NAPA, Calif. – Sahith Theegala was at the BMW Championship last month for all the wrong reasons.
One year after finishing third at the Tour Championship, Theegala failed to qualify for the FedEx Cup playoffs and was only at Caves Valley Golf Club for a sponsor appearance with Hero Motors Co. The only golf he would be playing there would be a hit and giggle about an hour away at Congressional Country Club that his manager organized rather than at Caves Valley, the tournament site.
“Not going to lie,” he said of being outside the ropes at one of the Tour’s playoff events, “it’s depressing to be here.”
But Theegala arrives at Silverado Resort, the site of his lone PGA Tour title, with renewed enthusiasm. He says he is 100 percent healthy and there’s still time to make highlights this fall.
Theegala’s season was sidetracked by multiple injuries. First, he hurt his oblique in February while moving homes (though he did hire movers for the heavy lifting) and it bothered him throughout the West Coast Swing. He was hesitant to mention that it became a growing concern after swinging at a screen while competing in a TGL event ahead of the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March. Aiming for land on a wildly imagined island fairway hole, he let loose, attempting to carry the water.
“It was all on me. I get so amped up. I hit ball speeds that I don’t hit ever on the golf course,” he explained. “I was swinging hard all day and I swung extra hard on that one. I actually piped it, but I felt a pop right when I swung.”
A spasm shot through his oblique like a spring coming unwound. But he played on through the Masters rather than getting checked out. “I kept playing golf as if it was nothing for about three weeks,” he said. “Even after I saw a doctor, it was not bad enough where I couldn’t play. So I kept playing on.”
Soon, the pain shifted to a second area. He recalled doing several exercises where he was pinning his shoulders back. His neck began bothering him as he tried to make compensations with his swing.
“I don’t know how I played Saturday at Truist,” said Theegala, who shot 78 and withdrew before the final round of the signature event in May.
The 27-year-old out of Pepperdine University had no choice but to sit out the PGA Championship and U.S. Open, but he refused to miss the British Open, too. He gave it a valiant try but knew he lacked both sufficient prep time for that major and hadn’t returned to full strength. He missed the cut at Royal Portrush and in all of his four most recent starts dating to the Memorial in May, only breaking par once in his last eight rounds. He enters the FedEx Cup Fall ranked 147th in the season-long standings and without a single top-10 finish, one year after recording nine of them. It’s been a significant decline after having finished no worse than 31st in his first four full seasons on Tour. [He is exempt for next season regardless of his finish this fall.]
“It felt like a lost season,” Theegala said. “For the last five, six years, let’s say, when I put in the work, my golf got better, easy equation.”
But the year isn’t quite over yet and Theegala said he’s regained his health and he plans to play five of the seven fall events. He overcame a significant wrist injury in 2018 during college that required surgery in 2019 and sidelined him for 10 months. When he returned, he emerged as the top college golfer in the country before turning pro. He’s confident he can regain his position as one of the best players on Tour and make a run at qualifying for the Presidents Cup team in 2026.
“I feel like a rookie again on Tour, going to be fighting for spots and starting from scratch,” he said. “In a way, it feels good. Maybe I let myself get a little comfortable the last few years.”
Now, he’s back and hungrier than ever to get back to the winner’s circle and there’s no better place for him to start that quest than at Silverado Resort, site of his previous victory in 2023.
“I’m just pumped that I can be here,” Theegala said. “I love playing tournament golf and getting the juices flowing. It’s cool to be tied in with this event and just happy to be here.”
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