<\/p>\n
ST SIMONS ISLAND, GEORGIA – NOVEMBER 23: Ricky Castillo of the United States walks the 13th green during the final round of The RSM Classic 2025 at Sea Island Resort on November 23, 2025 in St Simons Island, Georgia. (Photo by Mike Mulholland\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Florida head coach J.C. Deacon texted Castillo on Saturday night, telling his former player that there was no player he\u2019d rather have the ball in their hands. Derek Castillo, Ricky\u2019s older brother and caddie, agreed after witnessing his little brother hit his first few warmup shots on Sunday morning. High winds in Bermuda had thrown Ricky\u2019s swing off kilter, but as Ricky marched toward the first tee, he turned to Derek and said, \u201cThis is the best my swing has felt all week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ricky Castillo didn\u2019t say much on Sunday. Bryan Kopsick, looper for Castillo\u2019s playing competitor Jonathan Byrd, noted during the final round, \u201cI\u2019ve never seen a kid so zoned in.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen he\u2019s feeling confident, he can get in the zone and he just kind of goes,\u201d said Derek Castillo.<\/p>\n
And boy, did he go on Sunday, going out in a scorching 7-under 28. His only blemish was a tough one, a missed 2-footer for par to complete at three-putt at the par-3 12th, but he responded with a two-putt birdie at the par-5 15th and 32-foot birdie make at the par-4 16th. He gave himself 20 feet for 61 at the last before settling for a 10-under 62.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just felt like I had a good idea of what I was going to do today and just come out and just play the best I could,\u201d Castillo said.<\/p>\n
Not even an hour later, though, McGreevy\u2019s ball disappeared into the 18th hole \u2013 and with it, Castillo\u2019s hopes. As McGreevy celebrated with an emphatic fist pump, Castillo, whose golf bag had been set up on the driving range in case he was needed for a playoff, simultaneously headed to the parking lot. He then spent several minutes unloading his belongings, including his fishing gear, from his courtesy SUV and into a much smaller car to make the drive home to Jacksonville, Florida. He was proud to have notched his best career finish, a solo third; he just wouldn\u2019t be returning with his PGA Tour card, as McGreevy\u2019s birdie knocked him from a projected No. 95 in points to No. 102.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just been one of those years where it\u2019s been really close,\u201d Castillo said. \u201cIt could have been really good, but it hasn\u2019t really clicked. Finally clicked this week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Castillo will have one last chance to garner fully exempt status on the PGA Tour for 2026. He\u2019ll be eligible for the final stage of PGA Tour Q-School in a few weeks. If not, he\u2019ll likely still receive plenty of starts in a conditional category, Nos. 101-110, that doesn\u2019t reshuffle and is projected to warrant upwards of 20 starts.<\/p>\n
Same goes for Hodges, who holed two birdie putts from outside 20 feet on the back nine but couldn\u2019t capitalize from 10 feet on the last. The 30-year-old Alabama product, who finished top 50 in points two seasons ago, ended in a three-way tie for fourth, which cemented him No. 101 in points \u2013 by approximately two points \u2013 and up 11 spots from last week. After cracking a rib earlier this year, Hodges believes he\u2019ll get four starts via a medical extension, though that would be prioritized below Nos. 101-110. <\/p>\n
The solace of likely starts didn\u2019t lessen the immediate sting, however, as Hodges\u2019 closing miss caused him to double over while pushing the brim of his hat down over his face. Minutes later, in the flash area, he was already holding a cracked-open can of Coors light in his right hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy agents have been telling me if you finish inside the top 111, you\u2019re going to really like where you are,\u201d Hodges said, \u201cso 101, I guess, is all right after the s— year \u2013 sorry, after the bad year I had this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was forgiven.<\/p>\n
With McGreevy\u2019s late heroics, no players moved inside the top 100 this week. In fact, Nos. 95-100 remained unchanged. And when it comes to the top 125, the cutoff between two conditional groups with drastically different outlooks, only Seamus Power moved in, from No. 129 to No. 117, while Frankie Capan III, who missed the RSM cut, dropped out.<\/p>\n
McGreevy, whose one-shot runner-up to Valimaki bumped Jordan Spieth from the Aon Next 10 (and two signature-event starts next year), was later informed what his final putt meant for Castillo and his closing 63 for Hodges, a close friend whom he shared a rookie season with a few years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hate to hear that, that I was the one that did that,\u201d McGreevy said. \u201cI\u2019m playing alongside Lee \u2026 and I\u2019m pulling for him to make that putt just as much as I was for myself to make that putt. It\u2019s little successes and defeats, whether it\u2019s a defeat to Ricky or Lee or something like that, they both still played great rounds, gave themself that chance, and that\u2019s all they can rely on is to give themself an opportunity, and they did.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully, both those guys, Ricky and Lee, can take care of business either at Q-School or next year with some starts.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. \u2013 For once, Max McGreevy wasn\u2019t the one holding his breath. The 30-year-old from…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":400451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[1430,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-400450","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115602497091956917","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}