Chandler Phillips wins Korn Ferry Tour 2023 season opener in The Bahamas

Chandler Phillips carded 4 under 68 in the final round of the The Bahamas Great Exuma Classic to emerge victorious at Sandals Emerald Bay Golf Club.

Prior to the fourth round, Shad Tuten was leading by three strokes in the first event of the new KFT season. However, Phillips birdied four of the first six holes of the back nine to take a two-stroke lead over Cody Blick and Peter Knade, who tied at runner-up with a score of 12 under.

As for Tuten, he was below par in the final round of 3-over-75, therefore slipping to the T-4 position.

Phillips was consistent throughout the four days. with the help of two 69s and two 68s, he aggregated to 14-under-274. He was one of the only two players to not have a double bogey or worse in any of the 72 holes this week.

According to Phillips, the feeling of the first Korn Ferry Tour won't sink easily.

“It will probably sink in after my first beer," he said.

He said he didn't try to do anything other than what he was doing throughout the rounds.

"I made a bad bogey on No. 17. Honestly, I hadn’t seen the scoreboard. I didn’t look at it. I didn’t know where I was, but I was really thinking that, ‘Here we go again; just screwed myself again.’ But other than that, I just played really solid, didn’t do anything really crazy or anything. Kept the ball in play.”

The one thing that Philips didn't lack in The Bahamas was confidence and that's why there was no need for him to go overboard.

“Hard to have a bad week in The Bahamas. I played one practice round. That’s all I needed to see. You start playing too many, you start finding stuff you don’t need to find. You come into the week wanting to win, [but] I would have been perfectly fine with like a top-20.”

Reigning champion Akshay Bhatia's final round was just par. On the 15th hole, he shot a double bogey, his second of the week, and finished at T-4, three strokes behind Phillips.

Daniel Miernicki, Wil Bateman, and Brett Drewitt also finished in a five-way T-4 along with Tuten and Bhatia.

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First professional win for Chandler Phillips

Chandler Philips had to wait for four years to win his first Korn Ferry Tour title

Chandler turned professional in 2019, but he couldn't taste success at the senior level despite coming from a junior career. In the 2020-21 season, he could only make 15 starts in 46 Korn Ferry Tour events, and 2022 was even worse where he didn't make any.

As per the former amateur No. 1, he only improved when he stopped worrying about the result and played each event as just another game of golf. He won the 2022 Oklahoma Open last August. His eyes will be on earning the PGA Tour card next.

At junior level, Phillips earned four All-State Awards while at Huntsville High School. During his time at Texas A&M, Phillips became a three-time All-American. He was also an alternate for the 2019 Walker Cup, and also made it to the Arnold Palmer Cup teams from 2017 to 19 consecutively. Bryce Molder is the only other American in history to feature in the tournament three times.