Joel Dahmen completed simply inside the highest 125 to maintain his PGA Tour card for 2025.
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Test in each week for the unfiltered opinions of our writers and editors as they break down the most popular 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, one of the best programs you possibly can 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 Traditional on Sunday. What took the previous top-ranked beginner so lengthy to get his first title on Tour, and do you count on it to snowball right into a breakout 2025?
Jack Hirsh, affiliate tools editor (@JR_HIRSHey): That looks like a loaded query. Successful is tough 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 seen loads who’ve gone on to have hall-of-fame careers. Whereas he was coping with an harm final yr, he nonetheless performed higher in 2022 than he did this yr, even with the win on the finish. I say it’s possible he wins once more, however I don’t count on him to abruptly grow to be a top-10 or top-20 participant impulsively.
Josh Berhow, managing editor (@Josh_Berhow): He’s sort 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 degree. The primary one’s all the time the toughest. He’d undoubtedly be a breakout contender for subsequent yr.
Alan Bastable, govt editor (@alan_bastable): Golf’s a humorous previous sport. 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 following is almost not possible. What a month for Mav, although! He helped mastermind the Tour’s 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 came upon (formally) that come 2026, solely 100 gamers will earn full-time PGA Tour standing. However for 2025, that magic quantity remains to be 125, and we realized these gamers on the season-ending RSM Traditional on Sunday. Which participant who made it simply inside (or exterior) 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 docuseries. In the end, having him on the PGA Tour makes for a way more entertaining, compelling and relatable product, so having him battle to get into fields beneath the previous champion class wouldn’t have been too enjoyable. I nonetheless suppose his finest years are but to come back.
Berhow: Yeah, arduous to argue with Dahmen, since he was the largest title inside a couple of of that No. 125 spot. Two different younger former faculty standouts, Parker and Pierceson Coody, each landed on the fallacious aspect of that line, too.
Bastable: Should say, I didn’t foresee anybody within the Creator Traditional area 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 yr, he tweeted, “Are there really ppl mad that I’m enjoying on this occasion? I’ve filmed 100+ lengthy kind youtube movies during the last two years…missed nearly each lower on the pga tour…and infrequently follow.” Not precisely a recipe for Tour success, however Bryan discovered a option to keep related till an MC this week doomed his card hopes.
We’ll spend extra time subsequent month unpacking the yr that was on the PGA Tour, however off the highest of your head, what’s the one huge factor you realized or will keep in mind in regards to the 2024 PGA Tour season?
Hirsh: Truthfully, {that a} Tiger-like run remains to be attainable. I feel I had began pondering that the technology of children who acquired 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 almost twenty years in the past. Scottie Scheffler proved that fallacious this yr. So he didn’t win a number of majors like Woods would accomplish that typically, however nobody had gained seven occasions in a PGA Tour season since Woods did in 2007. And it’s not like Scheffler’s competitors was weak both. Certain, LIV Golf has taken away Jon Rahm, Cam Smith, Jaco Neimann and extra, 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 yr is likely to be remembered extra for what occurred off the course. Or, extra the purpose, what didn’t occur. And that may 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. Complete 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 sort of bizarre. She missed three cuts randomly in the course of the season that included two majors, she took two months off between her first and second wins, she let probabilities to win the Open and Olympics slip away and she or he additionally handled some harm. So long as her mechanics keep intact, I might see her successful in bunches like this for a couple of 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 yr 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 just getting deeper, that means victories will grow to be more and more tougher to come back by. As Jack notes, Nelly’s additionally been liable to accidents; successful in bunches requires staying wholesome.
Final week, GOLF launched its newest rating of the High 100 Programs You Can Play, an inventory filled with famous person layouts accessible to any Common Joe. For those who had been creating the last word public-golf street journey with this listing in thoughts, the place are you taking our readers?
Hirsh: I’ve used this area earlier than to shout-out my former hometown of Bend, Ore., and I’ll do it once more. Bend is represented on our newest High 100 Programs You may Play listing with Pronghorn’s two programs, nevertheless 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 among the most lovely inland programs I’ve ever performed. The listing goes on and on with Tetherow, Brasada Ranch, Black Butte Ranch and extra. Inside 90 minutes is a fully unbelievable hidden gem within the mountains referred to as Tokatee, which is on GOLF’s listing of America’s finest golf programs for beneath $100. And whereas a five-hour drive to Bandon Dunes could seem lengthy, it is among the most scenic drives you possibly can take.
Berhow: The simple reply is to spend a while kicking round Pebble Seashore or Pinehurst, and many others., and enjoying all of these crazy-good — and sometimes spendy — tracks, however I’m gonna use my homer card as effectively and decide a extra Midwestern journey that gained’t harm 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 High 100 You Can Play listing) and go means up north and double up at Giants Ridges’ two programs earlier than driving to close by The Wilderness at Fortune Bay. It’s an important space that’s house to 3 of the higher public programs within the state, and except you’re courageous sufficient to journey that far, a variety of out-of-staters don’t even learn about it.
Bastable: No, Josh, the straightforward reply is, in reality, 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 High 100s, the brand new unfold at Cabot Citrus Farms and the Copperhead course at Innisbrook are all inside two hours of each other.
