Joel Dahmen breaks down in tears as wife and caddie help him save PGA Tour future
Joel Dahmen clung onto his PGA Tour card with a stunning final round 64 at The RSM Classic on Sunday.
The American is ranked 228th in the world and finished tied for 35th at the Plantation Courseꦚ - but this was arguably more meaningful than any of his six professional wins.
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Dahmen, who rose to fame on Netflix's access-all-areas documentary 'Full Swing', was fighting for his future after eight yea♕rs at the top level.
Only the top 125 in the season-long FedEx Cup standings get to keep their PGA Tour cards for the following season.
After a difficult year, Dahmen entered the week 124th, needing to hold off a field full of players trying to 🐟break into the top 125.
On Friday, Dahmen narrowly avoided disaster by making the ♛cut on the number in desperately nerve-wracking scenes.
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The 37-year-old then shot a brilliant s🐽ix-under-𒊎par round on Sunday, including a tense six-footer for par on 18, to guarantee his place on the PGA Tour in 2025.
Footage ܫcaptured the moment Dahmen found out it was official - and the golfer burst into tears while embracing his wife, Lona Skutt.
"Holy s***," Dahmen said. "We get to do it all over again n✤ext year."
Wife Lona and Dahmen's caddie, Gino Bonnalie, both became well-known figures among golf fans during the first two seasons of 'Full Swing'.
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Netflix documented the close relationship between boyhood friends Dahmen and Bonnalie, showing the financial and emotional impact of the golfer's career on everyone around him.
Speaking afterwards, Dahmen admitted the thought of how losing his card would affect his family🌌 was his biggest mo🌞tivator.
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"Our best friends, we all have kids now and it is one of the coolest things," thಞe golfer exಞplained. "We get to go to like camp every week out here 25 weeks a year.
“We rent houses together, we stay together, our kids are playing together, they're all the same age. I didn't want to miss out on that.
"As much as playing golf for a living is really cool and making a bunch of money's really cool, but this has been our life.
"We want to raise our kid out here, there's no better place. So I thought a lot about not being able to do that as much and that would stink.”
Dahmen also revealed how his wife and caddie pulled through for him wh𒊎en it ma🍷ttered most.
After a disappointing third-round 70, including a double-bogey on 17, Dahmen ꦰwas in a bad plac༒e on Saturday night.
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He said: "She [Lona] was like, are you OK?' I'm like, ‘No, I'm not OK, I want this to happen.’
"She's like, ‘Well, you can still play golf tomorrow, right? It's not over.’ And that was kind of one of those things, the switch flipped. It was about two hours after the round probably when the switch flipped for me to be able to kind of pull myself back up for today.”
On his caddie, Dahmen added: “Geno was unbelievable today. I'll be the first to say there are days that Geno's not the greatest guy in the world, and not from numbers, whatever. I love Gene to death.
"Today - this was the greatest pe♌rformance he eveꦚr put on."