Player's Journal: The Long Road to Learning How to Win

*In Partnership with Titleist*

The Monday I won my first PGA Tour event, I was mistaken for a pro-am player.

I got the call Friday afternoon that I was in the Bank of Utah Championship. The resort at Black Desert is big and there is a lot of construction going on. My first Tour event (as a pro) so I really had no idea how registration went. I knew credentials would be different, so me and my caddie pull in in the same car. We ask as we get out, “Hey, we’re playing in the tournament, where do I go” and the volunteer thought I was playing in the Monday Pro-Am. So we went to the wrong parking lot, it took an hour and a half to get everything situated, but that is how the week started.

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Jeff, my caddie, has a lot of belief in me and our team - After I played well on the Americas Tour and knew I was going to get Korn Ferry status for next year, he kept saying I don’t know how we’re going to do it but we’re going to skip the Korn Ferry Tour. I’m sure maybe he thought through Q-School, maybe we’d top-five at Q-School, but I think the path we took was a little bit better than that. And I can’t believe he was right but I’m glad he was.

I feel like when I graduated college I wanted things to happen immediately, just super fast. When I didn’t get Korn Ferry status that first year after the Americas Tour it was very disappointing for me and it didn’t fit what I thought my timeline was going to be.

The last couple of weeks have accelerated more than I thought they were. I was really happy after this last season to have the KFT status and looking forward to prepping for final stage of Q-School. That’s where my mind was at. And the Bank of Utah almost was treated like a final lead-up to Q-School but since it ended up in a win it definitely changed the rest of the year and next couple of years are going to go.

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Experience is the best answer for winning. It’s hard to put yourself in a place like that. It’s a different skill, it’s a different feeling.

My coach tells me winning is an art, winning is a skill.

I’ve had situations on every level of professional golf where I’ve kinda blown a lead first. And then stepped up and played well in those closing stretches following that.

In my junior and amateur golf it was at the U.S. Amateur in 2018 at Pebble Beach. It was my first U.S. Amateur and I played really well at Spyglass. And then I played Pebble in the afternoon in the second round and just lost my mind; shot like 40-something on the back nine. I four-putted the 8th hole which was my 17th hole and missed match play by like two.

In college golf it was my first college event; I had played pretty solid as an individual but our team was winning. First time in the team environment- I bogeyed 17 and then doubled 18 and then our team ended up going into a playoff with Florida State and we lost in a playoff and I felt like I totally let our team down. So in college I felt like that was our moment.

And in professional golf, it was the Tour Championship on the Americas Tour last year - I had a four or five shot lead with six holes left and went double-quad on 13 and 14 and lost that tournament.

So I felt like those three moments, after sitting down with my parents after those disappointments and analyzing exactly what went wrong, ended up being a huge help in my learning how to win. I felt like I learned a lot from those times and have been able to apply what I learned into the victory in Utah.

I wouldn’t be able to do a good job of analyzing falling short in moments without my parents and coaches because they are able to ask pointed questions better than I could. If I was left to do it alone I would just be pissed and frustrated with it. They help me draw out some good nuggets from the bad moments; what were you thinking, how can we do better?

It’s a little hard to believe where I sit now. After I won in Utah, making the Masters field has been top of mind and to think I have a chance to play that next year is wild.

Jeff’s grandmother won the Masters lottery a few years back so his family gets two tickets each year. He took me this last year on Thursday. He’s my caddie, I’m playing professional golf, and we went as patrons to the Masters on Thursday. To the point that it started to annoy me he kept saying, “we’re going to be here and we’re going to be playing.” And to think that could happen in ’26 is crazy.

*As Told to Shane Bacon*

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