He returned home nine days and some 20,000 miles later, after stops that included Italy on his way to a small island off the coast of Africa, and an eight-hour stopover in Paris on the way back that gave him enough time to see the Arc de Triomphe and Notre-Dame Cathedral.
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“I’m looking at the Eiffel Tower,” Gerard said by phone Monday afternoon. “Pretty sick.”
Oh, and along the way he received an invitation to the Masters.
That green envelope (Augusta National doesn’t do avoidance) might not be there right away. The final official world golf rankings of the year are not published until Sunday, and Gerard, 26, will be ranked 44th.
And all because of his decision to play one more tournament, even if that meant flying over the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean to reach the Mauritius Open, this year’s last tournament on the European circuit and Sunshine Tour calendar.
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Despite some 36 hours of travel (he arrived at his hotel at 1 pm Monday local time), Gerard opened with rounds of 68-69 and was tied for fifth place. He was world number 57 and needed a two-way tie for fourth place to break into the top 50.
“I thought I would get one more chance and do my best,” he said after the second round. “Then I could hang my hat and give it my all during the season, and be in the top 50 at the end of the year to get into the Masters. So it’s kind of a kick in the butt to come 10,000 miles from Florida and play. It wasn’t on the Bingo card at the beginning of the season, for sure.”
And then bingo! He shot a 63 at Heritage La Reserve Golf Links the next day to take the lead. On Sunday, he ended up in a playoff with the hot Jayden Schaper, the South African who won the last two tournaments by eagle in a playoff.
In Mauritius, Schaper holed out from about 60 yards short of the green for Eagle to beat Gerard.
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“I would have loved to win,” Gerard said. “But it was an incredible shot. He flew it perfect. Two jumps, check, use the side slope and it just went in. Congratulations to him. He’s been playing great golf. Back to back weeks in a playoff he made an eagle off the green to win it.
“I really don’t know how often this happens,” he said, laughing, “but it seems pretty weird.”
The consolation for Gerard was great: his first Masters.
Augusta was on his mind when Gerard played the RSM Classic at Sea Island last month, the PGA Tour’s final stop of the year, when he was No. 49 in the world. And then he missed the cut.
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“I was looking at it on Friday afternoon and thought, ‘Hey, does it make sense to do something?’ “I was going to try to play at Nedbank (in South Africa), but the tournament deadline was the day before I missed the cut,” Gerard said.
Alfred Dunhill was out because that was the weekend his good friend and former North Carolina teammate Ben Griffin was getting married.
The last one on the list was Mauricio. He had heard enough about Mauritius from South Africa’s Christo Lamprecht, so he checked the calendar, did the math, and signed up.
Gerard had already traveled quite a bit after narrowly missing the Tour Championship. He played in Ireland and England, Japan and Abu Dhabi. It is clear that he is willing to travel. This summer, he flew across eight time zones from Scotland to Lake Tahoe and then won the Barracuda Championship for his first PGA Tour title.
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What other trip is there with so much at stake?
The key to this story was that victory in the Barracuda Championship, the same week as the British Open. As an opposite field event, it did not come with an invite to the Masters. But he was co-sanctioned for the European tour, and that gave him access to those events.
“I think I realized it,” he said of his European benefit. “I just didn’t realize the impact it could have.”
Chasing points of any kind can be dangerous in golf. Griffin, for example, played 13 consecutive weeks earlier this year in an attempt to reach the Masters (he came up short).
There was also the case of Brandt Snedeker, who in 2017 missed five months due to a sternum injury and saw his world ranking drop. He finished the PGA Tour season ranked 50th in the world and then began to slide.
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Snedeker, like Gerard this year, flew halfway around the world to play in the Indonesia Masters. It didn’t have the same happy ending: Snedeker was near the cutting line when he had to withdraw after the second round due to heat exhaustion and dehydration.
Gerard did not have his last chance. He would have had three months starting 2026 to win or do well enough to crack the top 50, but he saw an opportunity.
“I thought I had nothing better to do,” he said. “It seemed like a cool thing, I made sure it worked logistically and I just went for it.”
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On The Fringe looks at golf’s biggest topics of the season. AP Golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf