Joel Dahmen's biggest win was keeping his PGA Tour card: Analysis

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. — Getting a PGA Tour card is difficult enough. Joel Dahmen can attest to that.

He was a natural talent whose life got turned upside down when his mother died of cancer his junior year of high school. His brother was diagnosed with testicular cancer, and then Dahmen was diagnosed with testicular cancer some 18 months later. One setback after another.

Rock bottom was spending two weeks on the couch with a dog he bought to keep him company, unable to pay his phone bill for two months until Lona — now his wife — gave him an ultimatum to practice or get a job. She also gave him $200 to get a lesson.

The lesson wasn't anything he didn't already know, it was more symbolic of being dedicated. Three years later, Dahmen had his card.

“This is my eighth year out here," he said. “I probably made it longer than I ever thought.”

And that's what can make keeping a PGA Tour card even more stressful. Dahmen knows that feeling, too. He was living it.

Dahmen was a 5-foot par putt away from missing the cut at Sea Island and making it virtually certain he would fall out of the top 125 in the FedEx Cup, losing a full PGA Tour card at a time when opportunities are about to shrink.

His voice choked with emotion talking about the putt that kept alive his hopes. The pressure he felt was never more evident.

“It's like you're sleeping on the lead of a major every night ... but a little more stressful than that," Dahmen said.

So imagine the relief when Dahmen, projected outside the top 125 when he teed off in the final round of the RSM Classic, holed out a sand wedge from 113 yards for eagle, rolled in birdie putts and then held on for three nervy pars and a 64 to lock up his job.

He came into the week at No. 124. He finished at No. 124. It was a lot more complicated, and far more stressful, than numbers on a points list.

Dahmen long ago nearly lost his card. His first year on the PGA Tour in 2017, he had to face four weeks of Web.com Tour Finals, and his tie for sixth in the penultimate event was enough to get the 49th out of 50 cards offered that year.

But it was different then because he didn't really know what he was missing. And he didn't want to lose that. That's what made Sunday so special. He shared tears with Lona and beers with his buddies on tour.

“You take it for granted a little bit,” he said. "It’s been relatively easy, cruise between 50 and 90 on the FedEx Cup every year and enjoy it, and our best friends are out here. We all have kids now and it is one of the coolest things. We get to go to like camp every week out here 25 weeks a year. We rent houses together, we stay together, our kids are playing together, they’re all the same age. I didn’t want to miss out on that.

“As much as playing golf for a living is really cool and making a bunch of money is really cool, this has been our life,” he said. "So I thought a lot about not being able to do that as much, and that would stink.”

Dahmen has endeared himself to the golf world for being more everyman than journeyman, and he has become a popular figure on the Netflix “Full Swing” docuseries. But the struggle was real this year, never more so than the final two days.

He took a double bogey on his 16th hole Saturday, wasting a solid round and leaving him outside the top 125. He described the mood that night as somber, “funeral effect.” Driving to get his son Riggs, who turns 2 in January, Dahmen wondered if he'd still be getting him from tour daycare next year.

But he showed something to himself, perhaps even more than when he won his only PGA Tour title in the Dominican Republic in 2021. In his two biggest rounds of the year — Friday on a cold, vicious wind to make the cut and Sunday to keep his card — he delivered.

He kept preaching on Friday when he made that 5-footer that the job was not finished. He had two more days to stay in the top 125.

It's a good reminder going forward. Because while his 64 on Sunday was money in so many ways, now the hard part begins. The big changes to the PGA Tour next year mean only the top 100 keep a full card, down from the top 125. The field sizes will be smaller.

Getting to the PGA Tour is still hard. Staying there figures to be harder than ever.

“Do I get a year at 125 or do I go to 100 next year? It goes to 100 next year? Are we confirmed on that?” Dahmen said. “I thought I had another year of freedom.”

He was joking. Vintage Dahmen.

But his thoughts soon turned to next season — seven weeks away — at the Sony Open.

Celebrate this now. He earned it.

And then try to make more putts because he'll need them to avoid missing out — on the beer with Mark Hubbard, the congratulations from J.T. Poston waiting behind the last green, on that drive to get Riggs from daycare, on a PGA Tour that feels very much like a village he doesn't want to leave.

“Two of the biggest pressure moments of my career I show up, and I can take that going forward,” he said. “Might as well start at Sony.”