A life-changing Sunday for old Sooners Gotterup, Witherspoon
Two old Sooners enjoyed life-changing Sundays.
Indeed, without doing much digging, we can safely say both Chris Gotterup and Kyson Witherspoon experienced their greatest day to date as professional athletes.
For Witherspoon, it was also his first day as a professional athlete, though perhaps that demands an asterisk. He must still sign a contract, a development that could occur at any moment.
Gotterup, on the other hand, got paid because he won.
If you read Oklahoma Columnist on the regular, you may know Witherspoon well.
He received frequent mentions throughout the college baseball season, not only as Oklahoma’s best starting pitcher, but perhaps the SEC’s and maybe the nation’s.
All Gotterup — who you may never have heard of until right now — did was turn back the challenge of Rory McIlroy, pocketing $1.57 million for the effort.
Let’s get into it.
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Gotterup showed up in Norman after four years at Rutgers for a single redshirt senior season consisting of the fall of ’21 and the spring of ’22 and though Anthony Kim’s college stats are hard to find, he likely turned in the finest single season ever from a Sooner male golfer.
Sporting a 69.93 stroke average over 35 rounds, not only was Gotterup a consensus first-team All-American, but the consensus player of the year, too, taking home the Nicklaus and Haskins awards, equivalents to football’s Heisman and hoops’ Wooden Award.
He won the Puerto Rico Classic with a second-best-in-school-history 20-under-par 268 (66-64-66) and about three weeks later returned to play the PGA Tour’s Puerto Rico Open, where he tied for seventh but received no prize money due to his amateur status.
Upon reaching the PGA Tour as a professional in 2024, Gotterup won his first event and by six strokes at that, carding rounds of 66-64-65-67 for a 22-under-par 262, besting the likes of Allistair Docherty and Davis Thompson, who shot 268, and Ryan McCormick, Beau Hossler, Kevin Yu, Ryan Fox, Jorge Campillo and Erik van Rooyen, who shot 269.
Gotterup claimed $720,000 for the effort, a lot of money, but if it seems low for winning on tour, or if the names he beat are unfamiliar, it’s because the Myrtle Beach Classic took place opposite the Wells Fargo Classic, one of the PGA Tour’s eight “signature” events, carrying bigger prize money, a limited field of 70 to 80 competitors, thereby sending the rest of the tour to play the “B” event in South Carolina.
Gotterup remained mostly anonymous.
He is no longer anonymous.
Sunday, he won the Scottish Open, and if there’s a non-major event to win, it’s up there.
That’s because it’s one of the few non-majors that is both a PGA Tour event and a DP World Tour event, meaning Gotterup can now tee it up whenever he wants, wherever he wants for the foreseeable future.
The event belongs to both tours because it arrives the week before the Open Championship, the year’s final major, a field Gotterup had not earned his way into prior to arriving in Scotland, but now has.
Gotterup entered Sunday’s final round tied with McIlroy at 11-under par, a score mostly fueled by a second-round 61.
Two strokes behind he and McIlroy was the quartet of Wyndham Clark, Matt Fitzpatrick, Jake Knapp and Marco Penge.
Of his nearest pursuers, Gotterup’s bested all but Penge on Sunday, shooting 66 for a 15-under 265 total.
Penge also shot 66, tying McIlroy for second place.
“I definitely was the villain out there today,” Gotterup said. “I felt like I was ready and prepared mentally today. And that’s kind of what I’ve been talking about over the last couple of weeks, that I’ve kind of gotten into the mix a little bit and just faded away a little bit …
“Today, my goal was to hang in there tough and I felt like I did that really well.”
McIlroy was impressed.
“Chris played a great round of golf. He was so solid,” he said. “Made the bogey on 15 but bounced back with a really nice birdie on 16. After he got a couple ahead, I just couldn’t claw back.”
That’s one old Sooner whose life just changed.
Here’s another:
Kyson Witherspoon went undrafted coming out of Fletcher High School in Neptune, Fla. His twin brother, Malachi, was taken by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 12th round.
At the time, Kyson continued to be viewed as a shortstop, or the 428th best shortstop prospect in his class, so judged Perfect Game, a baseball and softball scouting service.
Malachi chose not to sign, joining Kyson for a year at Northwest Florida State, a junior college in Niceville, Fla., before both landed at OU in time for the 2024 season.
And Sunday, Kyson was chosen by the Boston Red Sox, who hadn’t spent a first-round pick on a pitcher since 2017, as the 15th overall selection.
It’s projected Kyson’s signing bonus will be in the neighborhood of $5 million, give or take.
Malachi, taken No. 62 overall by the Detroit Tigers in the third round, remains a fine prospect, just not at his brother’s level.
Kyson proved it over both of his Sooner seasons, going 8-2 with a 3.79 earned run average in ’24, before going 10-4 with a 2.64 earned run average in ’25, throwing 95 innings, allowing 73 hits and 23 walks, striking out 124 and sporting a 1.01 WHIP (walks plus hits per inning pitched), which is outstanding.
Malachi and Kyson, though their motions are different, are both superbly talented, yet it’s Kyson who was able to become a great college pitcher under the tutelage of Sooner coach Skip Johnson.
He didn’t die on the mound after errors behind him led to unearned runs in front of him and he wasn’t afraid of throwing the ball in the strike zone, an affliction college pitchers frequently fail to overcome.
Malachi, for instance, finished the ’25 season with a 4-8 record, a 5.09 earned run average, 91 strikeouts and 32 walks over 74 1/3 innings, with a 1.48 WHIP.
Kyson throws hard, often hitting the upper 90s with his fastball, possesses a beautiful 12 to 6 curve, a slider, cutter and changeup, too.
He’s been projected to reach the major leagues as soon as next season, but if Boston, which has won 10 straight games and would be the second wild card team coming out of the American League if the season ended today, were to reach the postseason, it’s not hard to imagine Kyson joining the Red Sox sooner.
A third Sooner, catcher Easton Carmichael, was also taken in the draft, No. 82 overall in the third round, by the Pittsburgh Pirates.
“It’s super exciting,” Johnson said. “It shows the development piece of our program. We’re going to miss all three of them, there’s no doubt about that. But that’s what we do at OU, you get guys prepared for Major League Baseball.
Now you know.
One old Sooner gained international stardom on the golf course and, probably more important to him, a wide open runway with which to pursue the career he’s dreamed about.
Another cashed in on the fantastic progress he made in on the diamond, 60 feet and 6 inches from home plate, mostly at L. Dale Mitchell Park.
Makes you want to keep up with them, right?