Weekly PGA Recap: Another High Note for Eckroat

This article is part of our Weekly PGA Recap series.

The most impressive thing about Austin Eckroat's second PGA Tour win, at the World Wide Technology Championship on Sunday, is that it showed the versatility in his game.

Eckroat amassed 11 birdies in a closing 9-under 63 to reach 24-under-par and edge Justin Lower and Carson Young by one stroke at El Cardonal at Diamante in Los Cabos, Mexico.

The 25-year-old Oklahoma native's first Tour win came eight months ago at PGA National, about as far from El Cardonal as possible. PGA National is a narrow par-70 Florida track with Bermuda greens where the winning score sometimes is in single digits. El Cardonal is a par-72 with some of the widest fairways of the year, paspalum greens and, as we saw, produces one big birdie-fest.

Not that winning a PGA Tour event is ever easy, but many Tour pros could have the best week of their life and pull it off -- once. Winning twice -- and twice in one season -- shows that Eckroat is entering another echelon of golfer, one that may not have been entirely evident when he crossed paths with Viktor Hovland while playing together at Oklahoma State.

One thing seemingly limiting Eckroat's upside was his putter. He was ranked well outside the top 100 on Tour this season (132nd). But at El Cardonal, he ranked fourth on the week in putts per greens in regulation (there was no ShotLink data available) and making 11 birdies in one round speaks for itself. Coincidentally or not, he switched putters this week, going from one Ping to another.

"Yeah, that's a week-to-week thing. I switch putters about every week. Yeah, this is actually my first win since I was 13 years old without the same exact putter. I've used the same Ping putter. I switch away from it, but every time I've won has been with that putter. This is my first win since I was 13 years old with a different putter, which is kind of crazy."

Asked if he will be keeping the new Ping, Eckroat said, "It's definitely in the rotation. It's not safe yet, there's a good chance next time I play golf there'll be a different one in, but it felt very good this week."

Eckroat becomes the seventh golfer to win twice this season, joining Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Rory McIlroy, Hideki Matsuyama -- all among the top 10 in the world -- plus emerging stars like himself in Robert MacIntyre and Nick Dunlap. 

Eckroat thus will play in the Masters for the second year in a row -- it didn't go so well last April, though he made the cut in the other three majors -- and now begins to think of loftier accomplishments.

"Yeah, to think of some long-term goals would obviously be a major champion," Eckroat, now up to a career-best 38th in the world rankings, told reporters in Mexico. "That's probably the biggest next step would be to win a major. Obviously on top of that, making the Ryder Cup next season would be a huge goal of mine. I still haven't made it to the Tour Championship on the PGA Tour, so making it to East Lake would be an awesome cherry on top to a great season. Those are probably the three main goals going into next season."

One of them -- East Lake -- is entirely doable. The other two, well, Eckroat will need to continue his career on an upward path, something he has shown in 2024 is entirely possible.

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Justin Lower
The 35-year-old's most successful season on Tour just got a whole more successful. With an eagle on the 72nd hole, Lower finished runner-up for the first time since his Tour debut way back in 2013. This was his seventh top-25 of 2024. Lower was already safely inside the top 125 entering the week. Now, having zoomed up to 74th in the point standings, he has a chance to move into the top 60 over the next two weeks, which would get him into 2025 Signature Events at Pebble Beach and Riviera. 

Carson Young
Like Lower, Young had never had a runner-up before. His previous best finish was a T3 at the 2023 Puerto Rico Open, another course with paspalum greens (and a weak field). Young is ranked in the top half of players in SG: Off-the-Tee, Approach and Putting, meaning he's an above average player. He moved up to 86th in points,

Max Greyserman
With three runners-up in his past five starts, Greyserman could muster nothing better than a solo fourth (sarcasm).  They haven't come in the best fields, but if you can pile those results up week after week, you are showing you could hold your own with the big guns on Tour. Greyserman is up to a career-high 37th OWGR, one spot better than two-win Eckroat.

Joe Highsmith
Highsmith entered the week in the precarious position of 126th in the point standings. After sharing sixth place, he no longer has to worry about where he will be playing in 2025. He moved up to 112th in points with a late-season run that previously saw a T6 at the Black Desert and a T16 at the Shriners.

Maverick McNealy
McNealy also tied for sixth, cementing his position inside the Next 10 at No. 53. With only two tournaments left in the season, McNealy won't fall out of the top 60, meaning he will get into the Pebble Beach and Riviera Signature Events next season. 

Wesley Bryan
Bryan quietly is becoming one of the top stories of the fall season. With a tie for sixth, he has moved to 128th in points, on the cusp of entering the top 125. He has gotten only 16 starts all year, playing under past champion status. But in four fall starts, Bryan has gone T13-T37-T21-T6. He'll be playing this week in Bermuda.

Nico Echavarria
The recent ZOZO winner had a real chance to make it two wins in short order. Echavarria led for parts of the weekend but fell back on Sunday with a 71 to share sixth place.

Joel Dahmen
Dahmen tied for 14th to inch up from 124th in points to 121st. He's not quite secure for next year just yet, but those three spots look mighty large with just two weeks left on the schedule. Dahmen will be playing Bermuda this week.

Daniel Berger
On the comeback trail this year, Berger tied for 20th to move from outside the top 125 (129th) to inside (124th). He'll be in the Bermuda field this week

Lucas Glover
Glover has been fighting all fall to get inside the top 60 in points. He crept up from 63rd to 62nd after tying for 24th. He'll also be in Bermuda this week.

MISSED CUTS

Patton Kizzire, Jhonattan Vegas, Matti Schmid, Keith Mitchell, Neal Shipley, Billy Andrade. Kizzire was a winner earlier this fall. … Vegas was a winner over the summer. … Schmid had been one the top players during the fall. … This was a disappointing result for Mitchell, especially in such a weak field. But he'll always have trouble in birdie-fests. … Shipley missed only his second cut in 10 PGA Tour starts. … The 60-year-old Andrade was making his first PGA Tour start in a decade. There were 10 guys who finished worse than him.

Luke Donald, the European Ryder Cup caption, made the cut and was even through 13 on Saturday when he withdrew with a back injury.

DP WORLD TOUR

Paul Waring, a 39-year-old Englishman, scored the biggest win -- and only the second -- of his career, fending off Tyrrell Hatton, Rory McIlroy and others to capture the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship. Waring, who previously won in 2018, was two better than Hatton and three better than a revamped McIlroy, who tied for third. 

Waring thus locked up a berth on the PGA Tour for next season by ensuring a top-10 finish in the DP World Tour's season-long point standings. There is one more tournament to go -- the DP World Tour Championship. 

McIlroy showcased his new swing after spending three weeks working on changes. That is a very fast turnaround and still a work in progress. But McIlroy has to be encouraged by his initial result, and we'll see him again this week in Dubai.

Thriston Lawrence and Rasmus Hojgaard have also secured PGA Tour berths for 2025 -- Hojgaard will join his twin Nicolai Hojgaard -- but the other seven spots are still undecided.