Zack Sucher awesomely explained how second-place finish at PGA Tour event just changed his life

Zack Sucher held the lead going into the third round of the Travelers’ Championship on Saturday. I watch a ton of golf and even I was like “who the heck is Zach Sucher?”

After doing some digging and then reading his post-tournament quotes about what it meant for him to finish second in a PGA Tour event, I have a new golfer to root for. Because his story is pretty great.

Sucher missed over a year on Tour due to ankle and knee injuries. This was after he missed 11 of 14 cuts in 2017. With no money coming in, things got tough and he had to take out credit cards and ran up a ton of debt.

That debt isn’t a problem now because he bounced back from a rough third round and closed his final round with five birdies on the back nine on Sunday to surge all the way to a tie for second place and a cool $633,600 payday.

Golf Channel has the details on his story:

“It’s life changing, to be honest,” he said.

We had seven months with no income at all coming in two years ago,” he said. “During that, we had to take out some credit cards.

When it was time for a return to golf, Sucher was armed with six starts to make up 347 FedExCup points – no easy task for even a healthy, competitively sharp pro. And then there was the matter of the early-season Korn Ferry Tour schedule, when Sucher played events in Colombia and Panama. You can make a lot of money on Tour, and you can spend a lot, too. Players are responsible for their own travel and food and lodging, plus whatever arrangements they’ve worked out with their caddies.

Sucher hadn’t earned a check on Tour in over a year, but he had to go play.

“We decided to bet on ourselves,” he said.

But this week has already changed his season and, as he said, his life.

“To be honest, I’m not sure what all this does for points-wise, for next year,” Sucher said. “I don’t even know how that works.

“I know that like two months ago we had credit card debt. So I know we don’t have that anymore.”

Now that has to feel pretty awesome.