Miles Russell breaks down his historic Korn Ferry Tour debut

Should you’re not but conversant in the title Miles Russell, right here’s a fast intro: He’s the youngest participant ever to be named AJGA Participant of the Yr, and just lately turned the youngest participant ever to make a reduce on the Korn Ferry Tour. Whew!

Russell is 15 years outdated — a highschool freshman! — and teed it up on the Korn Ferry Tour’s Suncoast Basic as a sponsor’s exemption. Russell not solely made the reduce in historic style, but additionally ended up ending T20. What was it wish to make such a memorable Korn Ferry Tour debut? Russell advised Subpar hosts Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz all about it on this week’s episode.

“All people’s large,” Russell mentioned. “There’s not many individuals your measurement. It’s very severe. There’s not a lot goofing off happening, and all people’s on the placing inexperienced doing their very own drills. All people has Trackman on the vary, and usually has one or two individuals with them engaged on stuff.

“It’s undoubtedly somewhat totally different than what you’d see on an AGJA vary.”

Russell took the heightened ambiance in stride, firing a gap spherical of 68 that featured 5 birdies and two bogeys. Russell’s play was so assured, in reality, that he opted to chip from the inexperienced on the first gap at Lakewood Nationwide Golf Membership in Florida, which was his tenth of the day.

“I hit that very same putt within the apply spherical to the place that pin was, and I imply, I obtained this factor as much as the again fringe and it began coming again at me,” Russell defined. “I’m like, there’s no manner that is gonna get down there. I ended up 70 ft away within the apply spherical. So I used to be strolling up [with] my coach Ramon [Bescansa], I’m like, we’re gonna should chip this. I hit this putt within the apply spherical and I didn’t get wherever shut. He’s like, OK, we’ll see.

“And I’m like, no, we’re going to should chip this. And I grabbed the wedge and he grabbed the putter out of the bag and [I’m] him, like, I’ve to chip it. There’s no approach to get it shut with a putter,” Russell continued. “He was making an attempt to provide me a tactic, this little, like, spin it up towards the ridge and have it type of simply trickle down. The hill is simply too large to do this. I’m simply gonna throw one up previous it, attempt to get the test and use the backstop, and I used to be in a position to do this.”

The outcome? A tidy up-and-down for par. Russell went on to put up rounds of 66-70-66 to make Korn Ferry historical past — and he even acquired a congratulatory tweet from Phil Mickelson.

For extra from Russell, together with what it was like to speak with Scottie Scheffler on the Gamers Championship, try the complete interview beneath.

Golf.com Editor

As a four-year member of Columbia’s inaugural class of feminine varsity golfers, Jessica can out-birdie everybody on the masthead. She will be able to out-hustle them within the workplace, too, the place she’s primarily liable for producing each print and on-line options, and overseeing main particular tasks, reminiscent of GOLF’s inaugural Type Is­sue, which debuted in February 2018. Her origi­nal interview sequence, “A Spherical With,” debuted in November of 2015, and appeared in each within the journal and in video kind on GOLF.com.