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Matt McCarty and Zac Blair make Utah history in the Black Desert Championship

Matt McCarty will always be able to say he was the first PGA Tour winner in Utah in the 21st century, while joining a club of champions that was founded nearly 100 years ago.

Zac Blair got into an exclusive group of his own. His distinction includes wins in the State Amateur and the Utah Open, plus having played all four rounds in a PGA Tour event in his home state.

McCarty’s three-stroke win Sunday in the Black Desert Championship came after his three-victory promotion from the Korn Ferry Tour. All of that has happened since mid-July, making him the hottest golfer in the world.

“It’s been an incredible last few months for me,” McCarty said.

With his lead down to one shot, McCarty eagled the par-4 No. 14 with a 297-yard drive and a putt from inside of 4 feet. He shot 62-68-64-67 in his third career PGA Tour start, posting a 23-under-par total to top Stephan Jaeger.

In August, the 26-year-old McCarty shot 70-62-61-68 (also 23 under) at Oakridge Country Club, tying for second place behind Karl Vilips in the Korn Ferry Tour’s Utah Championship, in the early stages of his late-season surge.

A former Santa Clara golfer, McCarty once tied for third place in BYU’s Cougar Classic, so he clearly has good vibes in Utah. “I kind of figured out how to play in elevation,” said McCarty, who’s from the desert climate of Scottsdale, Arizona, that resembles Southern Utah’s environment.

Blair wanted more from his Black Desert Resort experience than a 66th-place finish, as he actually lost ground in the FedExCup Fall standings. He summarized it as “just one of those weeks when nothing went my way, unfortunately. But it was a lot of fun.”

His final round looked promising when his second shot from 209 yards stopped 5 feet from the hole and he converted the birdie on No. 1. The ending was frustrating, as he lipped out a 15-foot birdie try on No. 18. In between? The only really memorable hole was no fun at all.

His drive on the par-5 No. 9 sailed barely too far to the right, bouncing wickedly among the lava rocks and resulting in an unplayable lie. Same story with his fourth shot, just missing to the right as he went for the green. Result: a triple bogey, a harsh penalty for being slightly errant. “Hit no bad shots and make an 8, and (that) kind of ruins the week,” Blair said.

The immediate impact is that as Blair moves on to Las Vegas this week, he has dropped six spots to No. 116 in the standings and needs to stay in the top 125 through mid-November to have full status for 2025. Someday, he can look back with satisfaction of having played the weekend of Utah’s first PGA Tour event in 61 years, a year after he joined the group of State Am/Utah Open dual winners.

For now, he’s playing to extend the PGA Tour career that he was happy to resume in September 2022 after overcoming shoulder injuries. Blair was worried that he had torn his labrum again, so he had an MRI exam Tuesday. The results showed no damage, to his relief, and he didn’t cite any problem with his shoulder after Sunday’s round.

PGA TOUR Black Desert Championship final round recap written by Fairways Media senior writer Kurt Kragthorpe. Photography by Fairways Media/Randy Dodson and Garrit Johnson.