Davis Lamb explains how he earned the final PGA Tour card

Davis Lamb can laugh about it now. A couple of weeks ago, though, he was playing one of the most nerve-racking rounds of his career, knowing a PGA Tour card was at stake.

Lamb will be a PGA Tour rookie next season after finishing 20th on the Korn Ferry Tour points list and securing the last of 20 cards. On this week’s Subpar podcast, Lamb discussed earning his card, what he is looking forward to next and the anxious finish at the Korn Ferry Tour Championship in Virginia earlier this month.

Lamb was one under in the final round when he made bogey on the 13th hole. He bounced back with a birdie on the 14th. After making par on 15, he looked at the leaderboard and saw that he was tied for 10th — a position he knew would not be enough to finish in the top 20 on the points list.

“I knew I needed at least one more [birdie]; two more would have put me in a really nice spot,” Lamb said on Subpar. “Luckily I birdied 16 and 17 and got to 18 knowing par would be an absolute lock [for my card], and I’d be really sweating with a bogey.”

On 18, Lamb thought he had cleared a fairway bunker, but when he reached his ball, he discovered a problem.

“There were like six volunteers stomping around over the bunker looking for my ball,” he said. “I’m like, you’ve got to be kidding me. There was only one step of rough between the bunker and the fairway, and the rough at this course was the worst we’d seen all year.”

They eventually found his ball, but Lamb could only hack out with a 7-iron. He then had to get up and down from 40 yards to save par.

“That whole week, I wasn’t striking it my absolute best, but I was absolutely grinding,” he said. “I just fully committed to the shot that I saw, opened the face up a little and tried to hit a little bit of a cutty one in there, and it took that dew bounce, skipped up and grabbed, and there was a lot of relief once that ball stopped rolling.”

Lamb had 2 feet, 8 inches left for par — just under a metre. He holed the putt to take solo eighth and earn the final Tour card.

He later learned that he did not actually need to make par on 18: a bogey and a tie for eighth would also have barely put him inside the top 20. Either way, the pressure-packed finish gave Lamb valuable experience.

The full interview with Davis Lamb is available on the Subpar podcast and on YouTube. This article is based on Josh Berhow’s report for GOLF.com.