Joel Dahmen completed simply inside the highest 125 to maintain his PGA Tour card for 2025.
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Verify in each week for the unfiltered opinions of our writers and editors as they break down the most well liked subjects within the sport, and be a part of the dialog by tweeting us at @golf_com. This week, we focus on Maverick McNealy’s first PGA Tour win, the FedEx Cup Fall winners and losers, the most effective programs you’ll be able to play and extra.
Maverick McNealy closed the 2024 PGA Tour season with the primary victory of his profession, beating three others by a shot on the RSM Basic on Sunday. What took the previous top-ranked newbie so lengthy to get his first title on Tour, and do you anticipate it to snowball right into a breakout 2025?
Jack Hirsh, affiliate gear editor (@JR_HIRSHey): That looks as if a loaded query. Successful is difficult on the PGA Tour. We’ve seen quite a few top-ranked amateurs get to the PGA Tour and by no means win, and we’ve additionally seen loads who’ve gone on to have hall-of-fame careers. Whereas he was coping with an damage final 12 months, he nonetheless performed higher in 2022 than he did this 12 months, even with the win. I say it’s probably he wins once more, however I don’t anticipate him to all of the sudden grow to be a top-10 or top-20 participant.
Josh Berhow, managing editor (@Josh_Berhow): He’s type of distinctive the place he’s by no means been a star however has by no means actually struggled to maintain his PGA Tour card. He’s simply been… fairly good: strong off the tee, not so nice into greens and an excellent putter. It was a matter of time. It’s not a fluke he had a lot success on the collegiate stage. The primary one’s at all times the toughest. He’d undoubtedly be a breakout contender for subsequent 12 months.
Alan Bastable, govt editor (@alan_bastable): Golf’s a humorous outdated recreation. Mav had six prime 10s this season but additionally 13 missed cuts or withdrawals. Forecasting what gamers are able to from one week to the subsequent is almost unattainable. What a month for Mav, although! He helped mastermind the Tour’s just lately introduced revamp of its FedEx Cup factors distribution system, and now he has his first Tour title. If solely he’d lobbied the Tour to dole out extra factors for the RSM…
Final week we discovered (formally) that come 2026, solely 100 gamers will earn full-time PGA Tour standing. However for 2025, that magic quantity continues to be 125, and we realized these gamers on the season-ending RSM Basic on Sunday. Which participant who made it simply inside (or outdoors) that lower line was probably the most notable to you?
Hirsh: Needs to be Joel Dahmen, who put collectively a Sunday 64 to complete No. 124 within the FedEx Cup. Dahmen has struggled with adjusting to his newfound fame since being a key determine within the Netflix “Full Swing” docuseries. Having him on Tour makes for a way more entertaining, compelling and relatable product, so having him battle to get into fields underneath the previous champion class wouldn’t have been a lot enjoyable. I nonetheless assume his greatest years are but to return.
Berhow: Yeah, onerous to argue with Dahmen, since he was the largest identify inside just a few of that No. 125 spot. Two different younger former school standouts, Parker and Pierceson Coody, each landed on the mistaken aspect of that line, too.
Bastable: Should say, I didn’t foresee anybody within the Creator Basic discipline making a run at a Tour card, however that’s what Wes Bryan did, narrowly lacking out by three spots. When Bryan took warmth for taking part in in that hit-and-giggle occasion for influencers earlier this 12 months, he tweeted, “Are there truly ppl mad that I’m taking part in on this occasion? I’ve filmed 100+ lengthy type youtube movies during the last two years…missed nearly each lower on the pga tour…and hardly apply.” Not precisely a recipe for Tour success. However Bryan nonetheless discovered a solution to keep related till an MC this week doomed his card hopes.
We’ll spend extra time subsequent month unpacking the 12 months that was on the PGA Tour, however off the highest of your head, what’s the one large factor you realized or will bear in mind concerning the 2024 PGA Tour season?
Hirsh: Truthfully, {that a} Tiger-like run continues to be doable. I feel I had began pondering that the era of children who obtained into golf due to Tiger Woods had made the game too deep for anybody to actually go on a run of victories like he did practically twenty years in the past. Scottie Scheffler disproved that concept this 12 months. No, he didn’t win a number of majors like Woods did achieve this typically, however till Scheffler’s 2024 nobody had gained seven instances in a Tour season since Woods in 2007. And it’s not like Scheffler’s competitors was weak, both. Positive, LIV Golf has taken away Jon Rahm, Cam Smith, Jaco Neimann and others, however Scheffler was successful in opposition to Xander Schauffele, who gained two majors himself, week in and week out. Let’s not neglect about that gold medal win, too.
Berhow: Scottie Scheffler won’t ever return to Louisville.
Bastable: Yeah, the Scheffler PGA fiasco will go down because the one of many wildest sports activities tales of all time, however nonetheless, this 12 months is perhaps remembered extra for what occurred off the course. Or, extra the purpose, what didn’t occur. And that can proceed to be the case till the PGA Tour and PIF lastly strike a deal. The drawn-out negotiations have sucked a lot oxygen out of the room. Whole bummer.
Additionally full is the 2024 LPGA season, with Jeeno Thitikul successful the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship. Nelly Korda tied for fifth to place a bow on a spectacular seven-win marketing campaign. Fast: Will Korda match or surpass that season-win complete once more in her profession?
Hirsh: I’ll go forward and say it: sure! For as unbelievable as Korda’s season was, it was additionally type of bizarre. She missed three cuts randomly in the midst of the season that included two majors, she took two months off between her first and second wins, she let possibilities to win the Open and Olympics slip away and she or he additionally handled some damage. So long as her mechanics keep intact, I might see her successful in bunches like this for just a few extra years.
Berhow: Sure. And boy, that sounds loopy to say, however I got here to that conclusion in my head fairly shortly. I feel she will maintain getting higher — as Jack talked about, she had some bizarre issues occur this 12 months too — and I might not be a bit shocked to see her do that once more.
Bastable: Buzzkill Bastable says no. Seven wins is staggering, and the tour is barely getting deeper, that means victories will grow to be more and more more durable to return by. As Jack notes, Nelly’s additionally been vulnerable to accidents; successful in bunches requires staying wholesome.
Final week, GOLF launched its newest rating of the Prime 100 Programs You Can Play, a listing stuffed with famous person layouts accessible to any Common Joe. If you happen to have been creating the last word public-golf street journey with this record in thoughts, the place are you taking our readers?
Hirsh: I’ve used this house earlier than to shout-out my former hometown of Bend, Ore., and I’ll do it once more. Bend is represented on our newest Prime 100 Programs You may Play record with Pronghorn’s two programs, however it has a lot extra to supply. Sunriver’s Crosswater course as soon as was within the prime 15 of our rating and I imagine it is without doubt one of the most stunning inland programs I’ve ever performed. The record goes on and on with Tetherow, Brasada Ranch, Black Butte Ranch and extra. Inside 90 minutes is a completely implausible hidden gem within the mountains referred to as Tokatee, which is on GOLF’s record of America’s greatest golf programs for underneath $100. And whereas a five-hour drive to Bandon Dunes could appear lengthy, it is without doubt one of the most scenic drives you’ll be able to take.
Berhow: The simple reply is to spend a while kicking round Pebble Seaside or Pinehurst, and many others., and taking part in all of these crazy-good — and infrequently spendy — tracks, however I’m gonna use my homer card as nicely and decide a extra Midwestern journey that gained’t damage your pockets quiet as a lot and isn’t as apparent. Play a type of elite Wisconsin programs (Whistling or Sand Valley or Erin Hills, and many others.) however then cease off for a worth play at Lawsonia, then head to Minnesota (which I’m shocked didn’t get one nod on our Prime 100 You Can Play record) and go manner up north and double up at Giants Ridges’ two programs earlier than driving to close by The Wilderness at Fortune Bay. It’s an ideal space that’s house to 3 of the higher public programs within the state, and except you might be courageous sufficient to journey that far, a variety of out-of-staters don’t even find out about it.
Bastable: No, Josh, the simple reply is, actually, Bandon Dunes, which has 5 programs within the prime 25. Bonus: the one street journey you want fear about is attending to the resort. A much less apparent rec: the Tampa, Fla., space. Three Streamsong Prime 100s, the brand new unfold at Cabot Citrus Farms and the Copperhead course at Innisbrook are all inside two hours of each other. Not a foul haul!
