Get used to hearing the name Emiliano Grillo.
Two weeks after the 23-year-old earned his PGA Tour card with a win in the Web.com Tour Championship, Grillo won the Frys.com Open to kick off the 2015-16 PGA Tour season. Grillo is now exempt through August 2018, has a berth in the Masters and PGA Championship, The Players, as well the WGC-HSBC Champions and WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.
Grillo is the latest breakout star in the high school class of 2011, which includes world No. 1 Jordan Spieth, 2014-15 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year Daniel Berger, Justin Thomas and Georgia Tech product Ollie Schniederjans.
However, Grillo has been pro longer than any of his fellow 11s, as Spieth calls the group. Grillo turned pro when he turned 19 and earned European Tour status through its qualifying school. He finished T-10 in his first event as a Euro Tour member, at the Africa Open. He posted three total top-10 finishes in the 2012 season. He had the same number of top-10s in 2013.
In 2014, he began to catch more eyeballs when he finished runner-up at the Dubai Desert Classic. A T-8 finish at the BMW Masters, as part of the European Tour's Race to Dubai Finals Series, was another stake-planting moment.
This year, Grillo had three top-six finishes on the European Tour and nearly won the Puerto Rico Open on the PGA Tour, finishing as a playoff runner-up on a sponsor's exemption, which afforded him a spot in the Web.com Tour Finals, where he earned his PGA Tour card.
