Plucked from CCU’s hallways, Zack Taylor is now surpassing some of Dustin Johnson’s feats
Zack Taylor wanted to play college golf coming out of high school in Pittsburgh, but he got a late start as a competitive junior golfer and didn’t have any offers.
So he settled for what he considered the next best thing, the PGA Golf Management Program at Coastal Carolina.
“I started too late so I didn’t get recruited the proper way,” he said. “The point when I was looking I didn’t find anything I really liked so I found Coastal. I really liked what the PGA program does, I still do.”
After three years in the PGM program, Taylor got the break he coveted. With an open spot on his roster, CCU men’s golf coach Jim Garren offered Taylor a chance to make the team prior to the 2018-19 season.
Taylor hasn’t just made the most of his opportunity. He’s now doing things even 20-time PGA Tour winner Dustin Johnson didn’t do in his four-year Coastal Carolina career.
Taylor is in the process of surpassing Johnson’s school-record career scoring average, and on Tuesday he became the first CCU player to win the school’s General Hackler Championship outright in the 19-year history of the tournament.
“It is crazy. It’s just something I wouldn’t have thought of,” Taylor said. “I didn’t see myself here two years ago or even when I started on the team. I wasn’t sure if I was going to make the first lineup on the team and now we’re here. It’s a big change and I’m really enjoying the process.”
Taylor won the Hackler Championship by two strokes at 8-under-par 208, and joins Andrew Dorn, who tied for the individual title in 2014, as the only Chants to win the event.
In his two seasons, Taylor has a career scoring average of 71.15, including 70.79 this season, which is well under par. That’s more than a stroke better than the 72.26 average Johnson posted over his four-year career, which was 0.57 above par.
He’s on his way to recording the next two best single-season scoring averages in school history behind Johnson’s 70.40 his senior year, when he won four of his eight college titles.
Taylor participated in an NCAA regional last year and was named 2019 Sun Belt Newcomer of the Year, 2019 First-Team All-Sun Belt, and 2019 Ping! All-Region.
But until Tuesday at The Dunes Golf and Beach Club, he hadn’t won.
In 19 career starts, Taylor has 13 top-20s and seven top-five finishes. He finished second in just his second ever college tournament in the fall of 2018 and added three third-place finishes last spring.
“It feels amazing. I’ve been close a few times and been let down a few times, so to have it pan out in my favor feels really good,” Taylor said. “And it being here it couldn’t have been a better place.”
Taylor’s family from Pittsburgh was at the tournament, including his mother, grandmother, uncle and father, who hadn’t seen him play in about six years, as well as his girlfriend.
“It was really cool for them to see it, and there were a lot of people from the community,” Taylor said. “It’s the first time they’ve all been here and it’s really cool. It’s been so long since he’s seen me play it’s probably a little different from last time.”
Taylor scorched The Dunes Club for two rounds Monday, carding scores of 66 and 68 for a 10-under total and four-shot lead entering the final round.
Taylor said that on Monday night he watched TV and hung out with some friends to keep his mind occupied. “When I got here I noticed I was definitely a little nervous,” he said. “. . . I could feel it, over the first tee shot for sure. I caught it a little thin, and I was like, ‘I guess I am a little bit nervous because that didn’t feel very solid.’ ”
The lead was gone by the turn, as Taylor played his first nine – the back nine – 3-over with a bogeys on the 10th and 14th holes, a birdie on the par-5 13th and a double bogey on the par-3 17th, where he left himself short-sided in the front bunker.
He drained a 40-foot downhill putt on the 18th green to save par, however, and steadied his game from there, playing his second nine 1-under with eight pars and a tee shot to 3 feet for birdie on the 185-yard par-3 fifth hole to shoot a 74.
“There was definitely some nerves out there, and I just didn’t execute at the beginning as good as I wanted to, as good as I did [Monday] for sure,” Taylor said. “. . . I got up and down a few times on the front nine to kind of save my skin and help keep momentum going, and the putt I made on [18], a 40-footer down the hill, that was I think was the turning point in my round. I was able to flip it around and realize, ‘Okay, I’m at this point now.’ ”
The opportunity
Garren had a proven track record with PGM students when he went to the well again for Taylor.
He discovered Andrew Roy, who is now a CCU assistant coach, and Morgan Deneen, who won the Sun Belt Conference individual title as a redshirt junior in 2018, in the PGM program previously. And with spots on the team left unfilled by high school and junior college recruiting, he was able to find a diamond in the rough again.
“What a cool deal,” Garren said Tuesday. “He’s had so many top-10s, top-fives, he’s been close a lot, and to pull one off against this caliber of a field on this type of venue, it’s awesome anywhere, but it’s really special that it happened at home with his family here.”
Taylor shared a hug following his win with the coach who gave him a shot. “It was a really pure moment,” Taylor said. ‘I know how happy I was, but to see him that happy for me shows how much he cares. He’s such a good guy and really wants the best for all of us.”
Taylor’s game wasn’t ready for Division I college golf over his first two years at Coastal. “It actually got worse for a while because I didn’t really put in a lot of work between freshman and sophomore year,” Taylor said. “I kind of just slacked off, did the whole school thing, the typical college thing.”
But when he saw Garren pluck a couple of his fellow PGM students for the team, his motivation was renewed.
“(Roy) made the team the year before I made it, and then my game picked up because I figured if he could do it I know I can do it, so that gave me a lot of motivation to practice more and work with the PGM guys,” said Taylor, who then won a number of PGM student tournaments.
Taylor said he approached Garren to see if there was any interest in him joining the team, and in the summer after his junior year he won a New Jersey state open qualifier and received a call from Garren afterward letting him know he’d have the opportunity to make the squad.
“From then I worked even harder and they offered me a spot and I was ecstatic,” Taylor said. “I didn’t see myself where I am now. I thought maybe I could walk on eventually and play some here or there, but not where I am now.”
He has a four-month internship remaining to earn his bachelor’s degree but now has different plans for his immediate future. He will enter U.S. Open qualifying as well as qualifying for the Mackenzie Tour – PGA Tour Canada in April and hopes to spend a full season on the developmental tour.
“I have doors open to me that were never open before, and I can see myself doing things that I didn’t think I was going to be able to do before,” Taylor said. “I don’t know a whole lot about it yet, this is all new to me still. But I’m trusting [Garren], doing what he tells me to do and enjoying the process.”
