Editor’s Note—Danny Walker, 30, must finish the FedEx Cup fall season in the top 100 on the points list in order to keep his PGA Tour card for 2026. He ranks 86th after a T-3 finish at last week’s Sanderson Farms Championship. He is in the field at this week’s Baycurrent Championship in Japan.
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Neither my dad nor grandad were serious golfers, but they gave me a club to mess around with in the yard when I was 4. It quickly became my favorite thing. I loved baseball and the team aspect, but it was a lot of waiting. In golf, the ball is always yours.
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Tiger was my hero. I read that Tiger stopped playing other sports when he was 12, so I stopped playing other sports and committed to golf when I was 12. I wasn’t very competitive with the top guys, but it didn’t bother me. Those kids were practicing year-round with coaches hovering over them. I figured I’d get better the more I played. I started working with Ian Segneri and competing in AJGA invitationals.
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My parents supported my dream of becoming a pro golfer but wanted me to have a backup plan. I’d always been interested in the enormity and mystery of space. Maybe I’d become a physics major and work for NASA? But when I got to the University of Virginia, I realized taking physics on the road would be too much. I earned my degree in economics.
Andrew Wevers
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My game would be good one week, but the next I’d be struggling to break 80. I started working with Brian Mogg. He taught me how the setup truly functions. Whenever my swing fell offtrack, I’d go back to the fundamentals of address. My senior year, I had my best collegiate finish—second place—with a 64 in the final round. That March, I played PGA Tour Americas Q school and earned some starts in Canada for the upcoming season.
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I didn’t have any sponsors. As a graduation gift, my parents gave me $10,000. I didn’t feel financial pressure because it was so exciting to be out there. Looking back, I know how tight it really was. By Korn Ferry Q school finals in the fall, I’d already earned starts for the following season and told myself, This is a freebie. Just go out and freewheel it. I won and got full Korn Ferry Tour status for 2019.
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The depth on Korn Ferry is like taking the top 25 playing PGA Tour Americas, and now there are 150 of those guys. I had flashes of good play but struggled with my driver. I lost my card and only had five starts over the next two years. That left me a lot of time to reflect on what I was doing as my bank account evaporated. Why was I putting so much time into a game that I wasn’t getting a lot out of? It’s not like being a pro golfer was helping anyone or making the world a better place.
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In 2021, I missed second stage at Korn Ferry Q school by a couple of shots. I didn’t touch a club for months. Working as a waiter, I took prerequisites for astrophysics classes at the University of North Florida. Maybe I could be on the frontier of human understanding and help find answers to some of our deepest questions about who we are and where we come from and help folks understand how special what we have here is.
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It didn’t last. My existence felt inauthentic. Only being a golfer made me feel like myself. I realized I didn’t need to know what the next five or 10 years were going to look like. Paths could open that I didn’t see. It’s OK to do something just because you love it. I didn’t need to further justify why I play golf.
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When I started hitting balls again, my swing felt surprisingly good. At the start of 2022, I didn’t have status anywhere. I won the second mini-tour event I played. I went to PGA Tour Americas Q school and got in. Then I won in Canada. I kept moving up and was on Korn Ferry full-time in 2024. I had a good second half of the season and snuck into the top 30 to earn my PGA Tour card for 2025. I felt relief and a lot of excitement and emotion. My parents were there with me. It was one of the most gratifying days of my life.
Wyndham Clark, Jordan Spieth and Danny Walker walk the 10th fairway during the first round of the 2025 Players Championship.
Jared C. Tilton
All of us in Jacksonville have the Players circled on our calendars. When I finished 13th in Mexico, I knew I had a shot. I was the first alternate. I was on-site and in the locker room when I got the call: Jason Day had dropped out, and I was in. I’d be playing with Jordan Spieth and Wyndham Clark in 90 minutes. I almost didn’t believe it. I went to my car and meditated. I might’ve cried.
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I made the cut—barely. Then Saturday and Sunday were the best I’ve ever hit a golf ball. I played so freely because it was a bonus just to be there. I rode that feeling and finished T-6 to win $843,750. Eighteen months earlier, I’d been virtually broke.
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I know I’m in an awesome part of my life. I’m going to work hard and appreciate it as much as I can while not letting the results sway me too much. I will enjoy this before it’s gone. —With Keely Levins
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
