Who is Derek Ernst? Could he win the Valspar Championship?
PGA Tour

Who is Derek Ernst? Could he win the Valspar Championship?

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Derek Ernst has one PGA Tour win. He also has one top-25 finish in 61 career PGA Tour starts. They came in the same event, when he came from two shots behind Phil Mickelson to win the 2013 Wells Fargo Championship.

The win boosted Ernst, who earned his PGA Tour card from the 2012 Q-School, from 1,207th in the Official World Golf Ranking to 123rd. Since then, Ernst hasn't finished in the top 25 on the PGA Tour. He's missed seven of his last eight cuts. He has no business winning again, right?

Well, he might.

Ernst is two shots behind leader Ryan Moore through three rounds of the 2015 Valspar Championship -- the same margin as when he won at Quail Hollow in Charlotte.

"I like coming from behind and being the underdog and going posting a low number and have them chasing me," Ernst said Saturday.

Perhaps so, and if he does win, he could go from the flukiest winner on the PGA Tour in the last 25 years to the flukiest multi-time winner in the history of the modern PGA Tour.

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Ryan Ballengee

Ryan Ballengee is the founder, owner and operator of Golf News Net.

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