Joel Dahmen’s mood was good.
Geno Bonnalie’s was fun.
And a question about a 208-yard, ‘smother hook’ drive was born.
Of course, if you’re familiar with Dahmen, a Tour pro, and Bonnalie, his caddie, you know that the atmosphere around them is typically light. They’ve gained a following for such behavior, especially after their run earlier this year on Netflix’s Full Swing. So Thursday was more of the same. Wonderfully so.
To begin, since June, Dahmen has struggled. Starting with the Memorial, he’s missed six of eight cuts. He didn’t make the PGA Tour’s playoffs. He went home for a few weeks. He came to this week’s Fortinet Championship. He shot a three-under 69.
And Dahmen was maybe the most surprised of anyone at Silverado Resort.
“I mean, I’ve played awful golf this calendar year, didn’t really do much the last five weeks since Wyndham,” he said. “Played a couple times at home with buddies, but I didn’t have any expectations. Played kind of nice today actually. I made a lot of good putts.”
Had Dahmen been working on anything ahead of this week?
Diapers. His son, Riggs, was born earlier this year.
“No, I just really enjoyed family time,” he said. “I got to spend a lot of time with my kiddo. Daddy duty’s been really fun for me, so golf was the furthest thing from my mind. Coming up here is just kind of fun. We enjoy food and some wine, and golf is a little bit secondary, so it was nice to get off to a good start.”
What did he like about Thursday’s round?
‘If my flights got canceled to a tournament … I would have been happy’: Pro opens up
He played with friend Max Homa. He was back together with Bonnalie.
“I had a good pairing,” Dahmen said. “Obviously it’s fun playing with Max. He’s one of the best players in the world now, just kind of feeding off him a little bit and just kind of hanging out. I hadn’t seen Geno in five weeks, either, so just fun to kind of catch up with him, chat, hang out and play a little golf.”
Which brings us to the question.
At some point, Bonnalie had talked to a reporter about Dahmen’s tee shot on the 424-yard, par-4 16th.
And Bonnalie wanted the reporter to ask Dahmen about the shot that went low, left and 208 yards.
Here, then, is vintage Dahmen and Bonnalie.
Is this frivious? Yes. Is it fun? Yes.
“I don’t know where he’s setting you up on this. He said to ask about your tee shot on 16. I haven’t watched any golf today, so I don’t …”
“Sixteen, what hole is 16? That was three holes ago. The new routing screws me up. Sixteen’s a par-3. I hit it on the green.”
That was 17, though. What about 16?
2023 Fortinet Championship tee times: Round 2 groupings for Friday
“Oh, yeah. That was not a good one.”
“I don’t know if he was setting me up. Was that the best shot of the day?”
“It was the worst one. It’s just kind of a simple one. You hit like a 3-wood or driver down there and just have a wedge to the green. I somehow hit this low, smother hook and had 200 yards left instead of a wedge, but escaped with a par, though.
“But thanks, Geno, for bringing up the worst drive of the day.”
