While opposite field events on the PGA Tour often go under the radar, plenty of fans were left devastated for Joel Dahmen after he finished second at the Corales Puntacana Championship this past week.
It was an agonising conclusion to the week for Joel Dahmen. The 37-year-old started the final day in the Dominican Republic three shots clear of eventual winner Garrick Higgo.
Unfortunately, bogeys on each of the final three holes saw Dahmen not only miss out on a playoff, but the title altogether. The most agonising moment came when he missed an extremely short putt on the 17th hole.
Dahmen has three top 10s in 11 starts on the PGA Tour this year, while he also finished inside the top 20 at the Texas Children’s Houston Open. But he will rarely get a better opportunity to win for a second time.
Joel Dahmen praised for doing something which Rory McIlroy did not do at The Masters
Nevertheless, Dahmen spoke to the media afterwards. While his disappointment was clear to see, he still took on the responsibility of answering questions about a set of events which must have been so agonising to relive.
Of course, players snubbing media interviews has been a talking point in recent weeks. And with that, Smylie Kaufman told The Smylie Show that Dahmen deserves huge credit for his reaction to his final round.
“For Joel, I’m gutted for him that he didn’t win the golf tournament. But for Joel, I think we look at the season this past year and even coming off of the Netflix stuff, where he didn’t have his best year. But when you look at his entire career on the PGA Tour, he’s been inside the top 100 just about every single year. He’s been a player that’s made cuts, maybe not winning golf tournaments, but he’s made a lot of money, made a lot of cuts and has consistently finished inside the top 100. So to hear that he’s in the 60s, it’s like well that’s kind of what Joel Dahmen does. He’s a player that keeps his card every single year, and even on a bad year like last year for him, and still kept his card,” he said.
“Obviously gutted for Joel, but I think you’ve got to give him his flowers for this because he stood up there and spoke with the media after finishing bogey, bogey, bogey, which has been a big conversation, and seeking out Garrick Higgo and congratulating him.
“I thought he gave some really good insight which was, ‘yeah the bogey at 16, 17, 18; 18 was hard, it was playing 220, hit a good chip, missed the putt’. 17 he said, ‘I just missed the putt’, and he didn’t claim for it to be a yippee type of thing, just missed the putt. He said middle of the fairway on 16 with an eight iron, was an inexcusable bogey. But I thought he looked at the big picture really nicely, and not just looking at those three holes and finding a shot there. He said, ‘I was 16 under through two days and 14 under won the golf tournament, I’ve got to be better over those 36 holes’.”
Why Rory McIlroy and Collin Morikawa came in for criticism
The issue of players speaking to the media has been under the microscope in recent months, particularly since Justin Thomas sent an open letter to PGA Tour members encouraging them to give greater access to the press.
Of course, Rory McIlroy famously left Pinehurst almost immediately after Bryson DeChambeau holed the winning putt at the US Open last year. And it was a similar story after he made two double bogeys in four holes at the end of his first round at The Masters this month, with McIlroy storming out of Augusta National.
Collin Morikawa meanwhile, avoided speaking to the media after failing to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational. However, Morikawa really did himself no favours by insisting that he owed the media nothing, with the two-time major champion coming in for criticism.
Ultimately, the players are human, so they do deserve some understanding when they decide they are unable to answer questions after a disappointing result.
But it is also not hard to see why Dahmen is such a popular figure amongst the fans – and perhaps others should be taking note.
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