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Joel Dahmen has found himself in an unenviable position with the end of the current PGA Tour season on the horizon, and he shot himself in the foot with the penalty that could come back to bite him in a big way by the time the year wraps up.
In 2017, Joel Dahmen earned his PGA Tour card by finishing in the 25th (and final) spot on the money list that determines who gets to make the heap from the Korn Ferry Tour by less than $1,000.
He’s racked up more than $11 million in earnings since then and secured his first (and, to date, only) victory on golf’s premier circuit in 2021, and while he’s never been a top contender, he’s still managed to earn a reputation as a fan favorite thanks in no small part to his decision to participate in the Netflix documentary Full Swing.
The primary reason Dahmen was tapped for the series was to examine the life of a pro golfer on the relative fringes who’s grinding to secure the same level of job security and comfort as more prominent names like Scottie Scheffler and Brooks Koepka, and he was incredibly candid about the stress that comes with being in that position.
Dahmen is once again dealing with a ton of pressure as he nears the end of a PGA Tour season where he’s struggled to get his game firing on all cylinders. He was sitting in 118th place in the FedEx Cups standings by the time the playoffs came to an end, but he’s fallen to 124th during the ongoing fall season where golfers need to ultimately finish in the Top 125 to secure their spot for next year.
There are five events remaining on the fall schedule, which includes the Shriners Children’s Open that kicked off at TPC Summerlin in Las Vegas on Thursday.
Dahmen was obviously hoping to walk away with some points, but according to Golf, he suffered a serious setback in that quest on the first day of the tournament courtesy of the four-stroke penalty he was hit with after realizing he had too many clubs in his bag after discovering an extra four iron while preparing to tee off on the fourth hole that put him over the maximum threshold of 14.
Having too many clubs is punishable by a two-stroke penalty per hole, although a golfer can only be dinged a maximum of four per round. That means the two pars Dahmen recorded on the first two holes were officially converted to double bogeys, and he found himself sitting in 131st place (out of 132 entrants) after ultimately finishing at +5 on the day.
Dahmen’s caddie Geno Bonnalie certainly deserves some of the blame for not counting the number of clubs before they hit the course, but the 36-year-old golfer ultimately pointed the finger at himself, saying:
“I would like to blame Geno—that would be the easiest thing to do—but it’s not actually his fault either. I played Tuesday and Wednesday out here, and we didn’t see it in there.”
It’s very hard to believe Dahmen will end up making the cut based on how things are currently standing, and he’s going to have his work cut out for him over the next month or so if he wants to end up playing on the PGA Tour next year.