But Denver native Mark Hubbard, who like Saunders has played full-time in the PGA Tour the last three seasons, came up short in his bid to get back his PGA Tour card.
Thanks to a second-place finish on Monday in the season-ending Web.com Tour Championhsip at his new home club in Atlantic Beach, Fla., Saunders ended up sixth on the Finals 25 money list. With the top 25 on that list earning PGA Tour cards, he easily made the grade.
Saunders (pictured) used a first-round 59 — just the seventh sub-60 round in the history of the Web.com Tour — to post a 20-under 264 total in the Web.com Tour Championship, finishing four shots behind winner Jonathan Byrd. The final round of the tournament was postponed by a day due to heavy rains.
Though Saunders, the grandson of the late Arnold Palmer, has yet to win on the PGA Tour, he has posted five top-10 finishes over the last three years. He lived in Fort Collins from 2012 to ’16 before moving back to Florida.
Meanwhile, Hubbard missed the cut in the Web.com Tour Championship, which left him in 66th place on the Web Finals 25 money list. The former CJGA Male Player of the Year posted his two best finishes at the end of the 2016-17 PGA Tour wraparound season, going 18th at the Barracuda Championship and 24th in the Wyndham Championship. But he finished 185th on the Tour money list with $267,968, making 14 cuts in 27 starts on the big tour.
Hubbard has competed in a total of 84 PGA Tour events, with all but two of those coming in the past three seasons.
Saunders, grandson of the late Arnold Palmer, faces a crucial week as he’s trying to finish in the top 25 on the money list for the four-event Web.com Tour Finals, thereby regaining fully-exempt status on the PGA Tour. The Web.com Tour Championship is the last tournament of the Finals, and Saunders entered the week in the No. 24 spot.
Saunders made 13 birdies in his 12-under-par round at Atlantic Beach Country Club, where he’s a member. He birdied his final six holes to shoot 28 on the front nine as he started on No. 10. To break 60, he drained a 10-foot putt on No. 9.
“This is a golf course you can shoot low scores on,” said Saunders, who led by three after round 1. “… I knew guys would shoot low but I didn’t think anyone would shoot 59 — certainly not myself.”
Saunders’ 59 came just a few days after the one-year anniversary of Palmer’s passing.
Saunders lived in Fort Collins from late 2012 to 2016.
(Sept. 30 Update: Saunders followed up his 59 with rounds of 66-70 and sits in second place, trailing leader Jonathan Byrd by two strokes going into Sunday.)