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Worth the Wait

by Helen Ross

Most PGA Tour fans probably know Joel Dahmen as the guy who wears that white bucket hat. If they know him at all, that is.

You see, guys like Dahmen, who is midway through his fifth season on Tour, can get lost in the shuffle in a game where the spotlight shines so brightly on the Rory McIlroys and Dustin Johnsons and Bryson DeChambeaus of the world.

And that’s a shame. Because there’s so many reasons to cheer for the affable 33-year-old from the Pacific Northwest who won his first PGA Tour event on the last Sunday in March at the Corales Puntacana Club & Resort Championship.

Dahmen, who learned the game from his dad, Ed, wasn’t an All-American in college. In fact, he dropped out after a year at the University of Washington, in which he says he partied too much and skipped too many classes. Dahmen now admits to being a “pretty lost kid there for a couple of years.”

The lack of direction was understandable, though. When he was 17, Dahmen lost his mother, Jolyn, whom he calls his best friend—the schoolteacher who drove him to Tournaments in the summer and sometimes caddied for him—to pancreatic cancer. And four years after their mom died, his brother Zach was diagnosed with testicular cancer, although this time, the treatment was a success.

Dahmen was 23 when he also found a lump in his scrotum—the same thing that had prompted his brother to go get checked. He says he was in denial for days but finally went to see the doctor two weeks later. Before the examination began, Dahmen told him that he had testicular cancer.

The doctor “kind of laughed at me,” Dahmen recalls, but it turns out he was right. Adding to his anxiety, Dahmen had no health insurance, but a sponsor paid for the treatment that included surgery to remove his testicle and several weeks of chemotherapy.

Dahmen came back more determined than ever to play golf.

“It was important to get it removed to have the chemo and just get healthy again to where they said I was going to be OK,” Dahmen told me in 2019. “And I truly believe that. I think there’s two stories: There is ‘the doctor tells you,’ but then truly believing in yourself.

“So, my motivation was to just get healthy and to play golf again for sure.”

But Dahmen, who wears the MD Anderson strikethrough cancer logo on his trademark bucket hat and

Photo courtesy of Getty Images

serves as their ambassador, was hardly an instant success. He came up through the ranks, playing the MacKenzie Tour-PGA Tour Canada and Korn Ferry Tour before finally getting his Tour card.

Now that he has playing privileges on golf’s biggest stage, though, Dahman has proven he had staying power. In five seasons competing against the likes of McIlroy and Johnson and DeChambeau, among others, he has managed to make more than $6 million.

But he came to the Dominican Republic having missed an uncharacteristic six cuts in his last seven starts, and he knew he needed to clear his head. So, he spent the previous weekend at a friend’s bachelor party in Las Vegas where he relaxed, played golf with his buddies and hit the reset button.

“I just was totally checked out from the whole thing, so when I showed up in Puntacana on Monday, it was kind of a fresh start for me,” Dahmen said. “Very relaxed feel down there obviously, kind of the island life, and the Dominican was a blast. My wife was there and you just kind of see the blue ocean waves, you eat some good food and you hang out. It was a good full reset for me.”

When it was time to get back to his job, though, Dahmen was ready. He trailed by a stroke each of the first two rounds, then was tied for the lead with local favorite Rafael Campos, who is from Puerto Rico, heading into the final 18 holes. He ended up winning by one in what was his 111th start on Tour.

His caddie, Geno Bonnalie, the childhood friend who officiated Dahmen’s wedding, wrapped his arms around his boss and dissolved in tears. Dahmen’s wife, Lona, the woman who once managed a clothing store by day and worked as a cocktail waitress at night to support the couple, soon made it a jubilant group hug.

“She gave up her dreams to fulfill my dreams and help me out,” Dahmen said. “There was some lean times, for sure, but she believed in me. I don’t know if our dreams were ever this big, per se. Making it five years on Tour, getting a first win—just, it’s pretty special.

“And for Geno, I mean, two dudes growing up together who were golf dorks (and) somehow winning on the PGA Tour. I planned the celebration so many times in my head, it didn’t quite go as I expected. I couldn’t believe he was crying, I thought he’d be the tough guy, but he’s put in a lot of time and effort and he’s believed in me when no one else did.

“I’m so lucky, he cares more about me than any golf shot I’ll ever hit. Just to be able to do that together was pretty darn cool.”

And well worth the wait. PL

Helen Ross is a freelance golf writer who spent 20 years working for the PGA Tour and 18 more at the Greensboro News & Record. A UNC-Chapel Hill graduate, she has won multiple awards from the Golf Writers Association of America.

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