same pond Day had hit his approach shot into minutes before Adams played. After dropping, each player hit their fourth shot onto the green, where Day knocked in the winning 15-foot putt. Adams, who arrived at the 18th tee in solo second, would two putt for a closing double-bogey that would drop him back into a three-way tie for second with Brian Gay and Jeff Overton.
 
"It was a great week, and I learned a lot about myself," said Adams, who moved from 116th to 53rd in the FedExCup standings. "I was in the last group the last two days, but I wasn't nervous; I just didn't play well. I was really pleasantly pleased with how my emotions were. [I'll] learn from it and move on. Hats off to Jason Day and I'll try again next week."
 
Other NGA Hooters Tour alumni that made the cut in the HP Byron Nelson Championship included Scott Verplank (T-7), Tom Pernice Jr (T-7), Sean O’Hair (T-12), Chris Riley (T-16), Jay Williamson (T-16), Stewart Cink (T-23), Shawn Micheel (T-26), J.J. Henry (T-32), Spencer Levin (t-32), Gary Woodland (T-32), Joe Durant (T-41), James Nitties (T-43), Kevin Streelman (T-50), Brent DelaHoussaye (T-53), Parker McLachlin (T-53), Jason Schultz (T-63), Lee Janzen (T-67), John Merrick (69), Josh Teater (T-70) and Vance Veazey (T-70).
 
For complete results from The HP Byron Nelson Championship on pgatour.com, please click here.
 
While these players played another successful week on the PGA TOUR, a handful of Alumni are fighting their way on the Nationwide Tour. At this past week’s Rex Hospital Open, alumni that made the cut included Scott Brown (T-6), Ron Whittaker (T-6), Ted Brown (T-9), Michael Clark II (T-9), David Mathis (T-9), Andrew Svoboda (T-13), Josh Broadaway (T-17), Jim Herman (T-17), Bubba Dickerson (T-25), Bob May (T-27), Nathan Smith (T-27), Joe Affrunti (T-27), Chris Kirk (T-27), Kelly Grunewald (T-27), Jess Daley (t-40), Tommy Gainey (T-40), Scott Gutschewski (T-42), Stephen Poole (T-42), Bryan DeCorso (T-42), Mark Anderson (T-42), Justin Peters (T-55), Darron Stiles (T-55) and Luke List (63). For complete results of the Rex Hospital Open on pgatour.com, please click here.
 
The NGA/Hooters Tour is the 3rd largest men’s 72-hole professional golf tour in the country behind the PGA and Nationwide Tours, and boasts alumni like 2009 British Open Champion Stewart Cink, 2007 Masters Champion Zach Johnson, 2003 PGA Champion Shaun Micheel, 2003 British Open winner Ben Curtis, 2003 US Open winner Jim Furyk, two time U.S. Open winner Lee Janzen, British Open and PGA Champion John Daly, as well as British Open winner Tom Lehman, PGA Champion David Toms, 2003 Tour Championship Winner Chad Campbell, 2004 & 2005 Reno Tahoe Open winner Vaughn Taylor and TPC winner Craig Perks to name just a few. All told, the NGA/Hooters Tour’s alumni have an incredible 11 “Majors” to their credit. The NGA/Hooters Tour has helped more than 100 professionals acquire their PGA, Champions, and Nationwide Tour cards.

For more information about the NGA/Hooters Tour, please visit our web site, www.HOOTERSTOUR.com.