At 41, with roughly half his life spent playing golf for money and precisely one victory in 408 PGA Tour-sanctioned starts, Spencer Levin is often called a “journeyman.”
But, really, he’s an “everyman.”
He doesn’t hit it far. He has fought wars with his flatstick and tinkered with his stroke by adopting a technique used by Happy Gilmore. On his PGA Tour bio, he lists his greatest thrill as “making a putt.” Levin has a sense of humor. He also has a temper. He once knocked down his own golf bag by javelin-throwing the flagstick at it. Video montages of his tantrums have gone viral.
In sum: Tour pros don’t get much more relatable. And yet, 20 years after he turned pro, Levin continues doing things the rest of us cannot.
On Saturday, for instance, in the third round of Q-School Finals, Levin went lower than anyone in the field, firing a 7-under 63 at Sawgrass Country Club in Ponte Vedra Beach to give himself a chance to regain something he hasn’t had since the end of the 2017 season: a PGA Tour card. Levin’s sizzling score, highlighted by five consecutive birdies on the back nine (his first nine of the day), left him at 9-under for the week and in a tie for sixth, two shots behind co-leaders Ben Kohles and Marcelo Rozo, heading into Sunday’s final round. Only the top five finishers will earn full PGA Tour status — a change in format from previous seasons when the top five finishers and ties made it through.
The math is different this time.
The pressure, however, is familiar to Levin, who made it to Q School Finals in 2022 and 2023 and has been grinding in the game since many of his fellow competitors were in diapers.
“I’ve been doing this a long time,” Levin said on Saturday. “I’ve kind of seen every scenario there is. The thing you learn is that there are no secrets. You’ve just got to go out tomorrow and execute and play well. And that’s it.”
Easier said than done. But Levin has managed to do it often.
A native of Elk Grove, Calif., Levin starred in baseball as a kid but took up golf in earnest at age 13, inspired by Tiger Woods’ 1997 Masters win. By PGA Tour standards, his swing has never been in a study in mechanical perfection. But he has long been accurate off the tee and was known early on as a dead-eye putter. A two-time All-American at the University of Mexico, Levin turned professional in 2005, one year after finishing T-13 and earning low-amateur honors at the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills.
In the 20 years since, he has raked in more than $9 million in career earnings and notched one win on the Korn Ferry Tour (at the 2023 Veritex Bank Championship). But he has never won on the PGA Tour, and once went five years without making a cut on the game’s top circuit. When he finally broke that drought, he did so in memorable fashion, playing the weekend at the 2022 Shriners Open with a split-hand putting grip straight out of Happy Gilmore, with his righthand hockey-stick low on the club. Like the Adam Sandler character, Levin enjoys something akin to cult status. “Who else misses Spencer Levin on Tour?” a Reddit post asked last year, alongside a compilation of Levin’s on-course antics.
If you, too, have missed him, well, he’s back. You can watch him on Sunday, taking on the Valley Course at TPC Sawgrass. The leaderboard is bunched, with two shots separating 11 players. Levin is the oldest of the contenders, and he’s seen the most, for better and worse.
Everyman or not, a good round Sunday could change everything for him again.
