Major championships are not on the line at this point of the year, but that does not detract from the mounting pressure that dozens of PGA Tour pros face.
Two events remain on the FedEx Cup Fall, which will determine who secures PGA Tour membership for 2025 and who does not. Those players who finish between 51st and 60th in the final standings will comprise the initial Aon Next 10 for the 2025 season and will thus receive invitations to the first two Signature Events of the year: the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the Genesis Invitational at Riviera.
But trying to make it into Signature Events pales in comparison to trying to keep your PGA Tour card and, therefore, your job. Take Joel Dahmen, for instance, the Netflix star who tied for 14th at the World Wide Technology Championship in Mexico.
Dahmen’s T-14 awarded him $120,600, but more importantly, he received 52 FedEx Cup Fall points for his efforts. After this week, he jumped three spots in the rankings, from 124th to 121st. He has 407 points overall, 35 points clear of Hayden Springer, who currently occupies the 125th spot. Nine players are within 50 points of Springer, hoping to put together strong finishes over the final two weeks and weasel their way into the top 125. It will be a nerve-wracking battle at this week’s Butterfield Bermuda Championship and next week’s RSM Classic in Sea Island, Georgia.
And yet, Dahmen, despite the stress, is taking a glass-half-full approach to his situation.
“I‘ve been lucky enough for the past six or seven years that I don’t have to worry about it, but it’s a different type of pressure. I knew I wasn’t going to win the golf tournament today, but you feel like you’re kind of in contention. It matters a lot. You can’t hide from it, it’s there,” Dahmen said after his final round at the World Wide Technology Championship.
“I know [my caddie] Geno [Bonnalie is] doing a great job about just going about our business. My wife is amazing about pretending everything is okay. And everything is okay. It’s not like it’s the end of the world, but I want to play good golf, and I want to be out here on the PGA Tour.”
Since earning his PGA Tour card ahead of the 2017-18 season, Dahmen has played in 191 PGA Tour events. He has 22 top 10s and only one victory, which came at the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship in 2021. Of the seven seasons he has played, his average finish in the FedEx Cup has been 77th, but he has never come this close to losing his PGA Tour card.
Before this year, Dahmen’s worst finish in the FedEx Cup came during the 2021-22 season, which, ironically enough, was when he introduced himself to millions of golf fans for his strong play at the U.S. Open. Dahmen held a share of the 36-hole lead with Collin Morikawa at Brookline but went on to tie for 10th. Nevertheless, he finished his 2021-22 campaign ranked 92nd in the FedEx Cup, a year in which he made 19-of-26 cuts and posted only three top 10s.
But this year has given him more trouble than he has ever faced before. His short game has plagued him, as Dahmen ranks 178th on the PGA Tour in strokes gained putting and 141st in strokes gained around the green. He’s also 166th on tour in one-putt percentage and 132nd in three-putt avoidance. Given how good PGA Tour pros are, events, cuts, and top 10s always come down to putting, and if you are struggling on the greens, you will have a hard time finding sustained success.
Dahmen is not a long hitter by any stretch, too, so he must rely on his approach play and short game to compensate for that deficiency. Yet, that has not happened for most of this season, except for his T-11 at The Players Championship, his T-10 at the RBC Canadian Open in June, and his solid play this past week.
“I think it would mean more this year, just the grind that it’s been,” Dahmen said when asked what it would mean for him to finish among the top 125.
“Golf has been relatively easy for me for five years. Haven’t really been in this position before. It would mean a lot. It’s really hard to keep grinding when things aren’t going your way. Like I said, there’s a lot of pressure this week, and the next two coming up. It’s a lot. Finishing 30th might be a good enough type of thing. That’s almost harder than when you’re in contention. Yeah, it would mean the world.”
He may find himself in a precarious position, but at the end of the day, Dahmen, as he said, knows everything will be okay. His charming and easy-going personality will always resonate with fans far and wide, so plenty of people will continue to cheer him on no matter what happens. And hey, who knows? Maybe Dahmen catches lightning in a bottle and wins one of these final two events. That would be some story, which would cap a rollercoaster season that has featured plenty more lows than highs. But that’s the crux of professional golf, too. It’s almost impossible to make—and let alone stay on—the PGA Tour for an extended period. Dahmen understands that better than anyone, so he knows that he only has one choice about how to think of his future: in a positive manner.
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Be sure to check out @_PlayingThrough for more golf coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko as well.