Half of the 4 Monday qualifiers for this week’s PGA Tour Farmers Insurance Open grew up in Colorado, with Chris Korte joining Jim Knous in making the grade after a stellar stretch run
By Gary Baines – 1/20/2025
Contrary to how it might have seemed, the Monday qualifying tournament for this week’s Farmers Insurance Open on the PGA Tour wasn’t the Colorado Open.
It’s very difficult to Monday qualify for a PGA Tour event, but on this occasion, two of the four golfers who earned berths into the tournament that way grew up in Colorado and played their college golf in the state.
Jim Knous, an Aspen native and former Basalt resident who played at the Colorado School of Mines, fired a 4-under-par 68 to tie for second place out of a 56-man field at Mission Viejo (Calif.) Country Club. And Chris Korte, a Littleton native who competed at the University of Denver, landed the fourth and final available spot after shooting a 69 then winning a 3-for-1 playoff also involving much-ballyhooed 17-year-old rookie pro Blades Brown and Pono Yanagi.
In fact, Korte had to produce some magic with his finish in order to qualify. He birdied his 16th hole (No. 7) from 20 feet, birdied his 17th hole from 10 feet and parred his 18th hole from 15 feet. Then in the playoff, he got up and down for par, making a 6-foot putt, to move to a second extra hole. Then on the second playoff hole — again No. 18 at Mission Viejo CC — he hit his tee shot on the par-4 almost in the same spot he had minutes earlier. And with Brown and Yanagi in the greenside bunker, Korte flagged his 9-iron approach shot from 148 yards.
“The crowd erupted so I knew it was pretty good,” Korte said by phone late Monday afternoon. “It was 3 feet (away from the hole).”
He made the sliding putt for birdie to land a berth in a PGA Tour event for the second time in just over three months.
“Ever since I had that first taste on the PGA Tour, all I can think of is getting back there,” Korte said.
When the Farmers Insurance Open is played Wednesday through Saturday at Torrey Pines in San Diego, Knous will be making his 45th PGA Tour start. It’ll be the second PGA Tour event for Korte, who Monday qualified into the Black Desert Championship in Utah last October.
Knous, the runner-up in a playoff at the 2024 Inspirato Colorado Open, played on and off on the PGA Tour from 2018 to 2022 and has made 21 cuts on that circuit. He retired as a full-time player about 11 months ago to work at Ping, but has competed periodically since.
Korte, a former CGA Amateur and CGA Match Play champion, has conditional status on the 2025 Korn Ferry Tour and played regularly on PGA Tour Americas last year.
On Monday, Knous overcame a double-bogey 7 on the 14th hole with seven birdies and one bogey elsewhere to make the grade. Korte also carded a double bogey — on No. 4 — but otherwise had six birdies and a bogey in regulation.
Joining Knous and Korte in Monday qualifying were Charles Reiter (67) and Ryan Hall (68).
In Wednesday’s first round, Knous will be paired with Michael Thorbjornsen and Anders Albertson for a 12:02 p.m. (MT) tee time off Torrey Pines’ North Course first hole. Korte will be joined by Hayden Springer and Matthew Riedel for the 12:02 (MT) tee time off the North Course’s 10th hole.
Other players with strong Colorado ties in the Farmers Insurance Open field are Denver native Mark Hubbard and former University of Colorado golfer Jeremy Paul, who’s a rookie on the PGA Tour.
For all the scores from the Monday qualifier, CLICK HERE.
About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com