Let's get this holiday week rolling with smiles on our faces, shall we.
We told you the story of Joel Dahmen's rollercoster weekend in the comments, but in case you missed it, our favorite golfer entered this week's RSM Classic in Saint Simons Island, GA in 124th in the season-long PGA TOUR standings. The top 125 golfers on the list retain their full playing privileges for the following season. The cruel reality of finishing on the wrong side of that line means a year of uncertainty, lower-level tours, and scrambling to get back to the bigs.
On Friday, Dahmen needed a five-foot par putt on 18 to make the cut. He drained it. Saturday, he had a solid round going, until he took a double-bogey 7 on the par-5 16th. The resulting round of 70 left him on the outside looking in, sitting 128th on the season scoreboard entering the final round.
And yesterday, a player who's become beloved for his honesty and everyman mien showed us what he's capable of. After three straight pars to start his round, Dahmen did this:
That eagle from 110 yards got him started, and he took his round to six-under with a birdie on the 11th hole of his round (he started on the back nine). From there, he made seven straight pars to close with a 64, making a clutch five-footer on his last hole. Had he missed it, he would've finished 126th.
Rarely in the course of human endeavors do circumstances conspire to bring together ideas, people, and causes in a way that so perfectly tickles the Gheorghian fancy as do the central actors of today's post topic. [Note that I was going to use 'tickles the Gheorghiebone', but then recalled that this is a family blog and that none of you could be trusted not to make that something lascivious.]
Joel Dahmen is a journeyman professional golfer. He's currently 72nd in the FedEx Cup standings and 124th in the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR). He's won once on the PGA Tour, in 2021 at the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship. Since he got his card in 2017, he's banked more than $10.5m in career earnings, which he'd probably tell you reflects more on the absurd amounts of money at the top of professional golf than his talent. See, in addition to being one of the world's best golfers, Joel Dahmen is an incredibly humble and self-effacing dude.
Dahmen moved high on my list of favorites for his role in Full Swing, a highly personal and very entertaining documentary about the life of professional golfers. In addition to stars like Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Brooks Koepka, and Scottie Sheffler, the producers of the documentary also introduce us to characters like Sahith Theegala, Mito Pereira, Matthew Fitzpatrick, and Dahmen. His signature line encapsulates his low-ego, everyman approach to the game: “Somebody’s got to be the 70th-best golfer in the world. It might as well be me.” This recap of the episode that features Dahmen will give you a pretty good sense of the man.
Prior to Full Swing, the only other thing I knew about Dahmen was that he and Harry Higgs took of their shirts at the 16th hole at TPC Scottsdale during the 2022 Phoenix Open. He talks about it in Full Swing. Watch until the end - his deadpan, "Which makes sense." is perfect.
As a young golfer, Dahmen earned his card on the Canadian Tour, and then was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Which is where streams start to cross. He was successfully treated for the disease, and as he's become more established, he started the Dahmen Family Foundation to support families dealing with cancer. He lost his mother to the disease when he was a freshman in college.
Recently, Dahmen made the following announcement:
So let's unpack this. Joel Dahmen is an everyman, a Gheorghie if we've ever seen one. The Finns have a tradition known as Kalsarikänni, which translates to pantsdrunk, and involves sitting in one's underwear and drinking to get drunk with no intention of leaving the house. Fucking hell, man, that's my kind of hygge. And Dahmen wants us to get pantsdrunk on a traditional Finnish cocktail made from gin and a mixer (usually grapefruit) to raise money for cancer research.
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