Q. You're right on the cut line right now at even. Just talk about the battle on the back nine to try and make the cut this week.
JOEL DAHMEN: Yeah, it's huge. I played well enough early in the year to get into API and THE PLAYERS and to miss both those cuts stinks, right. It's a huge opportunity in front of you, and to not play well I was pretty disappointed when I thought my game was in a pretty good place. So to come here and hard golf course, it's played tough this week, and I just didn't want to miss another cut. So I bogeyed my 11th hole, No. 2 and back back's against the wall and knew I had to make a couple coming in and thankfully I did that.
Q. You tweeted earlier about Ubering to your Monday qualifier. Can you talk more about that?
JOEL DAHMEN: Yeah, it's interesting. Look, life on the PGA TOUR is amazing. Wouldn't trade it for anything but also people probably don't see behind the scenes as much and so I got the family on the road, which is great, but it also can be difficult when you drive across the state on Sunday, get into a new place, you have to unpack, get them all ready, got to get grease Reese in the house, all those little things, thankfully my wife does most of that. But then I had a 9:30 tee time and it was about an hour away and we didn't have another car. So I didn't have time to grab another one. So it was just Uber was the best option and yeah, so it's a lot different from, you know, the steak and wine and THE PLAYERS clubhouse and an amazing week to driving to Brooksville to Monday. And I hadn't had to do that in a while, thankfully, but the game humbles you quickly but also can recenter you and ground you and, yeah, I mean I didn't play well there on Monday either, but you knew I had a good chance of getting in the field and so it was nice little reset to hit some striped range balls on not a perfect golf course and realize how lucky we are to be out here on tour.
Q. What are you most happy about with your round today?
JOEL DAHMEN: Honestly, that grind the last -- most of today I made 10 pars to start and then the grind of my last seven really stayed patient, stuck to the game plan, sometimes my mind can wander a little bit. As much as I do love my family, I didn't want another weekend with them to figure out all the, you know, that's just a lot of extra stuff. So just really happy with the grind. I made great putts on four or five of the last holes, and, yeah, I'm really happy right now.
Q. After missing out on the qualifier you said you had a, you felt like you had a pretty good chance of getting in. No courtesy cars for alternates, I guess. How did you spend those next few days until you got in on what day?
JOEL DAHMEN: Tuesday night. So I had some intel that a player might be withdrawing late. And I think Monday night I got to first alternate, so I knew I was going to be in the field. But until a person withdraws you don't get a courtesy car, which helps a lot when you have the family. But I had a sponsor outing here Tuesday morning so I did that. I practiced a little bit on Tuesday afternoon. It was kind of cold and blustery and then Wednesday came out and practiced a bit more. So it wasn't the typical week but luckily I played here seven or eight times and the course hasn't changed a ton, so it wasn't too worried about the actual on course prep, but actually got some good practice in on Wednesday and felt good for the week.
Q. How do they let you know Tuesday night, text you, phone you?
JOEL DAHMEN: It's typically a phone call. A 904 area code can be very good or very bad. Most of the time it's great, when you're expecting the 904 to come through, and luckily I have the number saved, so I knew it was what it was going to be about. And kind of a deep breath and you can settle in and recenter. We didn't get a house for the entire week so we had to move houses Wednesday morning to a place by the golf course because if I didn't get in we were going to go down to the beach and hang out for a few days with the family which also would have been great but I would much rather be here and have a weekend tee time.
Q. That sounds hard enough on your own let alone being with a group of people, family.
JOEL DAHMEN: Yeah, I mean, it's -- our three year old is great because he's starting to sleep in a big-boy bed, so we don't have to set up the crib and stuff. And Dawson's only four months so there's a lot of extra work. People are amazed at how many bags we have and what it takes but each kid takes its own big suit case. And they came out in Orlando, so this is week three for them and Houston will be week four. So it's a lot, but it's when you have an amazing wife that helps out and it's just we kind of joke when we're tired and we're a little grumpy at times it's, we're where we want to be and it's where we're supposed to be. So we just kind of stick to that motto.
Q. I have to ask you, even par, you're riding that number right now for the rest of the day, it's a hard golf course, who knows what the weather's going to do, how do you spend the rest of the day, do you pay attention, do you stay away from it, what do you do?
JOEL DAHMEN: Yeah, as I've gotten older I don't watch as much. Younger in my career I was looking at everyone on the cut line trying to figure it out. It's just exhausting. It's not like I can control what they're doing. So this afternoon's going to be great. I'm going to have a nice lunch date with the wife, kids are at day care right now so we'll pick 'em up in the afternoon. My little man wants to jump in the pool and go to a park. So I think that's my afternoon. March Madness is on, so I don't have a dog in the fight this year, but between hanging out with the family, the basketball will be on in the background.
Q. Where is the lunch place of choice today?
JOEL DAHMEN: She has chosen it, she's not told me what it is. I'm assuming it's going to be slightly on the healthier side based off of what she normally goes with. So we'll see.
Q. How critical is it to making a cut this year in your quest to earn status for 2027?
JOEL DAHMEN: Yeah, I mean, if you don't make cuts you don't get points, right. So off to a pretty good start on that end but not going to be close to getting in the field next week I'm on outside looking in, probably won't get in Valero. Going to take the Masters off again for like the 38th year. Won't get in Hilton Head. So kind of a long stretch of not playing, so it's going to be nice to have a weekend tee time and the thing about this golf course is as well at even par, if you can shoot 6-, 7-, 8-under on the weekend, which is doable if you play good golf you're way up the leaderboard at the end of the week. So a golf course like this makes it extra important to make a cut. You're not -- you could go out and play well and not move up much. If you play well on this golf course you can move up a ton.
Q. What is your current car situation?
JOEL DAHMEN: We're a little better off. We had the same SUV since Orlando, so been driving that. This is week three on big SUV with the kids and stuff, and then the courtesy car I got Wednesday morning. So that's my little hiding place for to and from the golf course where I can, you know, sit and listen to my own music instead of whatever my kids listen to these days. So he controls the radio right now, so it's nice I can listen to my own stuff.
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