Who is Rico Hoey? Everything about the newest PGA Tour member who climbed 2,900 spots in OWGR
Rico Hoey secured his card for the 2023-24 season by achieving fourth place in the Korn Ferry Tour season rankings. Over the course of this season, he participated in 25 tournaments and successfully made cuts in 17 of them. Impressively, he achieved top-10 finishes in seven of these tournaments, which included a victory at the Visit Knoxville Open.
But what is more interesting is that the 28-year-old started the year on the 3064th rank in the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR). He has made a commendable jump of around 2,900 spots to currently sit on 140th rank in the World.
Born on September 19, 1995, in Manila, Philippines, Rico Hoey is an American golfer who started his professional journey in 2017. He joined the Korn Ferry Tour in 2018 and has played 97 tournaments. Till now, he has won just one tournament and is now set to play on the leading American golfer tour, the PGA tour.
Hoey has a sporting family. His sisters, Kay Hoey and Simone Hoey, have also played collegiate-level golf at Long Beach State University. The 28-year-old played his collegiate-level golf at the University of Southern California. His first win came in the 2014 Gifford Collegiate.
During his high school days, Rico Hoey won the Callaway Junior World Championship 2012 and the Junior America's Cup 2012. He ended his high school career with a victory in the 2013 CIF Southern Section Boys' Golf.
Hoey has been part of the Palmer Cup team twice in 2014 and 2016. He has won the Freedom 55 Financial Championship in 2017.
Till now, as a non-member, he had two starts on the PGA Tour. His debut on the leading American tour came in the 2020 Sony Open in Hawaii where he missed the cut. His second start came at the 2023 Barracuda Championship where he ended up T20 on the leaderboard and earned a paycheck of $43,206.
"They kind of feel sold out" - When disappointed Rico Hoey questioned about the PGA Tour - PIF merger deal
Back in June 2023, the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour, and the Public Investment Fund (financial backers of LIV Golf) announced to join hands to form a new profit entity to stabilize and unit the game of golf.
However, the announcement of the merger deal was not taken well by players. Even Korn Ferry Tour golfer Rico Hoey raised concern about the new agreement.
He emphasized the fact that nobody gave them answers to any of the questions they had in their mind. He added that players were "in the dark" and that it was difficult to analyze if the Tour made the right decision or not. Golfweek quoted him as saying:
"But for guys like me, Grayson Murray, ones who have won and grinded it out to get on Tour, they kind of feel sold out. But you know, me as a rookie, ultimately, they don’t even know who I am, so it doesn’t really matter."
Although the merger agreement framework is still underway and not many concrete details are out on how it would benefit the Korn Ferry Tour players.