Tim O’Neal, the Savannah golfer who earned respect throughout the golf world as a grinder on the mini-tours since he turned professional in 1997, took the biggest tournament of his career on Sunday on the PGA Champion’s Tour as he shot 65 in the final round to win the Dominion Energy Charity Classic in Virginia.
It was the 50th start on the Champion’s Tour for O’Neal, 52, a graduate of Johnson High School who went on to star at Jackson State University in Mississippi, where he was a three-time All-American. He birdied two of the last three holes — dialing in wedge shots within 10 feet and draining putts under big-time pressure as finished the tournament at 13-under par. O’Neal shot 71-67-65— 203 to beat runnerup Ricardo Gonzalez by two strokes.
The victory was well received as his fellow competitors know about all the hard work, and the long journey that O’Neal took to reach the apex of his career. He had 16 collegiate wins at Jackson State. In the 2000 PGA Qualifying School, O’Neal needed a bogey on his final hole to earn his PGA Tour card, but took a triple to miss the mark. But he never backed down, and continued to work on his game.
O’Neal had seven wins at mini-tour events with three victories on the PGA Tour Latinoamérica, in addition to wins on the Golden Bear Tour, the EPD Tour and the Alps Tour.
He won the Savannah City Amateur three times — taking the title three years in row from 1994-1996, and he won the Georgia Amateur Title in 1997. He played in his first PGA event in 2015, when he qualified for the U.S. Open played at Chambers Bay in Washington.
After the win, O’Neal was interview by John Cook, the former PGA Tour star who now works for the Golf Channel.
“I don’t know what to think, it’s been a long season, for me to get it done when I had to it means a lot,” an emotional O’Neal told Cook in the interview. “I guess it was just supposed to happen. I’ve been playing well in the last few weeks, but just giving too many shots back. The last 2 days were really solid and it only takes one week — and this is my week.”
The breakthrough win has been a long time coming. Cook mentioned that he played his last competitive round with O’Neal and noted that he thought O’Neal was going to have a breakthrough win after seeing him play up close.
“I was just playing one shot at a time, I know that’s cliché — but I didn’t scoreboard watch. I just kept telling myself just keep hitting greens and giving myself birdie looks,” O’Neal said “And when I had long birdie putts, I was able to lag it down there and not have a lot of stress so that was definitely helpful to be able to do that.”
Cook noted that O’Neal seemed focused on slowing things down and staying in a rhythm, and O’Neal said that was a key in his victory.
“I tried to walk slower, do everything a lot slower,” O’Neal said “I get to going to fast sometimes and this week I was really focused on just trying to do that and it turned out to be a good week.”
With the win, O’Neal moved for 55th to 13th in the Charles Schwab Cup Standings. He is set to play in the Simmons Bank Championship next week in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Dennis Knight covers sports for the Savannah Morning News. Contact him at Dknight@savannahnow.com. Twitter: @DennisKnightSMN
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Savannah’s Tim O’Neal has breakthrough victory on PGA Champions Tour
