BATON ROUGE – The 2015-16 season has already been one to remember for PGA TOUR rookie Smylie Kaufman, and the former Tiger standout added to his already impressive resume on Sunday afternoon when he fired a 1-under par 71 at Miami’s Trump National Doral to tie for eighth place at the World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship.
Kaufman tied Rickie Fowler for eighth place in the championship with matching scores of 5-under par 283, including his tournament low score of 2-under 70 in Friday’s second round. He climbed two spots up the overall leaderboard in the final round while carding his third round of 1-under 71 for the event.
Australian Adam Scott won his second-straight PGA TOUR event with a one-shot victory over American Bubba Watson with a winning 72-hole score of 12-under par 276 to win the WGC-Cadillac Championship.
Rory McIlroy and Danny Willett tied one another for third place on the final leaderboard while finishing two shots back at 10-under 278, while Phil Mickelson rounded out the Top 5 of the leaderboard in fifth place as he posted a 9-under 279 in four rounds. Kaufman also followed Jimmy Walker at 8-under 280 for sixth place and Paul Casey at 6-under 282 for seventh place.
With his performance, the former LSU star earned his third top-10 finish and sixth top-25 finish in his 12 PGA TOUR starts during his rookie season. He was crowned a PGA TOUR winner for the first time in October with his win at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open.
Kaufman will cash a check for $197,500 after tying for eighth place in the championship to bring his 2015-16 season total to $1,836,708 in earnings to sit ninth on the PGA TOUR’s official money list on the year. The No. 65 player in the World Golf Ranking entering the weekend, Kaufman also moved up one spot into the No. 7 position on the PGA TOUR’s FedExCup standings on the season.