Joel Dahmen wasn’t born thinking he would play on the PGA Tour. He even said in college that after his mother’s passing, he was a rudderless ship. Dahmen drifted aimlessly through his early twenties without a plan or a purpose. But that ship finally hit some rough waters just last week in Georgia when he failed to make the cut at the RSM Classic and lost his full PGA Tour card for next season.

Irrespective of that, he was still grateful because it was beyond his imagination as a child to get this far. Recently speaking about that on the latest episode of the Earn Your Edge Podcast, Dahmen shared, he was always a “lost kid” who flunked out of the University of Washington and never even dreamt of playing pro Golf. “I played amateur golf for a little bit, but it was kind of one of those things. I was just a man, I was just a lost kid,” Dahmen said to Cameron McCormick when he asked if turning pro was Dahmen’s boyhood dream.

“So I knew I didn’t want a job. My dad worked at a mill for 38 years. My mom’s school teacher. I great human being, blue-collar, but I thought there was more out there for me. I didn’t know it was pro golf, but I was very lucky to meet uh a man who, after I won the Washington State amateur,” he added.

Dahmen also shared that he lived with Nick Taylor for two years while not attending school. There, he “watched what he did. He went to class, got great grades, and was number one in the world. And I’m like, Okay, this is what it looks like to be good at life. Like, he’s obviously the best amateur in the world at the time.'”

It’s classic Dahmen’s speaking. Isn’t it? This honest vibe made him a star on the Netflix series Full Swing, where he publicly shared his earlier life, his struggle after his mother’s loss, and his desperate escape from that haunting journey. He once said golf isn’t life or death because he has seen actual death. He was always that open book. Dahmen played almost the entire season, but his best result came in the Corales Puntacana Championship, where he finished tied second with -13 under par. Except that he only made two other top 10 finishes and missed cuts in 16 (more than half of the tournaments).

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Joel Dahmen needed a miracle finish to save his job this week

The PGA Tour changed the rules this season, changing the safety zone to 100 from 125. Dahmen entered Sea Island, sitting at number 117, and needed a massive week to jump up. But the former Corales Puntacana Resort and Club Tour Champion opened with a respectable 69 and followed that up with a 68 on Friday for a five-under total. That wasn’t enough in a shootout, and Dahmen missed the weekend by just two shots and drops to conditional status for the 2025 season.

This actually isn’t the first time he has danced on the edge of disaster. Just last year, he arrived at this same tournament fighting for his job. But back then, panic actually helped him focus on the task at hand. He woke up at 3 a.m. in a “cold sweat” before the final round and calculated exactly what he needed to do to stay inside the top 125. He ended with a brilliant final round of 64 to save his card.

So what is next for the man from Clarkston? Dahmen seems strangely at peace with the bad news. Dahmen actually skipped the previous tournament in Bermuda to be home for a huge life event. His wife, Lona, recently gave birth to their second son, Dawson. “My mind’s at home a lot, honestly, this week. You know, if I’m not playing 25 weeks a year, then I get to hang out with a couple amazing kids and my wife. So there’s no real downside to it. It’s just less golf,” Dahmen shared.

Dahmen wasn’t the only big name to pack his bags early. Veteran Matt Kuchar lost his full card for the first time in 19 years. Former Ryder Cup captain Zach Johnson also fell outside the number. Even Justin Lower, who fought hard all week, missed the mark by a tiny margin after this season.