2025 might not be Joel Dahmen‘s year. He failed to secure a spot in next season’s limited 100-player field. He missed 16 cuts this year and now faces a conditional status, relying on sponsors’ exemptions. For anyone else, this could come as a devastating time. But not for the Washington native. His life had seen many downward spirals. Especially after his mother, when he realized he couldn’t move a step without help.

In a recent conversation with Cameron McCormick and Corey Lundberg, Dahmen spoke about how he got his open nature to criticism. “I would trace this back to losing my mom,” he spoke after taking a pause. “So my mom passed away from cancer. I was a junior in high school, and I did not do that well… I needed help from a lot of people around me to climb out of the hole that I was in.” The hole he talks about began on an ordinary day in October 2004, when his parents broke the news of his mother’s prognosis.

His mother, Jolyn, had stage-4 pancreatic cancer and had six months to live. Always a “mama’s boy,” a 16-year-old Joel hugged her mother for ten minutes and cried as the truth sank in. For him, she had been an anchor, the emotional core of his life. She was a kindergarten teacher who’d run after Dahmen as he swung his clubs. She would track his golf scores, urge him to try his best, and take him to Starbucks after every tournament, no matter the result. For Dahmen, his mother was the “life of any party,” and he became the “most spoiled kid alive.” All that ended when, in April 2005, she breathed her last breath. Dahmen knew he’d need help to rebuild.

“I realized if I wanted to go where I was going, where I thought I could be, and where I wanted to go, I needed help in that aspect,” he told McCormick. “The whole ‘yes man’ thing doesn’t work in my life. I need people to tell me when I’m screwing up. And it’s amazing how often that is actually,” Joel Dahmen admitted with a smile.

He never took official help from a grief counselor, apparently due to a prior bad experience, but he let his circle be open to him. It took him four or five years to figure his mess out, but he finally had the people who were ready to help him in every aspect and not say yes to all his shenanigans.

First was his father, Ed.

For Joel Dahmen, his family was his biggest supporter. He could tell them anything, from girl problems to golf problems. And both his parents would sit and listen. After his mom, his dad didn’t let that support collapse. He remained a quiet but firm presence in his life and urged him to return to school. Then comes his childhood friend and later caddie, Geno Bonnalie. A constant, he was the most pivotal influence in his life. Unfortunately, they both parted ways recently.

The brightest shine of light came in the form of the woman, whom he now calls his wife.

He met Lona, a “random gal,” during his “young fun years.” For Dahmen, she was just another date, but Lona could see through him. “Dude, you’re a pro golfer. What are you doing?” she asked him. “If you’re a pro golfer, why don’t you stay a pro golfer?” That surprisingly struck a chord with Dahmen, who from then on started to be more “accountable.” That was also the time when Joel himself was going through testicular cancer. The deadly disease had touched many in his family, including him and his brother. Fortunately, both of them made a full recovery.

Months after her death, Joel Dahmen could neither accept his reality nor escape it.

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A young boy’s free fall from the pinnacle

He became a “rudderless ship in the ocean” and was lost in the vastness of it. “I didn’t care much anymore. I just didn’t really have a direction in my life,” he once said, as per Golf Channel.

Dahmen was an exceptional child and earned a scholarship to the University of Washington. But when he arrived in Seattle, he had a massive grief on his shoulders that he couldn’t get rid of. He was alone, and he tried to drown his pain away in parties, alcohol, and missing classes.

His roommate and now PGA Tour player Nick Taylor once recalled how he would often see Dahmen spending hours playing Mario Kart and NFL Blitz instead of going to practice. Of course, he had to face the consequences of his actions, and he eventually left the university.

“I did not do that well. Part of the reason I flunked out at UDub. I was a young kid. I knew everything…I was good at golf…I could do it all. Like I was invincible,” Joel Dahmen narrated on his self-destructive behavior. “I’m not going to blame this 17-year-old kid for not searching out all the answers, but I learned as I came out of that that I needed help.”