Bahamas Atlantis Preview #5

We continue our series on players in the Bahamas Golf Classic, the first Korn Ferry Tour event of the 2025 season. Today, we look at three players who finished between 55th and 75th on the 2024 KFT points list.

‍Cole Hammer:

Age: 25

Turned Pro: 2022

College: Texas

2024 KFT stats:

- 25 events played

- 12 made cuts

- Two top 10’s

- Finished 65th in KFT points

Hammer has been on everyone’s radar ever since he qualified for the 2015 U.S. Open at the age of 15. While he hasn’t had the immediate success as a pro that many anticipated, Hammer retained full status with clutch play down the stretch last season. Hammer has played in 22 PGA Tour events in his career, with a best finish of T5 at the 2022 RSM Classic. He missed at the first stage of Q-school in 2023, but the T5 at the RSM (still a wrap-around schedule then) got him into the 151-200 category, which gave him KFT status back for 2024. 

He wasn’t particularly close to a PGA Tour card, but maybe 2025 is the year? 

‍John VanDerLaan:

Age: 28

Turned Pro: 2018

College: Florida Southern

VanDerLann’s Order of Merit finishes each year on KFT:

- 2020-2021: 53rd

- 2022: 47th

- 2023: 42nd

- 2024: 63rd 

After an impressive college career that ended with a Division II individual national title and national player of the year, VanDerLaan has kept full status on KFT every single season since 2020. He sniffed a PGA Tour card in two of those seasons but wasn’t able to seal the deal at the end of the year. With 120 KFT events played in his career, VanDerLaan has the experience to make a push for a PGA Tour card in 2025. 

‍Jack Maguire:

Age: 30

Turned Pro: 2015

College: Florida State

The stats:

- 138 events played on KFT

- 66 made cuts

- 13 top-10 finishes

- Four top-5 finishes

- $576,000 in career earnings

Jack Maguire dominated college golf at one of the best golf schools in the country. He turned pro after the first semester of his junior year, leaving FSU with the lowest-career scoring average in school history at 70.78. Maguire played number one on a team with the likes of Hank Lebioda, Cristobal Del Solar, Joshua Lee and Rowin Caron, and was the first player in FSU History to be named an All-American as a Freshman. 

In 2015, Maguire qualified for the U.S. Open, and with the exception of 2022, has maintained status on KFT every single year since 2016. Maguire grinded through conditional status the last two seasons, and has regained full status for 2025. Many of his fellow players say he made the game look easy in college. It’ll be interesting to see if he can find that game again in 2025. 

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