{"id":432953,"date":"2025-01-28T10:31:24","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T15:31:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/?p=432953"},"modified":"2025-04-23T16:38:45","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T16:38:45","slug":"pga-rookie-golf-fans-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/pga-rookie-golf-fans-need-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"A PGA Rookie That Golf Fans Need to Know"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">As the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/2025\/01\/22\/farmers-insurance-open-odds-and-latest-news\/\" target=\"_self\">Farmers Open<\/a> came and went, with Harris English taking top spot, there was one PGA rookie we feel that golf fans need to know. Among the contestants at Torrey Pines, we find an interesting character\u2014a young protege who\u2019s already making a name for himself in the big leagues.\u00a0 This young man has managed to go pro and <a  href=\"https:\/\/golf.com\/news\/aldrich-potgieter-youngest-winner-korn-ferry\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">win in The Bahamas Great Abaco Classic<\/a> at 19, cementing himself as the youngest winner.\u00a0 This young man is named Aldrich Potgieter.\u00a0 His skill has already put him in a professional setting competing with big names while setting records.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>PGA Rookie Aldrich Potgieter Turning Heads<\/h2>\n<h3>About Aldrich Potgieter<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Potgieter is a 20-year-old from South Africa who always had a gift for golf.\u00a0 He describes it as \u201ca gift from god\u201d, and his talent here is unquestionable.\u00a0 Potgieter started playing golf at the age of 8 with the motivation of beating his dad, which he later did at the age of 12.\u00a0 He has described his technique as being &#8220;<a  href=\"https:\/\/www.pgatour.com\/video\/video\/6353018065112\/aldrich-potgieter-talks-about-the-type-of-golfer-he-is\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">not very technical&#8221;<\/a>.\u00a0 He doesn&#8217;t rely on in-depth statistics, or any of the latest gadgets to help him improve himself unless his coach is there, he just does it.\u00a0 Potgieter started competing and winning in amateur leagues before the age of 18, which included the amateur championships.\u00a0 Potgieter later earned his TOUR card after the Korn Ferry Tour concluded despite narrowly missing the opportunity earlier in 2024.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The South African hits an eagle stateside \ud83d\udc40\ud83e\udd85\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NzWEjO3sgwE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Entering The Pro Setting<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Normally PGA rookies of his age are playing with college and university teams, but Potgieter skipped right over that step entirely.\u00a0 Already winning amateur games while he was only 17.\u00a0 Later his golf team was captained by Tim Clark who won the 2010 PGA Players Championship.\u00a0 Clark would say that Potgieter\u2019s talent is obviously there.\u00a0 Even saying that he has a good attitude when it comes to shortcomings as well as a deep appreciation and respect for other professional players.\u00a0 Other Pro players find his attitude <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.pgatour.com\/video\/shows\/6343114655112\/bryan-brothers-talk-about-aldrich-potgieters-game\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pretty charming too<\/a>.\u00a0 Clark also continues his support of Potgieter and has only deepened that support since he earned his TOUR card.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>What the Future May Hold for Potgieter<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Potgieter is currently also making himself one of the longest players on Tour as soon as he joined.\u00a0 His swings easily get him an average of over 338.5 yards per drive.\u00a0 He also keeps that number high with his averages during the Farmers Insurance Open being regularly over 320 yards.\u00a0 \u00a0He is predicted to keep that record for a long time to come, skill like this doesn\u2019t come this often at such a young age.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Good things seem to be coming Potgieter\u2019s way and he is all too eager to keep this train going into the foreseeable future.\u00a0 Potgieter is so young and has already started a professional career.\u00a0 He\u2019s got a good swing, and a good attitude, and has already started setting records.\u00a0 This is a rookie who is worth keeping an eye on.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a9 Abe Arredondo-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the Farmers Open came and went, with Harris English taking top spot, there was one PGA rookie we feel that golf fans need to know. Among the contestants at Torrey Pines, we find an interesting character\u2014a young protege who\u2019s already making a name for himself in the big leagues.\u00a0 This young man has managed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4860,"featured_media":433000,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,19],"tags":[218],"class_list":["post-432953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-pga","tag-aldrich-potgieter"],"modified_by":"yobodev","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4860"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}