Utah Championship presented by Zions Bank and Intermountain Health
Oakridge Country Club, Farmington, Utah • USA
Aug 1 – 4, 2024
https://www.pgatour.com/korn-ferry-tour/tournaments/2024/utah-championship-presented-by-zions-bank-and-intermountain-health/H2024026/leaderboard
After entering the week at No. 44 on the season-long Korn Ferry Tour Points List, Vilips jumps to No. 15 and is suddenly positioned to earn his first PGA TOUR card within months of turning pro. The top 30 after the season-ending Korn Ferry Tour Championship presented by United Leasing & Finance will earn 2025 Korn Ferry Tour membership.
Vilips expressed a measure of gratitude afterward, for a magic carpet ride this summer and for those who have helped him along the way.
“Four weeks ago you step in, you try to keep playing and in your wildest dreams you imagine winning and shooting up the rankings,” Vilips said Sunday evening. “Suddenly a lot of stress is relieved and I’m just so happy to see today … all of that kind of be solved.
“I think starting out, one of my buddies, Isaiah Salinda here showed me the ropes. I talked to a lot of guys, Kevin Velo just teaching me a few things, what it takes to win out here. They’ve been great mentors. I’m not sure if they realize the role they played in my development out here. But really my coach, Colin Swatton, and my mental coach, Rick Sessinghaus, have just played a huge role in being able to close out tournaments like this because that’s something I struggled with in the past historically.”
Vilips thrived as a college golfer at Stanford, finishing No. 10 on the 2024 PGA TOUR University Ranking to earn conditional Korn Ferry Tour membership and full PGA TOUR Americas status. After making two PGA TOUR Americas starts in June, he maximized his first Korn Ferry Tour start at The Ascendant presented by Blue (T13) to earn another start at the Price Cutter Charity Championship presented by Dr Pepper (T15), which led him to the NV5 Invitational, and to his hardware-winning week in Utah. Conditional members can stay on the circuit with top-25 finishes, and Vilips followed the formula to perfection.
With four straight top-15 finishes, the long-hitting Australian has proven that he belongs at this level and perhaps one notch above. It’s a power era in professional golf, and Vilips is at the forefront. He averaged 340.3 yards off the tee this week, 10th in the field, setting up a plethora of wedge approaches that allowed him to stay aggressive. He made 26 birdies on the week and added two eagles, allowing him to withstand a double bogey in each of the first two rounds. (He carded no other bogeys until the 72nd hole.)
Vilips hails from Perth, Australia, where he started playing tournaments at age 6 or 7. Since he was 2, Vilips said, golf has been part of his life. He and his father committed to “the long haul” in golf when he was about 10. With his dad Paul, he moved to the United States at age 11, and he began attending Saddlebrook Academy in Florida three years later.
“It’s been a good 15-year journey with the PGA TOUR goal in mind,” he said.
Vilips’ list of junior and amateur accomplishments is stout. For example, he joined Bobby Jones (!) as the youngest winner of the men’s Southern Amateur, when he was 15. He was a five-time AJGA All-American. He won the U.S. Kids Golf World Championship at age 7 and 9, and he won the Callaway World Junior at age 10 and 12.
Stanford was the obvious choice, Vilips said. He grew up a Tiger Woods fan, and Vilips only spoke to a couple of schools when it came time to pick his post-secondary destination. He committed to Stanford as a high school freshman. He toured it, saw himself easily playing four years of college golf there – and, perhaps more than that, could see himself improving each year.
The biggest thing he’s learned, he said, is learning how to time-manage. Vilips has been long used to just showing up on a college-golf schedule – arrive the morning of a practice-round day, play three rounds, get home. Professional golf is much different, with week-long efforts the norm. He has been preparing and planning to make sure his body – and mind – are ready to compete. The whole of his preparation is wrapped in being able to still have some left in the tank late on Sunday.
“Prioritizing rest has been huge,” he said.
Vilips, who finished second at the NV5 Invitational after a Sunday 63 (talk about having some left in the tank), has seen his goals shift rather rapidly over July. He went from thinking little about the Korn Ferry Tour – at worst, he could have tried to regain Korn Ferry Tour status via PGA TOUR Americas if he didn’t get the results he was looking for – but with the mathematical scenarios now very much in his favor, he’s thinking TOUR, and he’s not looking back.
“The goal now is to get a PGA TOUR card.”
KFT, 2024
