CROMWELL, Conn. – Who’s Zack Sucher?
Through the morning wave Friday at TPC River Highlands, he was the leader of the Travelers Championship.
With rounds of 64-65, Sucher moved from the overnight co-lead at 6 under to the outright lead at 11 under.
He was all too happy to speak with the media. He’s all too happy just to be here.
Sucher, whose excitement was overflowing after his round, is in position through 36 holes to potentially regain the Tour status he’s kept on hold for two years. A one-time Korn Ferry winner who’s bounced around on that circuit since 2011, he was in the middle of his second PGA Tour season in 2017 when knee and ankle injuries became too hard to play through. He had missed 11 of 14 cuts, the last of which came here, at the Travelers.
“This was my very last PGA Tour event,” he said. “I missed the cut and went and played in the offsite outing that week.”
It was there, he says, that John Peterson, who has since left professional golf and already made an effort to come back, advised him to apply for a medical extension.
“I’m like, ‘Man, I got all kinds of problems,’” Sucher recalled. “He said, ‘Well, you’re an idiot for playing.”
Sucher then underwent surgery to fix two ligaments and a tendon in his ankle. He wasn’t cleared to play golf again for another 13 months. He’s still walking around with a torn quad tendon in his knee, but says it doesn’t bother him “one bit” now that his ankle is healed.
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He returned to competitive golf earlier this year, armed with six starts to earn 347.34 FedExCup points. He tied for 35th and 50th at the Wells Fargo and AT&T Byron Nelson before missing the cut two weeks ago in Canada.
Sucher was was double committed to the Travelers and this week’s Korn Ferry event in Wichita, Kansas. Unsuccessful in his bid to make the cut at the Lincoln Land Championship last week, he was successful in moving up the alternate list outside Hartford, where he’s suddenly chasing victory.
“Yeah, this will be a little bit of a different feeling being the final group of a PGA event,” he said. “Done it plenty on the — I guess it’s the Korn Ferry Tour now. I’ve got to stop calling it the Web.com.”
Sucher has made 10 Korn Ferry starts this year, with two top-10s, including a runner-up earlier this month. He is currently 34th on that tour’s money list, with the top 25 at the end of the regular season earning PGA Tour membership for 2019-20. At minimum, he has already secured his Korn Ferry card for 2020.
“It’s always nice just to have job security,” he said.
Sucher plans to use the last two starts on his medical extension next week at the Rocket Mortgage Classic and in three weeks at the John Deere Classic.
From there, he’ll play the final three events on the Korn Ferry schedule and then roll into the Finals, fighting for a full-time return to the PGA Tour.
That’s assuming, of course, he still needs to.
“This week can change everything,” he said.
Asked if he’s talked to Peterson since taking his advice two years, Sucher says he hasn’t, but he’s excited to run into him again.
“I have not seen him since then,” Sucher said. “He came back from retirement, and I’ve seen his name at a few of the events. But I’m going to [thank him] when I see him, for sure.”