Before Joel Dahmen hit one ball Thursday at the Wyndham Championship he was 101st in FedEx Cup standings. The top 100 earn fill status for next season.
Nearly five hours later he had struck 61 shots, made 10 birdies and was leading the tournament at nine-under-par. A victory would move him into the top 50 on the season list and easily into the playoffs.
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“I don’t know if you ever see 61 coming, but I saw good golf coming,” he said.
But there are three more rounds left, which Dahmen, a one-time winner on the PGA Tour made clear to say out loud.
“I mean, I’ve had like three top-twos in my career. I don’t know, four of ’em maybe,” the 37-year-old pointed out. He’s had three top-two finishes, with the win coming at the 2021 Corales Puntacana Championship. “I mean, it’s not even a thing, right?
“Yeah, great to make the playoffs, that would be unbelievable, give me a lot of time off this fall. We’ve got a baby coming so that would take some pressure off of that. The playoffs are a bonus for me. I’m just going to go out and try to play good golf, and I guess if I play really well, then I get to play another week.”
Dahmen started on the 10th hole at Sedgefield Country Club and opened with a three-under 32, his longest birdie putt made was from 13 feet on the par-3 12th hole. Birdies came on Nos. 1, 2 and 5 before he finished with three straight – putts of 46 feet, 4 feet and 3 feet respectively – to end the day with 10 birdies and a lone bogey on his fifth hole. He’s one ahead of Alex Noren.
9-under 6️⃣1️⃣ from @Joel_Dahmen 👏
He holds the solo lead @WyndhamChamp pic.twitter.com/QG7BjLypp9
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) July 31, 2025
With a win, Dahmen would move into the 48th spot in FedEx Cup points, which would give him a good chance of advancing to the second playoff event, the BMW Championship. But as Dahmen pointed out, he’s only done that three times in 231 starts.
Before Thursday in North Carolina, Dahmen had been in the news for other reasons. He and his best friend and long-time caddie Geno Bonnalie parted ways just two weeks ago. Ranked No.162 in the world, Dahmen has struggled this year and felt he needed to make a change. He’s missed 11 cuts and has three top-10 finishes. At one point he missed five straight cuts and six out of seven.
“Man, I love Geno,” Dahmen said Thursday after his 61 with longtime coach Rob Rashell on the bag. “We still text almost daily. He’s doing well. Yeah, I mean, I miss him but sometimes the hardest – you have to do something hard to – look, it wasn’t an easy decision. I won’t say I’m not happy about it but like it’s hard. He’s my best friend, he’s still my best friend. But I had to change something with me.
“It was more about me. It was my mentality, it was what I was doing and I need to take ownership of what I was doing. I was not doing a good job of that. So a way for me to do it is as simple as just playing golf on my own a little bit. So yeah, I love him, I miss him. I think we’ll see him out here again soon.”
