Trey Mullinax, Curtis Thompson renew SEC rivalry at Sony Open

HONOLULU -- Trey Mullinax and Curtis Thompson saw quite a bit of each other while playing for rival Southeastern Conference schools.

Their connection will extend to Waialae Country Club this week after both qualified for the Sony Open in Hawaii on Monday.

Mullinax, who helped Alabama capture the last two NCAA championships, birdied his final four holes in a 7-under-par 65 and claimed medalist honors in the qualifier at Turtle Bay Resort's Palmer Course.

Roger Sloan and Tom Johnson finished a stroke behind Mullinax and Thompson -- who turned pro last year following his junior year at LSU -- secured the last of the four available berths with a 67.

"I've known Trey for a while now. Him and I have been bumping heads for five or six years now," Thompson said. "We're both in, so maybe we'll have a little wager on it for the rest of the week."

Mullinax and Thompson, part of a tie for 13th at the SEC championship last April, will make their debut appearances in a PGA Tour event in Thursday's opening round at Waialae after turning pro last year.

Mullinax won the clinching match in Alabama's 4-1 win over Oklahoma State in the NCAA tournament finals in May and was named a second-team All-American by Golfweek. He advanced to the final stage of Web.com Tour qualifying and earned conditional status, giving him access to Monday qualifiers.

He converted his first opportunity into a Sony Open spot by staying steady in a 3-under front nine and closing with his flurry of birdies, starting with a par-3 15th, to finish atop the 78-player field.

"Early in the round I was hitting it solid, didn't make as many putts, but birdied the holes I thought I was supposed to birdie and just stayed patient throughout the day," Mullinax said.

Thompson was named an honorable mention All-American after finishing in a tie for 19th in the individual standings at the NCAA championship. He tied for 11th at Web.com qualifying and will join his older brother, tour veteran Nick Thompson, in the Sony field, with their father, Scott, as his caddie.

"I was out here all week with (Nick) anyway, so to be able to play with him this week is going to be a lot of fun," said Thompson, whose younger sister, Lexi, won her first major last year at the Kraft Nabisco Championship.

"That's why we came out here. We didn't come out here for just one of us to be playing. We wanted it to be both of us."

Playing in the final group Monday morning, Thompson birdied four of his first five holes and followed the first of his two bogeys with an eagle from 90 yards out on the 10th hole. He reached 6 under with a birdie on No. 12, gave back a stroke on 17 and had a birdie putt lip out on the par-5 18th.

"I was thinking that could have been it, that the course didn't let me have that one," said Thompson, who fell short in a playoff in his first Monday qualifier.

But that fear was allayed when he saw only three players ahead of him on the leaderboard. His 67 also broke up a growing crowd outside the scoring shack off the 18th green as seven players at 68 readied for a possible playoff for the final spot.

That group included Mililani's Jared Sawada, who played in last year's Sony Open as an amateur. Two more local golfers, Parker McLachlin and David Fink, were another stroke back at 3 under.

This article was written by Jason Kaneshiro from The Honolulu Star-Advertiser and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.