On Saturday night, not long after a disastrous double-bogey 7 had essentially derailed his chance of staying a full-time PGA Tour member in 2025, Joel Dahmen said the mood was somber.
“Funeral-effect,” he clarified.
Dahmen — the funny, fun-loving, self-deprecating 37-year-old pro — has turned into one of the most popular players on the PGA Tour over the last handful of years, but on Sunday he was in extreme danger of staying inside the top 125 at the season-ending RSM Classic, which is what he needed to do to hold onto a full membership for 2025.
Dahmen entered the week No. 124 in the FedEx Cup Fall standings, but after his late double on Saturday, in which he shot 70, Dahmen was projected to finish 128th in the standings.
That means he needed to do something special on Sunday — and his run started with one pretty spectacular shot.
Dahmen fired a six-under 64, a round that included no bogeys and a hole-out eagle from 110 yards on the par-4 13th, which was his fourth hole of the day. That ended a string of three straight pars and led to three straight birdies on 15, 16 and 17.
After a rollercoaster week — and season — Dahmen tied for 35th at the RSM Classic and claimed that 124th spot in the FedEx Cup standings. His Tour card for next year is secured.
“When you’re behind the 8-ball like this, it almost gives you a little bit of freedom that you have to go do something great, you can’t just hang on out there,” Dahmen said. “It’s almost harder sometimes to hang on. Like it’s harder to hold a lead, a big lead, a huge lead than it is to kind of be a chaser. I think that somehow worked in my favor.”
Dahmen said the low moment on Saturday came after his round, when he and his wife, Lona, were driving to get their son at daycare. Dahmen started to think about what he loves about being on Tour. Not just some good paychecks, but the competition and the people and the community they have become a part of. He talked about the friends they’ve made on Tour, and how they love raising their kids together while doing this crazy job. He didn’t want any of that to come to an end just yet.
“[Our son] was playing and Lona and I were just kind of sitting there and I was just staring off into the wall,” Dahmen said. “She was like, ‘Are you OK?’ I’m like, no, I’m not OK. She’s like, ‘Well, you can still play golf tomorrow, right? It’s not over.’ And that was kind of one of those things, like the switch flipped. It was about two hours after the round probably when the switch flipped for me to be able to kind of pull myself back up for today.”
As Dahmen put it, he made birdies early and hung on late. He made par on his last seven holes, which included a long two-putt par on the 72nd and clutch 6-footer to get in at 64. Sam Ryder finished 125th to secure the final spot, with Zac Blair finishing 126 to be the odd-man out. Those who finished 126 to 150 have conditional status for 2025.
After his round, Dahmen and his wife hugged.
“I’m glad it was a happy embrace. Being a Tour wife is not all glitz and glamour,” Dahmen said. “It’s hard. She takes care of our kid a ton when I’m on the road without them. It’s really difficult on her, and even the weeks like we’re gone all day, like all week with these tee times, she’s getting up with the kid, getting herself ready, getting the kid ready, all that stuff.
“I felt so bad for putting her through this much stress. She reminded me last night, this is what I signed up for. I’m like, no, you signed up for like a really crappy mini-tour player at the time who was broke, you did not sign up for this. Yeah, she’s like, ‘We’re going to be OK.’ But that embrace was, I thought about it both ways. I thought of the tears of sadness and how it can kind of change our life going forward and I’ve thought about it the other side. So I’m very happy it was tears of joy.”