PGA Tour pro Joel Dahmen’s time away from the professional circuit is coming to an end, but during the pandemic, his weekly schedule sounded a lot like many golf fans’ idea of heaven.
Dahmen, appearing on Golf.com’s Subpar podcast with Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz, explained what a week in his life looked like during the coronavirus pandemic around Phoenix where most of the world came to a halt, but not the golf industry.
Dahmen is a member at Mesa Country Club, where he recently set the course record with an insane 14-under par 58. Asked what a typical week in the life was like for him over the past three months, Dahmen gave a peek behind the curtain.
“(I’m) playing two to three times per week — never more than three,” Dahmen said. “A minimum of eight beers — I’m actually big into White Claws right now. I’ve been playing out a Mesa Country Club. So, it’s (at a) minimum lots of drinks and then probably scramble afterward, a five-on-five scramble.”
Knost, a former U.S. Public Links champion and retired PGA Tour pro, asked a follow-up question about the pace of play at Mesa, which may just be the perfect solution for the slow play problem in golf, at least at the club level.
“If you play in over four hours, you have to pay the bar tab,” Dahmen said. “We only play in sixsomes. If you play in over four hours, you get the bar tab. No one has even approached four (hours). We usually play in 3:30.”
It’s genius.
Not only do players have to suffer the ridicule of being labeled as a slow player, they also get hit in the wallet, which is even more incentive to speed up the pace.
