COLUMBUS, Ohio – Norman Xiong, a 2017 Temescal Canyon graduate, won last year on the Korn Ferry Tour in Wichita, Kansas but fell short of earning his PGA Tour card for 2023. He recorded just one top-25 finish after that win at the 2022 Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship.
In 2023, Xiong made nineteen starts with five top 25 finishes, which includes a runner up finish in May at the Visit Nashville Open. However, golf, as we all know, can be a fickle game and Xiong missed five straight cuts after that runner-up finish in May. He reached the Korn Ferry Tour playoffs by making three straight cuts down the stretch with a best finish of tied for 16th.
After a missed cut in Boise, Idaho (the playoff opening event) Xiong recorded an 11th place finish at the Simmons Bank Open for the Snedeker Foundation which set the stage for a big week in Ohio.
He shot scores of 69-67-71-67=274 (-10) on the Jack Nicklaus designed Scarlett Course at Ohio State University to prevail by four shots over Curtis Luck, Joe Highsmith, and Chris Petefish.
With the win Xiong earned six hundred points and finds himself in 12th place in Korn Ferry Tour points as the schedule reaches its final stop, the Korn Ferry Tour Championship from October 5-8 in Newburgh, Indiana. The tour’s top thirty in cumulative points will earn PGA Tour status for 2024.
“I’m just happy to play golf again,” Xiong said in a Korn Ferry tour release. “I think once I turned pro it became not just hitting it and seeing it and visualizing it. I’m just so happy to feel like myself again and be out there having fun on the course, staying in the present, and loving it again.”
Derryl Trujillo can be reached by email at socaltrekkie@gmail.com.
