Mississippi golf enthusiasts tuning into the Sony Open in Hawaii on Thursday will have the chance to watch two former Ole Miss linksmen at work.
Jackson Suber and Braden Thornberry made history this past October, becoming the second and third former Rebels to secure their PGA Tour cards. Suber, a 24-year-old from Tampa, Fla., is the first Ole Miss alum since Johnathan Randolph to earn a spot in the pinnacle of professional golf. Thornberry, a 27-year-old from Germantown, Tenn., claimed his first victory by winning the season finale at the Korn Ferry Tour Championship, securing his spot on tour for the 2025 season.
Suber has participated in three PGA Tour events while playing on the Korn Ferry Tour — a developmental tour for professional golfers looking to climb to the apex of the sport. He is slated to tee off from hole one of the Honolulu course at 12:50 p.m. CT.
Across his 44 Korn Ferry Tour events, Suber has made 30 cuts including eight top-10 finishes. Last June, he was asked to compete as an alternate in the 2024 U.S. Open Pinehurst No. 2. As the last entry after earning a spot, Suber made plenty of noise sneaking in under the cut line for the first time in his career in a PGA Tour event.
While in Oxford, Suber assisted Ole Miss to the team’s second-best finish in program history at the 2022 NCAA Championships with a 14th-place ranking. As a senior, Suber tallied the second-highest season stroke average in school history at 69.77 and throughout his Rebel career earned two-time PING All-American accolades as well as earning 12 top-five finishes.
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Thornberry, arguably the most storied golfer in Ole Miss history, will tee off from hole 10 at the PGA Tour event at 12:50 p.m. CT. Since joining the Korn Ferry Tour in 2019, Thornberry has logged 104 events making 58 cuts. In 2024, he participated in 25 events, finishing inside the top 25 eight times. Thornberry’s season came down to the wire as he secured his first victory on tour at the season-final Korn Ferry Tour Championship at French Lick Golf Course in Indiana.
During his time in Oxford, Thornberry earned 11 tournament victories including the 2017 NCAA Championship. A two-time All-SEC First Team selection, Thornberry was the 2018 McCormack Medal Winner and the 2017 Fred Haskins Award recipient.
He spent much of his junior season (2017-18) as the No. 1 ranked amateur in the world, winning four times as an individual. He averaged a 70.28 stroke average that ranked No. 15 nationally and led the Rebels to another NCAA Regional appearance before qualifying for the NCAA Championships to defend his title as national champion.
In the summer of 2017, Thornberry made his PGA Tour debut at the FedEx St. Jude Classic and placed fourth, the highest amateur finisher at the FedEx St. Jude since 1965. That same summer, he qualified for the U.S. Amateur and defeated world No. 1 Joaquin Niemann. He also became the first Rebel to play in the Walker Cup, representing the United States.
NBC and Golf Channel will provide exclusive TV coverage of the Sony Open, the PGA’s first full-field tournament of the year. Folks can also stream the event live on ESPN+, Peacock, and the NBC Sports App.
