In just his 2nd Korn Ferry Tour start since 2008, Denver-area resident Martin Laird posts runner-up finish
By Gary Baines – 6/1/2025
Martin Laird was competing in the 50th Korn Ferry Tour event of his career, but it had been a while since the last one. And a very long while since the one before that.
The Denver-area resident and former Colorado State University standout teed it up this week at the UNC Health Championship in Raleigh, N.C. Given that he’s won four times on the PGA Tour, Laird rarely competes on the KFT. Specifically, his last Korn Ferry event had come in 2020. His last one before that was in 2008.
But Laird wasn’t just another guy in the field in North Carolina. The 42-year-old was very much in the hunt for the title. In fact, he was just a shot out of the lead with four holes left on Sunday.
And, despite tailing off at the end with three straight bogeys, he still tied for second place, earning $65,000. That’s Laird’s best showing in a PGA Tour-affiliated event since a runner-up in the PGA Tour’s 3M Open in July 2023.
Laird has conditional status on the PGA Tour after finishing in the 126-150 category in the 2024 FedExCup Fall standings (145th in his case). But that’s gotten him in just six events this year, and he’s made just one cut in 2024. So why did he tee it up on the KFT this week?
“I haven’t had a start in a few weeks, and I don’t know when my next start is going to be so I needed to play some golf,” the native of Scotland said on Friday. “The competitiveness is still in there even though playing at home and stuff. I wanted to come and test myself against obviously a great bunch of players that are on the Korn Ferry.”
Laird won a KFT event in 2007 before he became firmly entrenched on the PGA Tour, where he’s earned more than $22 million.
At the UNC Health Championship, Laird posted rounds of 64-65-66-69 for for a 16-under-par total, and he finished five back of winner Trace Crowe, who went 62-64-65 the last three rounds. Over the four days, Laird carded two eagles, 18 birdies and six bogeys. All in all, he took a shine to Raleigh Country Club.
“It’s kind of fun, I like it a lot,” he said. “I live in Denver and there’s a lot of similarities to my course, Cherry Hills (Country Club). The greens are pretty severe like here, so I think that’s one of the reasons why I feel so comfortable on some of these greens is because I play on greens like that a lot.”
For all the scores from the KFT event, CLICK HERE.
About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com