A shocking PGA Tour grad, Dahmen’s chase, golf’s Trump question | Monday Finish

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GOLF STUFF I LIKE

Graduation.

After his first round at this week’s Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, Paul Waring admitted that he had his sights set high.

At 39, Waring is nobody’s idea of a rising star. The Englishman came into the week as a solid member of pro golf’s upper-middle class, sitting at No. 48 in the DP World Tour’s Order of Merit and with one career win, the 2018 Nordea Masters, to his name. But after opening with 8-under 64 in his 332nd DP World Tour start, Waring admitted he was chasing another win and everything that comes with it.

“There’s other targets [beyond this week], obviously Top-25 for The Open, PGA Tour cards. There’s so much money to play for these last two events. Two solid weeks will push me right up the list. That’s the goal I’m actually going with. It would be great to play next week, don’t get me wrong, but the target’s a little bit bigger than that in my eyes,” he said.

Then came Friday, when Waring brought Yas Links to its knees with a course-record, 11-under 61 that got him to an outrageous 19 under through two rounds. Again he admitted he was thinking bigger picture.

“There are bigger things in my career that I do want to go and do and as I said yesterday, top 25 spots get an Open spot next year, that’s something I want to try and achieve, and [see] if I get somewhere near a PGA Tour card.”

His comments were a sign of the times. I wrote last week about the current state of the DP World Tour, which is stuck between identities — it’s a stopoff for big-time PGA Tour stars, it’s an outlet for semi-eligible LIV pros and it’s a truly global tour with an epic international schedule but it’s also a feeder tour, granting its 10 best pros PGA Tour cards for the following season and taking some cast-offs who fall outside full PGA Tour status in return. The DPWT seems like a fantastic place to play, it has a better-than-ever schedule and it’s shown gains in spectators as well as TV ratings — and yet it’s clearly not the pinnacle of competitive golf.

Back to Waring, then, who weathered a middling third-round 73 and held just a one-shot lead as play finished on Saturday and he delivered this pithy British perspective as he stared down the thought of a sleepless night and a Sunday battle.

“It’s a game of golf tomorrow, isn’t it? Game of golf in the sunshine. I’ll be playing with Niklas [Norgaard] again, great lad, good friend of mine. Looking forward to the challenge of it now.”

In that final round, Waring was terrific. He birdied No. 1. He birdied No. 2. Up ahead the top-ranked players in the field were making charges — Rory McIlroy was four under through six holes and Tyrrell Hatton was on his way to an eight-birdie, no-bogey 64 — but Waring plugged along, adding birdies at 7 and 10 and keeping a clean card otherwise.

He looked destined for a possible playoff when, tied with Hatton for the lead, he hit it to 40 feet at the par-3 17th. But he holed that putt — “as soon as it left the blade, I knew it was in,” he said gleefully, later — and closed with a birdie at the par-5 18th to finish off a two-stroke win. Good game of golf in the sunshine.

Waring looked to be in shock in his post-round interviews. This was his first Rolex Series win and he’d just earned the biggest victory and biggest winner’s check of his life. “I’ll probably still be hungover Thursday,” he said, looking ahead to this week’s DP World Tour Championship.

But I was most struck by his reaction to earning his PGA Tour card — one of the things he’d been chasing hardest. As it sunk in, reality seemed more complex than his dream.

“I was quite happy living in Dubai, to be honest with you,” Waring said, sounding a bit like the dog who’d caught the car. “It’s going to be a long way to travel, a long commute over to America. But I’m looking forward to that. It’s a new challenge.”

Setting a goal and surprising even yourself when you reach it? Getting a win and watching your life change? Appreciating the present even as you look to the future? Pressing on to new, uncomfortable challenges? That’s golf stuff I like.

WINNERS

Who won the week?

Paul Waring‘s second (and biggest) DP World Tour win moved him to No. 5 in the Race to Dubai and assured him a PGA Tour card for 2025.

A Lim Kim won the Lotte Championship at Hoakalei Country Club, earning her second LPGA Tour victory nearly four years after her first, which came in epic fashion at the 2020 U.S. Women’s Open. “It was super fun. I haven’t felt this way in a long time,” she said.

Austin Eckroat made 11 birdies in a final-round 63 at the World Wide Technology Championship, validating his Cognizant Classic victory earlier this year. “I think that second win kind of solidifies that you can win on the PGA Tour,” Eckroat said post-round. “You can’t just say it was luck this time; I’ve done it twice. Pretty cool.”

Steven Alker won the season-long points race for the second time in three years, earning a $1 million bonus in the process and continuing to serve as inspiration for 45-to-49-year-old golf dreamers everywhere.

And Bernhard Langer, 67 years young, won his 47th PGA Tour Champions event thanks to a 30-foot walkoff bomb at the Charles Schwab Cup. Langer’s sustained excellence on this circuit borders on the absurd; he’d won at least once in each of his first 17 seasons on the senior circuit and was already the oldest winner in tour history. But he tore his left Achilles tendon playing pickleball early this year and the streak seemed doomed. It wasn’t. Rock on, Bernhard.

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NOT-WINNERS

A few guys who didn’t win.

Rory McIlroy debuted a new golf swing and tied for third in Abu Dhabi, keeping him squarely in the driver’s seat as he tries to close out his sixth season-long Race to Dubai title this week. He’ll want a couple holes back — he tripled his 17th hole on Friday and doubled his 18th hole on Saturday — but it was his third podium finish in four DPWT starts this fall and suggested these changes could take quickly.

Tyrrell Hatton finished one shot ahead of McIlroy and has now gone T10-1-2 in his three DPWT starts this fall; DataGolf bumped him to a career-high No. 5 in its player rankings on Monday morning.

Nataliya Guseva came up one shot short in Hawaii; she was attempting to become the first Russian winner in LPGA history.

Angela Stanford played her final LPGA Tour event (though we won’t begrudge her a comeback here and there) and hit every green on the back nine, a fitting finish to a top-tier ball-striking career for the seven-time winner. She finished T26.

And Max Greyserman finished fourth in Mexico, two shots behind Eckroat. The result was his fourth top-four finish in his last six starts, though he’s still chasing his first win. “Yeah, I’ve been playing some really solid golf, but need to play better golf, so that’s kind of the moral of the story,” he said. Greyserman is done until Hawaii in January, he said.

News

Tourney leader brought to tears on verge of breakthrough victory 

By: Sean Zak

SHORT HITTERS

Five pros chasing PGA Tour cards.

1. Joel Dahmen finished T14 in Mexico, making an important move from No. 124 to No. 121 as he fights to secure fully-exempt PGA Tour status for 2025. “It would mean the world,” Dahmen said of retaining exempt membership. “I think it would mean more this year, just the grind that it’s been. Golf has been relatively easy for me for five years. Haven’t really been in this position before.”

2. Joe Highsmith made the biggest move in Mexico, jumping from just outside at No. 126 to all the way in at No. 112 and thus ensuring the presence of two underrepresented populations — lefties and bucket-hat-guys — on Tour for 2025.

3. Daniel Berger moved inside the number, too, jumping from No. 129 to No. 124 thanks to a T20 finish. Berger remains one of the PGA Tour’s most interesting characters; we’ve still hardly heard about his 18-month golf hiatus. Here’s hoping he keeps his card so we get more DB next season.

4. On the DP World Tour, Thorbjorn Olesen is among the most interesting pros who’s expected to earn PGA Tour status for 2025 — namely because he’ll do so for the second consecutive year. Olesen earned his card for the 2024 PGA Tour season but didn’t have the success of fellow grads like Matthieu Pavon and Bob MacIntyre, who each won. And this fall he prioritized European play rather than the FedEx Fall, a decision that proved wise thanks to a run of T12-T2-T7-T3. He’s now No. 7 in those rankings.

5. Matteo Manassero is two spots ahead of Olesen at No. 5; the one-time teenage phenom is playing his best golf in over a decade. It’ll be fascinating to see and hear more from the “Magnificent Manassero,” who won earlier this season for the first time after an 11-year absence from the winner’s circle.

ONE SWING THOUGHT

Change it all? Or don’t change at all?

Rory McIlroy, who leads the Race to Dubai, has spent the last few weeks with big-time swing changes in mind.

“I probably haven’t liked the shape of my golf swing for a while, especially the backswing,” he said pre-tournament. “The only way I was going to make a change or at least move in the right direction with my swing was to lock myself in a studio and not see the ball flight for a bit and just focus entirely on the movement.”

On the other hand, Thriston Lawrence is No. 2 in the DPWT’s standings and having the best season of his career. What’s been his secret to success?

“I think just not changing a lot. I think just what I’ve been working on two years ago when I got here for the first time, I’m still doing it today. So not changing and sticking to the game plan and sticking to routines. I do my warmup and not do anything on Mondays when I make the cut on the prior weekend. Just sticking to my guns and that has to help with consistency.”

So there you have it. Either burn it all down and start over — or don’t change a thing and double down on what you’re already doing. Choose your own adventure…

ONE BIG QUESTION

What does Trump’s election mean for the merger?

McIlroy suggested this week that Trump’s election could clear the way for a deal between the Saudi PIF and the PGA Tour. (Sidenote: I’d love to see this somewhere in the list of “top issue for voters” alongside stuff like “democracy” and “the economy” — are there any single-issue pro-golf-merger voters out there?) After all, Trump is materially invested in the outcome; he’s the owner of several courses that have hosted LIV events and has long had a cozy relationship with the Saudis. The question, then: is McIlroy right?

The beautiful thing about this section of the column is that I can just ask the question, not answer it. But I can also guide you to a helpful resource, namely a useful bit of journalism from The Athletic’s Gabby Herzig, who deep-dived this issue and found that yes, indeed, the priorities of the Department of Justice often mirror the priorities of the president. So a Trump presidency won’t guarantee anything but may well tip the scales toward a less aggressive pursuit of anti-trust concerns. More here, though.

ONE THING TO WATCH

New courses, new podcast.

GOLF is dropping a new podcast — Destination GOLF — which coincides with the drop of our latest Top 100 list. Good stuff all around from Josh Sens and Simon Holt, who tease a bit from that list and its movers and shakers in this clip below:

You can listen to the full pod on APPLE or SPOTIFY.

NEWS FROM SEATTLE

Monday Finish HQ.

I got beers with a group of avid Seattleite golfers on Saturday after they’d finished a drizzly afternoon round; it was fun to shoot the breeze with a bunch of real-life golf sickos. I was also struck by how many Seattle transplants were part of the group — it was a reminder that, in a world with fewer and fewer built-in places to make friends, golf remains a terrific spot for exactly that.

(Also, again, shoutout to Washingtonian Joe Highsmith.)

See you next week!

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Dylan Dethier welcomes your comments at dylan_dethier@golf.com.