GREENSBORO, N.C. – Joel Dahmen has a lot on the line at the PGA Tour’s Wyndham Championship.
The Clarkston native has taken that pressure in stride. Dahmen carded his best round of the season Thursday with a 9-under-par 61 for a first-round lead, bridieing the first two holes and six of the front nine at Sedgefield Country Club.
He made his lone bogey on No. 14 and closed with two birdies on the last four holes, good for 10 in the round.
Dahmen, 37, is on the hunt for his second career win and needs a quality finish to qualify for the FedExCup playoffs, which begin with next week’s St. Jude Championship. Dahmen entered the Wyndham ranked No. 101 in the standings and with a win is projected to jump to No. 48. The top 70 players qualify for the St. Jude.
Since announcing a split with his longtime friend and caddy Geno Bonnalie on July 15, Dahmen has a 17th-place finish at the Barracuda Championship and a 39th-place finish at the 3M Open.
“I don’t know if you ever see 61 coming, but I saw good golf coming,” Dahmen said of his start at the Wyndham. “I went 45-ish holes last week without a bogey to start the tournament, played really well in Truckee at the Barracuda besides kind of a weak Saturday,” Dahmen said after his round. “If you take like four holes away last week, it was kind of going to be a top five. Trending, as we like to say in golf, we’re always trending, right, but we’re actually trending, which is nice.”
Dahmen narrowly retained his tour card in his last event of the 2024 season, ranking 124th of the 125 threshold in the FedExCup standings. He last made the St. Jude Championship in 2022, where he was cut.
“Yeah, great to make the playoffs, that would be unbelievable, give me a lot of time off this fall,” Dahmen said. “We’ve got a baby coming so that would take some pressure off of that. The playoffs are a bonus for me. I’m just going to go out and try to play good golf, and I guess if I play really well, then I get to play another week.”
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