The field for the Butterfield Bermuda Championship will include the youngest player to tee it up on the PGA Tour since 2014 after 15-year-old local prodigy Oliver Betschart qualified for the event.
Betschart reached the tournament after battling windy conditions to card a final round 68 in a 54-hole local qualifier to become the youngest player to compete on the Tour since Guan Tianlang appeared at the 2014 Sony Open in Hawaii.
After his achievement, Betschart told the Royal Gazette: “This has been my goal for the whole year, and now it’s finally true and it’s hard to accept it but I am really excited. “
It was a case of second time lucky for Betschart, as he came within a shot of reaching last year’s tournament, and he added that holding his nerve as he closed out his round, which included five birdies, was vital.
He said: “Last year I was up here working with the tournament staff and seeing all the work that goes on and I am really happy to be a part of it this year. I was definitely nervous coming down the stretch and then made a lot of good shots.”
This will not be the first time a 15-year-old has competed in the tournament. The 2019 event saw an appearance from another local player, Kenny Leseur, although he was six months older than Betschart when he qualified.
The Butterfield Bermuda Championship will also be the second week in a row where a promising youngster competes on the PGA Tour following Billy Davis Jr’s appearance at the World Wide Technology Championship, although he missed the cut after two rounds of 71.
Betschart, who became the youngest player to win the Port Royal Golf Club Championship in 2022, will be joined in the tournament by two other Bermudians who made it through the local qualifier, Eric West and Scott Roy.
Despite Betschart’s achievement, several other players have competed on the PGA Tour at a younger age in the modern era. Michelle Wie West was just 14 years, three months and seven days old when she played in the 2004 Sony Open, but missed the cut.
Then, before his appearance in the same tournament a decade on from Wie West, Tianlang competed in the 2013 Masters aged 14 years, five months and 20 days and stunned the golf world by making the cut at Augusta National before eventually finishing 58th.
That made Tianlang the youngest player to make the cut at a men's Major and he wasn't finished there. Just a couple of weeks later, he also became the youngest player to make the cut at a PGA Tour event, finishing 71st at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.
Andy Zhang was just 14 years, six months and three days when he missed the cut in the 2012 US Open. Before him, in 2009, Lorens Chan was 14 years, seven months and 27 days old when he competed in the Sony Open in Hawaii, but also didn't make it to the weekend.
For the youngest player ever to compete in a PGA Tour event, you’d need to go way back to 1937, when Don Dunkelberger played in the Chicago Open aged 11. However, after an opening round of 103, he withdrew from the tournament.
Beyond the PGA Tour, the youngest player to participate in a DP World Tour event is Ye Wo-Cheng, who competed in the 2013 Volvo China Open aged 12 years, 242 days and missed the cut.
