Flint’s Willie Mack III to make PGA Tour debut, many thanks to exemption from Tiger Woods
Flint’s Willie Mack III is about to make his PGA Tour debut.
And he can thank arguably the greatest golfer ever for that option.
The PGA Tour on Tuesday awarded Mack an exemption into subsequent month’s Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles. Event host Tiger Woods introduced the exemption to Mack. The Charlie Sifford Memorial Exemption — named immediately after the PGA Tour’s very first Black participant, who won two times on the Tour — has been awarded because 2009, and encourages variety in golf.
“Willie acquired to golfing with his dad just like I did and all those are recollections that will final eternally. I am thrilled to see Willie make yet another long lasting memory when he tees it up at Riviera,” Woods explained in a assertion.
“Willie has endured by means of complicated situations off the training course the earlier couple years and I know Charlie would be very pleased of how he has stayed centered on achieving his dream.”
Mack, 32, starred at Grand Blanc Large Schol prior to participating in collegiately at Bethune-Cookman, wherever he won 11 individual titles. In 2011, he grew to become the to start with Black player to get the Michigan Amateur.
He has played a range of mini-excursions given that leaving school, together with the Advocates Professional Golfing Affiliation, on which he received a match final January. That tour is a developmental circuit that encourages diversity. Extra lately, he has performed extensively in Florida, successful a match and $5,000 in Daytona past month. He was player of the year on the APGA and Florida Specialist Golfing Tour in 2019.
Mack also has played the Korn Ferry Tour and the PGA Tour’s Latinoamérica Tour.
At Riviera, Feb. 18-21, he will be a part of other Michigan natives like Donnie Trasper and Jake Kneen who produced their PGA Tour debuts in the very last 12 months.
“I want to thank my father who launched me to the wonderful game of golfing,” Mack said in a statement Tuesday. “My desire because I very first picked up a club has been to engage in on the PGA Tour. It is genuinely specific that I will participate in in my initial PGA Tour celebration because of an exemption named immediately after Charlie Sifford, a individual I have extended admired, and in a tournament hosted by Tiger Woods, who is the motive I bought into golfing.”
Woods has served as the host of the Genesis due to the fact 2019. Before that, he hosted a event outdoors Washington D.C. that was sponsored by Quicken Loans, ahead of Quicken Loans introduced a PGA Tour match to its household point out, the Rocket Mortgage loan Traditional at Detroit Golf Club.
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