Here’s who won this year’s Straight Down Fall Classic in SLO
PGA Tour professional Brandon Harkins and his partner Tony Verna won the Straight Down Fall Classic golf tournament Sunday with a 14-under finish in the best ball tournament in San Luis Obispo.
Harkins edged Edward Loar and his partner Todd Mitchell, who finished at -12.
The leaderboard included a number of familiar names — Ricky Barnes, Kenny Perry and Loren Roberts — whose teams all placed in the top-10 of the 60-team tournament.
The pro-am tournament matched a pro with an amateur on the same team. Both played each hole with the best of the two scores recorded for the competition.
“It means a lot to win this tournament,” said Harkins. “I putted pretty well. ... Having Tony in each hole with me, it eased the stress, so I think it made it easier on the greens, because the greens are so tricky. These greens are some of the best, if not the best, greens I’ve ever putted.”
Harkins, ranked 71st in the world, and Verna, bogeyed the 16th. Going into the final hole, they were one shot ahead, needing at least a par to win.
They recorded a birdie, to edge out Mitchell and 78th-ranked Loar, who called the greens “diabolical.”
“This is shorter than most PGA Tour courses, but the greens are really hard,” Loar said. “They’re diabolical. But it’s a great course for this type of event. And the weather couldn’t have been better.”
Harkins and Verna both recently celebrated life achievements within the last month, as Harkins’ wife gave birth to their son, Jackson, three weeks ago. Verna got married on Oct. 19, and Harkins was a groomsman.
Harkins, a two-year PGA Tour player, made 14 birdies this weekend. Verna won the club championship at San Francisco’s Olympic Club in 2017 and 2019.
“If I hit a bad shot, Brandon picked me up and we helped each other out,” said Verna, who was a high school rival of Harkins at separate schools in the Bay Area, as well as a friend.
Other top finishers included Rod Pampling and Ian Happ, of the Chicago Cubs, who tied for third at -11 and Ricky Barnes and Andrew Medley, who also shot 11 under.
“To see a guy who’s 25 swing as fast as he does, I can only imagine what he does to a baseball,” Pampling said of Happ on Saturday “It hurts just watching him. It’s a pretty powerful motion. He has a good swing. You can see the passion he has. There’s a lot of good shots in there.”
Other notable finishers included the teams of Kenny Perry (tied for 6th), Cal Poly graduate Arron Oberholser (tied for 6th) and Loren Roberts (tied for 9th).
Barnes, who was smoking a cigar and looking comfortable in shorts on Sunday, sank a key 25-putt on a side slope on the 16th green to come within two strokes.
Barnes said it was a relatively relaxed environment compared to the PGA Tour, but his team was aggressive in hunting for birdies down the stretch.
“Any tournament you play, you get the blood flowing and the competitive juices come out, so we were hoping to win but came up just short,” Barnes said. “I thought this was a loose, fun environment and the course was a lot of fun. I also got to play with my close friend (Medley), and that made it a great tournament.”
Harkins played at Chico State, while Verna was a member of UC Santa Barbara’s team.
Harkins has four career top-10 finishes on the PGA Tour. This was the third time Harkins and Verna have played the Straight Down Fall Classic.
Perry said on Saturday that the greens were among the toughest he’s played, adding he was told that it was important to be below the hole for an uphill putt as much as possible.
That’s because the speed of the greens caused many players to run their putts well past the hole if they weren’t careful.
“It’s the hardest 18 holes of green complexes that I’ve played besides Augusta National,” said Perry, who was runner-up in the 2009 Masters.
This story was originally published November 17, 2019 at 5:51 PM.
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