‘Ridiculous’: New York club pro earns full status next year on PGA Tour Champions

Padraig Harrington won the Simmons Bank Championship—his third title this year on PGA Tour Champions—but it’s Jason Caron who took home the most unlikely prize.

Caron, a 52-year-old head professional at Mill River Club in Oyster Bay, N.Y., shot 65-69-68 this week at Pleasant Valley Country Club in Little Rock to tie for third place and move up 18 spots in the Charles Schwab Cup standings. That means that he qualified for the Charles Schwab Cup Championship next week at Phoenix Country Club, but better yet, it gives him full status for 2025 on PGA Tour Champions.

To say he was surprised is an understatement. Caron almost could not get the words out after realizing what he had just accomplished.

“I'm like speechless really, to be honest,” he said. “I didn't have like—you know, it's just weird to think that I could even get to here. I don't even know what to say. Honestly, I really don't know what to say. This is not my job. I just didn't—I didn't know if I was ever this good, I guess, especially of late. Then all of a sudden some things started clicking. That putter that I got started working. I don't know, just kind of happened, I guess. I really don't have any words to tell you about what it means or anything like that because it's kind of shocking.”

Caron played two full seasons on the PGA Tour more than a decade ago and left it altogether in 2011. He recorded a top 25 finish in both 2000 and 2003 and made 21 cuts overall. This year he has played in nine events on the Champions Tour with four top-four finishes—T-4 at the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship, T-3 at the Rogers Charity Classic, T-4 at the Constellation Furyk & Friends and the T-3 this week in Arkansas.

“It's just kind of mind boggling to think that—if everyone came to my work and saw what I've been doing the last 10 years, you would say there's no chance this could happen,” he said. “And all the guys in the Met section, actually I should look at the camera and tell 'em, you would agree there's no way this could have happened. Somehow, it did.”

This doesn’t mean that Caron will play a full-time schedule, it just means he’s able to play more when he wants, as long and it continues to work well with his schedule at Mill River and with his family, wife Liz and daughters Caroline and Julia.

“I’m not going to be full time and every single week,” he said. “I’ll definitely play. I don’t see why not, that we couldn’t work things out.

“In a dream world I think I’d play up to April, right, then we’re back to work. I’ll be around. I would play hopefully the PGA, obviously we had a good tournament there this year. Then I was mentioning it to someone else, they said you’re probably going to get into the majors potentially. I don’t know which ones. So those are the ones I would focus on until the end of Augusta. End of August my schedule frees up again, so I would be able to play more.”

Harrington, 53, shot 67-65-67 to shoot a 17-under total for the week, two shots better than Y.E. Yang and three better than Caron and Hiroyuki Fujita. The Irishman opened strong with five birdies in the first 10 holes of the final round then cruised home to victory. He won the Hoag Classic in March and the Dick’s Open in June.

The victory here in Arkansas moved him from 11th to fourth in Charles Schwab Cup points, giving him a realistic chance to win the season-long title. Ernie Els, Steven Alker and Stephen Ames are Nos. 1-3 respectively.

“It's a nice way to finish,” Harrington said. “It gives me some confidence, and I really didn't give anyone else a chance.”