Davis Lamb can laugh about it now. But that wasn’t the case a couple of weeks ago, when he was trying to get home one of the most nerve-wracking rounds of his life.
Lamb will be a PGA Tour rookie next season, and he earned his card by finishing 20th — securing the last of 20 spots — on the 2026 Korn Ferry Tour points list. He was the guest on this week’s Subpar podcast and discussed earning his card, what he’s looking forward to next and, of course, that anxiety-inducing finish at the Korn Ferry Tour Championship in Virginia earlier this month.
Lamb was one under in his final round when he bogeyed the 13th, but be bounced back to birdie 14. After he parred 15, he glanced at the leaderboard and saw he was tied for 10th, which he knew wasn’t going to be good enough to get him in the top 20.
“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 cleared a fairway bunker but when he got up to his ball he noticed there was a problem.
“There’s like six volunteers stomping around over the bunker looking for my ball,” he said. “I’m like, you gotta be kidding me. There’s like 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 he could only hack out with a 7-iron. He 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.”
He had only 2 feet, 8 inches for par, and he drained it to take solo eighth and earn that final Tour card. Oh, and one other thing: he thought he needed to par 18 to gain his card, but turns out a bogey and tie for eighth place would have barely gotten him in too. No matter, he had some extra practice with pressure-packed situations.
You can listen to the entire interview with Lamb here, or watch on YouTube below.
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