Davis Chatfield earns PGA Tour Card

+ Saving Cape Cod CC, news, notes, and weekly faves

Author

Sean Melia
October 10, 2025

Hey Everyone,

I have a mini goal to reach 170 courses on my quest before the end of this year. On Tuesday, I hoped to play courses 164 and 165 in a little nine-hole journey on the north shore.

I arrived at New Meadows in Topsfield and within 10 minutes I was pulling out of the driveway. No, it wasn’t the fastest nine-hole round I had ever played. It was because I wasn’t allowed to play the course as a single.

They have a no-singles and no-walk-up policy. So I was turned away. The course was appropriately busy, but this wasn’t a case of a packed tee sheet without any openings for a single to hop in with a group.

It was the first time I had been told, without exception, even on a Tuesday morning in October, that a course was not willing to help me play golf.

So I headed on down the road to Rowley CC. I was welcomed and found my way to the first tee as a single, enjoying the walk through a tree-lined course with a good set of greens that rolled nicely and were interesting. A solid nine-holer. I’ve heard rumors that they might be expanding the course. There seems to be a lot of land surrounding the course. Enough for more holes and some development, too.

On the flip side of expanding courses, I posted about the closure of Cape Cod CC on Instagram. It’s one of the most viewed things I have ever posted. Fried Egg Golf reached out and shared it, and I added them as a collaborator on the post to extend its reach.

If you’d like to add your name to the petition, you can do so here.

News and Notes

Pro Golf

🔨 Michael Thorbjornsen shot an opening round 70 (-2) in the Baycurrent Classic in Japan. Round two happened overnight. Live Scoring

🌽 The Korn Ferry Tour Championship has a lot on the line this week. Players are vying for Top 20 and Top 75 spots. Top 75 earn status on the KFT next year. Top 20 at PGA Tour Bound. Davis Chatfield is playing with house money, as he has earned his PGA Tour Card, but Robbie Oppenheim sits very close to that 75th spot. He is projected to finish 72nd following the first round. He started the week at 69. Live scoring

🏌️‍♀️ The LPGA is out in China, but Megan Khang, Alexa Pano, and Brittany Altomare are not in the field. If you ever wondered what a pro event would look like on a bad muni… it might be worth tuning in this week… Live Scoring

College Golf

🌊 Harvard finished 8th in the Hamptons Invitational at Maidstone. Alan Rose (46st) and Carson Erick (60th) were in the field for Georgetown. Results

🐯 In the Princeton Invitational, the Harvard women finished ninth, and Boston University finished T10. Results. Results

🏌️ John Broderick (Vanderbilt), Trevor Drew (W. Kentucky), and Joey Lenane (NC State) competed in the rain-shortened Cullen Brown Collegiate at Lexington CC in Kentucky. Broderick finished T4, marking his second top-five collegiate finish. Joey Lenane finished T10, and Trevor Drew finished 58th. Results

🐴 Emil Neilsen finished T75 in the Fighting Irish Classic for the Santa Clara Broncos. Results

⚓️ Holy Cross finished 8th in the Navy Invitational. Stonehill came in 14th. Results 

💣️ Isabel Brozena finished T61 in the Ron Moore Intercollegiate in Colorado. Results

🏆️ Molly Smith finished T2 and helped her UCF Golden Knights win the Fighting Illini Invitational at Medinah. Smith shot 68-70-69 (-9) and lost by three shots! Results 

Amateur Golf

🇺🇸 Shannon Johnson reached the Round of 16 in the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur this week. Johnson lost to Emila Doran, who played on the Wake Forest national championship team in 2023. She now works for Golf Channel and has played in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur. It was a good showing overall from the four Massachusetts representatives. Alexis Florio continued a good summer (Mass. Women’s Am semi-finalist) with a Round of 32 appearance. She lost to Catherine McEvoy from Connecticut. Chelsea Curtis couldn’t make it through a 12-for-4 playoff. Tara Joy-Connelly shot 81-82 and missed the match play cut.

🏆️ Nick Maccario and Matt Parziale teamed up to win the John R. Williams Four-Ball Invitational at Oak Hill CC in New York. They shot 69-66-68 (-7) to defend their title. Results

🏌️ Marko Kazanjian and Trevor Wellen won the Anderson Cup at Worcester CC. They shot 67-65, a long par putt on the 18th hole helped them edge out two Bay State Golf podcast guests - Colin Brennan and Paul Burke. Results

⛴️ Dan O'Callaghan and Aengus McAllister teamed up to win the Nantucket Invitational at Sankaty Head. Dan Keogh and Scott Mackesy took home the senior title. Results

Plugs

I recapped my September of golf. Putting together something more substantial to cover my Cape Cod trip.

Davis Chatfield earns his PGA Tour Card

If there was any doubt about where Davis Chatfield grew up, the Boston Bruins hat in his official headshot on the PGA’s website will make it clear. Now, the kid from Attleboro is heading to the PGA Tour after earning his PGA Tour card through the season-long points race on the Korn Ferry Tour.

While the season isn’t over, Chatfield’s T15 finish in the Compliance Solutions mathematically guaranteed his spot. A 59 in the first round was a big help in locking up his tour card, but it takes consistent play through the season to finish in the Top 20 of Korn Ferry points list. He’s the first Notre Dame golfer to earn his PGA Tour card.

Consistent is exactly what Chatifled has been this year. He has made 17 cuts in 24 events. While he hasn’t won, he’s notched two runner-up finishes - The Chile Classic and the UNC Health Championship. He also had six top tens and 11 top-25 finishes.

In the era of bomb it and find it, Chatfield stands out. He’s 141st in driving distance on the Korn Ferry Tour, but he’s first in driving accuracy and 13th in birdie rate. His average was 68.71, good enough for 18th on the Korn Ferry Tour.

Chatfield was a star at Bishop Feehan High School from 2013-2017.

Boston Globe All-Scholastic 2015 (junior year)

Boston Globe All-Scholastic 2016 (senior year)

Chatfield won the 2016 Rhode Island Amateur Championship at Point Judith Country Club at age 17. It wild a wild match that included Chatfield relinquishing a 5-up lead to defending champion Kevin Silva. Chatfield would survive on the 38th hole. He was the second youngest winner in the state’s history. The summer before, Chatfield won the 2015 RI Junior Amateur.

That summer of 2016 was a good one for Chatfield. He won World Series of Golf and the Attleboro Open on top of the RI Amateur.

In 2017, he finished second the World Series of Junior Golf and the Hornblower Memorial at Plymouth CC.

After Bishop Feehan, Chatfield headed to Notre Dame. His junior season at Notre Dame was cut short due to COVID-19. He owns the fifth-lowest scoring average in program history and helped the team reach the NCAA Championship in 2021 after a nine-year drought. That team had won four of five tournaments. Chatfield honed his game for an extra year at Notre Dame, sticking around for a graduate year to make up for the pandemic.

Chatfield jumped right onto the Korn Ferry Tour in January 2023. The top 75 on the points list maintain their Korn Ferry status for the following year. Chatfield cracked that threshold in June of 2023 and played a lot of golf on the bubble throughout that summer. He climbed from 70th to 62nd over the last five events; a T8 in the Boise Open was monumental.

The following year was more comfortable for Chatfield in terms of maintaining his Korn Ferry status. He finished 44th on the points list, earning $223,803. That position granted him exemption through the first stage of PGA Tour School.

Oftentimes, golf celebrates the precocious. Slow growth isn’t exciting. It doesn’t tell a good story until it reaches the top. Guys like Brian Harman and Max Homa were excellent college players and then toiled (Homa more than Harman) before cracking the top level of the game.

Golf is a game of failure. Chatfield is a PGA Tour player who never won on the Korn Ferry Tour.

His steady, consistent play has rewarded him, and now he gets to compete at the next level in the most competitive golf tour in the world.

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When I’m not golfing…

I’m reading…

🇮🇪 Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan is an 80-page story. It’s exceptional. It’s heavy. It’s worth a read.

I’m eating…

🍄 This Spicy Noodle Soup with Mushrooms is easy and delicious.

🇮🇹 Main Street Pasta in Charlestown makes a mean Pumpkin Spice ravioli.

🥣 Pearl Couscous With Creamy Feta and Chickpeas was another good dish I made this week.

I’m watching…

🍩 Great British Baking is BACK!

🍺 We started House of Guinness on Netflix.

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