By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf

Eight feet was all that stood between Roger Sloan and a return to the PGA TOUR. Make that putt on the 72nd hole of the Korn Ferry Tour Championship and the Merritt product was back in the big leagues. Miss it and, well, Sloan didn’t want to think about that.

It was gut-wrenching to watch on TV, so one can only imagine how Sloan felt as he was standing over the putt. He had missed some putts late in his round, so he wasn’t exactly oozing with confidence as he stood over the ball. Somehow, he managed to put all that aside and calmly stroked the ball into the middle of the cup.

“My putter had just completely abandoned me on the back nine,” Sloan said in a telephone interview from his Houston home. “I couldn’t even hit a solid putt. And then all of a sudden on 18 I am laughing in my head a little bit, saying, I haven’t hit a good putt and now I have to roll in an eight-footer to get on the PGA TOUR.

“My only thought in that process was that I had been reading the greens really well. I have good feel, just trust it. Just really commit yourself to the feel on this putt, hit a good putt and it’s either going to go in or it’s not going to go in. And when I hit it I felt like I had hit a really solid putt and it went right into the middle of the hole. I am just thankful I gave myself that opportunity and I am thankful to be back on the PGA TOUR next year.”

Sloan earned his ticket back to the PGA TOUR the hard way. He entered the tournament at Victoria National Golf Club in Newburgh, Ind., as the bubble boy — No. 31 on the points list — and began the final round in the same spot. He needed to climb inside the top 30 to earn his 2024 PGA TOUR card and it wasn’t easy.

Sloan bounced in and out of the top 30 during his final round. It came down to the tough par 4 18th hole, where Sloan needed a par to stay inside the top 30.

He striped his drive down the middle of the fairway, but did not hit a great approach shot. He came up well short of the green and now needed to get it up and down for his par. His chip left him eight feet short. He had no margin for error. “Looking back at it, the magnitude of that putt probably made it one of the biggest putts I have ever had to make in my career,” Sloan said.

“So that is fun. But as far as the jubilation and getting back to the PGA TOUR, it’s not my first time graduating and going up to the PGA TOUR. I know what is in store for me next year and it’s just going to be a little more businesslike. We have a job to do. It’s cool that we are getting to play the PGA TOUR next year, but we have some business to take care of.”

When he lost his PGA TOUR card last year, Sloan spoke candidly about how gutted he felt about having to go back to the Korn Ferry Tour. But once he got over that disappointment, he went back to work. He committed to making some changes to his game and won the Utah Championship in early August.

Sloan closed with a one-under 71 at the Tour Championship to finish at six-under for the week and in a tie for 10th spot. But the bigger number was 29, where he finished on the points list. “I kind of categorized this year as a bounce-back year,” Sloan said. “I was gutted at the end of last year. You’re on the PGA TOUR and as a golfer that’s where you want to be.

Your job just got taken from you and a little bit of your identity is tied in to where you were. It was gut-wrenching. But there was a reason it got taken from me. I wasn’t putting in the intentional practice, the intentional effort to get better.

“Lots of different factors go into that. The family is growing, you don’t always have as much time to put into the golf as you’d like, but this year was a bounce-back year, it was recommitting to the process that it takes for Roger to be the best golfer possible. I really worked hard with my coaches and my team to solidify what I needed to do going forward . . . I got a win which was very gratifying. I was able to hold up under pressure this week, so I am just really excited about keeping that going for the next several years and see where it takes us.”

ROUTE 66: A nearly flawless final round 66 gave Vancouver’s Leah John her second collegiate win at the Pat Lesser Harbottle Invitational in Tacoma, Wash. The University of Nevada senior recorded seven birdies and just one bogey in the final round to match her career-best score. John, a two-time B.C. Women’s Amateur champion, finished the 54-hole event hosted by Seattle University at five-under par, one shot better than runner-up Carly Strole of Grand Canyon University.

WORLD CHAMPS: Vancouver’s Vanessa Zhang fired a four-under 68 in the final round to help lead the Canada 1 Team to its victory at the World Junior Girls Championship in Brampton, Ont. The Canada 1 team of Zhang, Vanessa Borovilos of Toronto and Anna Huang, a former Vancouver resident who now lives in California, edged South Korea by one shot in the 72-hole competition with a team score of four-under par. Huang finished second overall in the individual competition at four-under par, three shots behind Denisa Vodickova of the Czech Republic. The Canada 2 team of Luna Lu of Burnaby, Miranda Lu of Vancouver and Eileen Park of Red Deer, Alta., finished 18th in the 22-team competition.

VEGAS, BABY: Surrey’s Adam Svensson closed with a two-over 74 and tied for 18th at the Sanderson Farms Championship in Jackson, Miss. Svensson, who was playing his first tournament since the Tour Championship, finished at 12-under par. That was six shots behind winner Luke List, who prevailed in a five-man playoff. Svensson earned $109,196. Svensson and the Abbotsfordf duo of Nick Taylor and Adam Hadwin are all playing in this week’s Shriners Children’s Open in Las Vegas.

BEST OF THE WEST: The UBC Thunderbirds swept both the men’s and women’s team events at the Canada West Championships played at Ledgeview Golf Club in Abbotsford. The women were in a class of their own, winning the 36-hole event by 39 shots over UBC-Okanagan. UBC’s Jessica Ng won the individual title with a 36-hole score of two-under par. She edged teammate Una Chou by one shot.

UBC’s Grace Bell was third at three-over par. The UBC men won the team title by three shots over UBC-Okanagan. UBC freshman Manu Gandhi finished third at two-over par in the individual competition. Justin Towill of UBC-Okanagan beat Zach Ryujin of the University of Victoria on the third hole of a sudden-death playoff to win the individual title after both players had finished at even-par.

MAKING AN IMPRESSION: Red-shirt freshman Denby Carswell continues to impress for the Simon Fraser University Red Leafs. The Burnaby native tied for 12th with a 54-hole total of two-under par at the Chico State Wildcat Invitational in California. The Red Leafs tied for sixth with a team score of one-under par. The SFU men have moved up to No. 14 from No. 23 in the latest NCAA Division II coaches poll. The Red Leafs close out their fall season Oct. 16-17 at the Otter Invitational hosted by California State University, Monterey Bay.

GAME, SET, MATCH: Shelly Stouffer’s title defence at the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur Championship ended in the Round of 32, where the Nanoose Bay resident lost her match (2-down) to Sylvie Van Molle of Belgium at Troon Country Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. Stouffer, who won last year’s championship in Anchorage, Alaska, emerged from the 36-hole stroke play portion of this year’s tournament as the No. 3 seed. She won her Round of 64 match on the 19th hole against Susan Cohn of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. Stouffer, who last year became the first British Columbian to win a United States Golf Association championship, is being inducted into the B.C. Golf Hall of Fame later this month.

NEW BOSS: Vancouver’s Marine Drive Golf Club ventured across the pond to find its new chief operating officer. John Glendinning was most recently the chief executive officer of The Wisley, a highly regarded 27-hole facility in Surrey, England. His previous stops included stints at two other top English clubs, Slaley Hall and Close House. Glendinning succeeds Tom Schellenberg, who left Marine Drive earlier this year.