Not many players have hit professional golf recently with higher expectations than Braden Thornberry. The 2017 NCAA men’s individual champion and former world’s No. 1 amateur left Ole Miss a semester early in late 2018 to begin his career. By advancing to the Final Stage of the Web.com Tour Q-School, Thornberry earned membership on the Tour, but fell short of any level of guaranteed status. So for the first few months of 2019, Thornberry has scraped his way into tournaments any way he can: Monday qualifiers, sponsors’ invites, anything. After finishing T52 at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in January, Thornberry has missed a handful of cuts in starts on the Web.com Tour and the PGA Tour Latinoamérica, although his statistics are overwhelmingly positive. His next start will be in Tennessee at the Nashville Golf Open from May 2-5.
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LYING FOUR: It hadn’t occurred to me until recently that it’s only been four months since you turned pro. For some reason it feels longer than that.
BRADEN THORNBERRY: It seems longer than that to me too, just since I’ve played so much already and spent basically every week on the road. College feels longer ago than it was.
LYING FOUR: Is it harder out there than you thought it’d be?
BRADEN THORNBERRY: Yes and no. I think the PGA Tour itself — you know, I played some events as an amateur, so it wasn’t necessarily any harder. I think with those guys, you kind of know what you’re expecting: if you play well, you beat them, and if you don’t, they beat you. Some of the other events I’ve played — I played a Latin America event down in Panama — that kind of surprised me, how similar the strengths of fields are. You wouldn’t think it would be, but if you don’t play well, then you’re getting beat by all those guys too.
LYING FOUR: What’s it like going from college, where you’re one of the very best guys at every time you go out, to going out now to events where everybody is that good?
BRADEN THORNBERRY: It’s tricky. In most sports — you know, like Zion, he’s gonna sign a contract for $30 million and have place to play, all that stuff. Golf’s not like that. If you’re not even an All-American, or if you’re the No. 1 am coming out of college, you may get a couple of opportunities here or there, but for the most part you’re completely even, and you’ve both got to earn your ways again. The college resume’ only does so much for you. At the same time, you have to tell yourself that you were one of the best college players for a reason, and a lot of these guys weren’t one of the best college players when they were in college. You just trust that they’ll keep doing what they’re doing, and you’ll keep getting better, and eventually you’ll pass them like you did in college.
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LYING FOUR: I was looking at your stats on the Web Tour’s website, and I know they don’t keep up with every shot perfectly, but the stats they do have look really good. Off the tee, your accuracy is obscene; you’re hitting a ton of greens, and your putting average is really good. What’re you working on right now?
BRADEN THORNBERRY: Honestly, the thing I’ve improved on the most is my driving accuracy. I was probably a 50-percent guy for a lot of college. That was kind of the weakness of my game. Lately I’ve been up around 70, 75 percent, which is a huge improvement, especially on some of those golf courses that the PGA Tour plays. As far as what I’m working on right now, I honestly feel really good with my game. There’s not a whole lot of glaring weaknesses or holes right now. It’s just kind of dealing with that pressure. When you first turn pro, you have to really take advantage of opportunities, and I’m still trying to get used to that pressure a little bit. I’m playing a Web in two weeks in Nashville, and that’s my only guaranteed start of the year right now. I think I’ll get some more later in the year, but in my mind, that’s the only one that I have for sure right now. It’s a different aspect of pressure — compared to college, where if you go finish last in your first event, you still have the same number of events as if you’d won your first event. It’s a little bit different feeling, knowing that how you play in a certain week affects the rest of your year. It’s definitely something that I’m trying to get used to and get better at.
LYING FOUR: When you compare an event like Nashville to when you played in the FedEx a couple of summer ago, is the pressure the big difference? Because two years ago at FedEx, if you shot 59 or 109, you were still going back to school afterward.
BRADEN THORNBERRY: Yeah, it was definitely a little bit different pressure. Now, when you’re a pro and you had a good college career, everybody expects you to come out and play really well; and then kind of the opposite — and it really shouldn’t be this way — but it’s the opposite when you’re an amateur: everybody expects you to get last because you’re playing a bunch of pros. That’s a little bit wrong, since I’m the same golfer that I was then. For me, lately, I’ve been putting really well — I’m just not making everything. Two years ago, I was having the best six months with my putter that you can possibly have. I was making everything I looked at. I’m trying to stay patient and let that come back, because I’m hitting the ball better than I was back then. I know the upside to my game is even higher than it was then. I just have to wait for that hot streak to come back, and I know it will pretty soon.
LYING FOUR: Are you a big stats guy and into TrackMan, or are you more of a feel player?
BRADEN THORNBERRY: I got a TrackMan the other day. I’m not one of those guys who looks into club path and attack angle and all that. There’s just a couple numbers that I look at: spin rate, to make sure everything is right, and I use it mostly just for carry. I warm up with it and hit full 9-irons to make sure they’re going what they’re supposed to be. If it’s going straight at my target and the height and distance I want, then there’s not really any other numbers I’m concerned with. As far as stats, I’m a stats guy maybe over a course of two or three months, but it’s tough to look at — like those Web stats you were looking at, it’s tough to put a lot of stock in those, because you might play a course where the fairways are really firm and tight, or you might play a course where the fairways are really wide and the driving accuracy stuff is a little skewed. I think there’s definitely some validity to it over maybe an eight-tournament span, where you can see how you’ve handled a lot more shots than just a couple of tee shots here and there.
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LYING FOUR: How does life as a Tour pro compare to what you were expecting? Is it lonely out there? Exhausting?
BRADEN THORNBERRY: I haven't had a great taste of it, because I haven’t had a consistent schedule. That’ll be easier than what I’m doing now. What I’m doing now is waiting on the call from different tournament directors to see which week I’m gonna be in, and doing Monday qualifiers and stuff. As far as lonely, it’s really not too bad, because sometimes you have a caddie with you, and my girlfriend goes with me sometimes. You have a lot of friends from college who are out doing the same thing. I don’t think it’s necessarily lonely, but it’s definitely a different vibe, because in college, you have at least four or five of your teammates, coaches, a lot of parents following around — it’s kind of a group traveling around. Now it’s just me and my girlfriend, or me and my dad, that kind of thing. It’s different, but it’s something that I think I’ll have to adjust to. My grandpa and I were talking the other day, and he said, “When you got to college, you struggled a little bit, and your scoring average went up a little bit.” I think now it’s the same thing since I turned pro — I’m shooting 72 instead of 69, just because there’s just a little bit of that discomfort and not really knowing what to expect, and I’ve never seen a lot of the golf courses. I think it’s a lot less to do with my golf game and more just adjusting to travel and the stuff that comes with it.
LYING FOUR: You mentioned Monday qualifiers. What’s the vibe out there? That’s got to be the most hellish four or five hours of your life.
BRADEN THORNBERRY: It depends on how you’re playing. I’ve probably played seven this year. I shot 63 in one of them and breezed through by a couple of shots, and that one was really fun, obviously — you’re on 15, you’re seven or eight under, and you’re like, “Wow, this is a really cool feeling, I’m probably gonna be in a Web event this week.” That’s a really cool feeling. But the one in Montgomery, I went out there and hit 17 greens and shot 1-under, which is really frustrating. I was giving myself a lot of opportunities, hitting it to 20 feet all day, and it just wasn’t my day to make those. Those Monday qualifiers when it’s 130 guys for four or six guys, you pretty much have to have a good day with a putter, and that’s a tough thing to control.
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LYING FOUR: What’s your plan the rest of the year? I know you’re waiting on some sponsor exemptions, but what’s your plan for moving into the 2020 season?
BRADEN THORNBERRY: It kind of comes down to whether I can play well enough in a Web event, whether it’s Mondaying in next week or going to Nashville. If I have a solid week — and I’d say a solid week would be a top-15 kind of thing — well, top 25 automatically gets you into the next week, and that would help. But if I finish top 15, top 10, somewhere in there, that’ll make me enough money and points to reshuffle up and play a lot more on the Web. My goal still is to reshuffle into the Web schedule and earn my Tour card that way. That would be Plan A. Another plan is to get some more PGA Tour exemptions and do what Joaquín Niemann did — you can play really well and earn status on the PGA Tour directly. A more realistic goal would be to earn top 200, which would get me to the Web.com Finals, and you can get your PGA Tour card that way too. So there’s a couple of different routes. Plan A would be, like I said, getting into the Web and finishing top 25, and if that doesn’t work, hopefully getting some PGA events and playing well out there. I feel like my game is in a good spot, so I’m trying not to look too far ahead — just play good golf when it’s in front of me. Hopefully one of those two will work out.
LYING FOUR: It seems like the Web Tour is just stacked right now. Do you ever have to shake your head at how this is the moment when you stepped out onto that Tour, at a time where there are so many really good players?
BRADEN THORNBERRY: There really are. Golf has probably 50 guys that have really separated themselves and are the best 50 guys in the world, and after that, a lot of the — I don’t want to say “lower-end” PGA Tour guys, because all those guys are unbelievable at golf — but kind of the bottom half of the PGA Tour and the Web guys, there’s just hundreds and hundreds of guys that are really good at golf. They’re all kind of waiting on that certain break. You always hear about that guy who’s 35 years old, and it’s his first year on the PGA Tour and he wins, or something like that. That’s the thing with the Web — it’s just so deep. Every week there’s, say, 156 guys, and there’s no Jason Days or Dustin Johnsons, but they’re just really solid players. There’s obviously guys like Sam Burns and Cameron Champ who are going to be the Jason Days of the world. I really don’t know that it’s that much easier to go out and play on the Web than the PGA. I think good golf translates on pretty much every Tour that I’ve seen. Some people have the mindset of, “Oh, just go to the Web and finish top 5, it’s not that hard and those players aren’t that good,” but they really are. You have to treat them the same way that you would at a PGA Tour event.
LYING FOUR: Have there been any moments since December when you second-guessed yourself, or are you still sure that turning pro when you did was the right decision?
BRADEN THORNBERRY: I totally think turning pro was the right decision. Being a member of the Web.com, when I go to Nashville, I don’t have to win or finish third or anything like that. If I play solid, that can get me in the rest of the year. I have some good friends — I’m good friends with Davis Riley and Will Zalatoris, and they’re in a similar position to me, but they don’t have Web.com status, so they’re not members of the Tour. Like Davis, he’s Mondayed into a couple this year, and if he doesn’t really play well he’s not going to earn membership. It almost doesn’t do anything for him, which is a tough spot. I think that having Web status is a very underrated thing because that opportunity is always there: you can go out and play well, and play the whole rest of the year. There’s like 20 events left, so that’s plenty of time to go do some damage.
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Photos credit: Ole Miss Athletics