Welcome back to the Monday Finish, where we might miss a comma but never a two-foot putt. To the news…
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Facing the music.
On Sunday, Joel Dahmen kicked away a PGA Tour event, the Corales Puntacana Championship. He led after the first round. He led after the second round. He led after the third round. He even led after bogeying the 16th hole on Sunday. Then he missed a two-footer for par at No. 17 — and then bogeyed 18 to lose by one. If you’re like me, you were watching anxiously with gritted teeth and a sort of permanent wince; at the Monday Finish we appreciate that golf’s cruelty is part of its beauty but we have a tough time watching it in action.
Still, it was what Dahmen did after that left an even stronger impression: He spoke. It wasn’t a long interview, less than five minutes, but it left a strong impression, making the rounds on social media and serving as an example of why, as an athlete, the moments you most want to skip media may actually be the times you can benefit the most from talking.
I should say that I don’t think Joel was trying to “go viral” or do anything other than what he’s always done: Be honest and be himself. Still, it’s worth focusing for a moment on why people responded to this. Three quick things he accomplished:
1. People respect athletes facing the music. We’ve watched enough sports to know that, after finishing bogey-bogey-bogey, Dahmen probably wanted to crawl into a hole. The fact that he didn’t? And that he didn’t make excuses? We respect that.
“It’s not how you win a golf tournament, I’ll tell you that,” he said. “I don’t deserve to win it. Y’know, bogeying the last three is inexcusable.”
2. It also adds context to the moment. If you’re a golf fan, you want to hear what happened and there’s no better source than Dahmen himself. We already know he’s not superhuman, so pretending to be doesn’t do much good. Let’s get to the interesting stuff instead: Where, in the nerve-wracking psychological test that comes with trying to win the golf tournament, did things go sideways?
Take Dahmen’s explanation of his approach shot into No. 16 as one great example:
“We were fighting with, well, my golf swing, No. 1, for some of it, but we had a good number, we had a good plan,” he said. “We had 8-iron in there. If I could just flight it, it would come up probably just 20 feet short in the middle of the green … Tried to hit it a little harder and smashed it and pull-hooked in the wind. That’s just a nervy shot is what it is. Then you just can’t hit it left of that pin or you’re not going to get it up and down very often from over there.”
3. Most important, an honest explanation puts us in Joel’s shoes. In an alternate timeline where he says nothing and heads to the locker room? It’s an easy storyline: Joel Dahmen chokes. When he talks, though? He takes us into the tournament’s final moments alongside him.
“I don’t know what happened on the short one on 17,” he said. “I mean I’m obviously nervous, but unfortunately I’m prone to that at times. You can call it lapse in concentration. It’s not like a yippy thing, it’s not like one of those things, but — bad time to do it.”
Now instead of “how the hell did he miss that two-foot putt” I hear his explanation and flip to, “Oh, you missed a shortie under insane pressure? Yeah, man — I get it. I have missed that putt with far less on the line.” This is remarkably powerful.
So Dahmen lost the tournament and everything that comes with it. He got a consolation prize, T2, which moves him up 18 spots, to No. 59 in the FedEx Cup standings. And he gained something far less tangible: a whole bunch of people’s respect.
“This one could take a while to get over. It’s one of those things, you learn more in defeat unfortunately,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m going to learn yet. Like I said, I still think I’m in a little bit of shock. Felt like I was in a good head space. I was in a good head space but sometimes your body doesn’t cooperate.”
We learn more about someone in defeat, too, whether it’s Justin Rose at the Masters or Dahmen here. And in each case you can’t help but hope that something more satisfying than defeat is right around the corner.
Facing the music — that’s golf stuff I like.
Who won the week?
Justin Thomas broke a winless drought of nearly three years — dating back to the 2022 PGA Championship — when he took out Andrew Novak in a playoff at the RBC Heritage.
“I was nervous, but it was way different kind of nerves today. I felt very calm. I didn’t feel like I was going to win. I didn’t feel like I was going to lose. I was just playing,” Thomas said post-win. It paid off with a lengthy putt in the center of the center and a proper winner’s celebration on 18:
