LAS VEGAS — Caleb Surratt left the University of Tennessee and joined LIV Golf in what many considered a surprising move.
Yet his game was not that of a 19-year-old when he shot a 4-under 67 in the final round and stood next to Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton on the podium as his new team captured the title in Mexico.
Finishing T13, Surratt earned $320,000 for his individual efforts and a percentage of the $3 million that his Legion XIII won.
Yet when he arrived in Las Vegas, the young Surratt could not check in to his hotel room because he was under 21.
“Checking in yesterday, I kind of kept looking over to Caleb, and he was looking over at me quite nervous, so once I finished checking in, I sort of wandered over to make sure that he was O.K., and as I got there, the lady checking him in said that he needed someone over 21 to be on the reservation to allow him to stay in the room,” Hatton said. “I had to hand over my driver’s license to make sure he had a bed for the night.”
Surratt’s move to LIV started at the Jones Cup Invitational at the beginning of January.
As he was playing in what would be his last amateur event, Surratt struggled in his first two rounds but a final-round 5-under 67 was not only tops in the field, it jumped him up to a tie for second place.
It was also when he learned his LIV deal was progressing along.
“It was tough,” Surratt said of what was going on behind the scenes as he was trying to win a golf tournament. It was a lot to manage.”
After that was a trip to Florida with his girlfriend and then the deal was just awaiting his signature.
Following discussions with his professional team and his coaches at Tennessee, the decision was relatively unanimous.
“There’s a lot of sides to any decision that you’re gonna make, like, there’s some backlash from people for coming and then there’s, if I didn’t come and people found out that I turned it down, there would be backlash on that side, right?” Surratt said. “So, in reality, I just had to do what I thought was best for my golf game.”
Playing professional golf against the best players in the world and being on a team captained by Jon Rahm was what Surratt saw as compelling. Learning how to play better and ultimately getting better is how Surratt sees his future with LIV.
One big thing Surratt learned in Mexico is that his game matches up and he has no plans to change what he brought to the professional ranks.
“But on the course, it’s still just golf,” Surratt said he learned from Rahm. “That’s one thing, I’ve always heard it my whole life, and I’ve always heard just don’t change anything, just do you, and I’m starting to learn that what makes a lot of the best college golf really good is still really good out here, so I’m just trying to continue to do the same stuff I’ve been doing my whole life and just enjoying it along the way.”
Surratt’s next move outside his LIV schedule will be attempting to qualify for the U.S. Open at Pinehurst, just 88 miles from his hometown of Indian Trail, N.C., just southeast of Charlotte.
“That’ll be kind of a home tournament, home crowd,” Surratt said. “So, I think about it all the time, trying to play there.”
