Georgia head coach Chris Haack knows PGA Tour talent when he sees it.
Or so he thought.
The legendary Bulldog has seemingly deployed an army to the PGA Tour over the decades, including nearly a dozen winners, major champions among them. But until last Sunday, Haack’s disciples who’d arrived in the big leagues had always done so with at least one All-America placard hanging on their wall.
The man who just bucked that trend is Will Chandler.
Chandler didn’t even sniff All-America honors in five years buried on Georgia’s depth chart, and yet the 27-year-old Atlanta native shocked the world – nowhere more than Athens, Georgia – by earning his PGA Tour card on Sunday at the final stage of PGA Tour Q-School, where he was one of six graduates to advance through the grueling qualifying tournament.
“He’s the most unlikely guy I’ve ever had make it to the Tour,” Haack said. “There’s no doubt about it.”
That said, Haack wasn’t totally surprised, adding of Chandler: “Probably also one of the hardest workers I’ve ever had.”
Haack’s phone is filled with photos taken by others of Chandler in the wild – or, in Chandler’s case, on a driving range somewhere. Haack recalls one summer while Chandler was still on the team, a buddy was playing Cherokee Country Club, Chandler’s home course, and on the way to the first tee, he spotted Chandler on the far side of the range, beating balls, and snapped a picture to text Haack.
When the group putted out on No. 18 some four hours later, Haack got another text.
Chandler hadn’t moved.
The fact that Chandler got so little out of that dedication in college dumbfounded those around him, especially Haack, who would often wonder what happened to that athletic recruit with great hands who won multiple times on the AJGA. Chandler qualified for 20 college tournaments, most as an individual, and finished in the bottom third of the field in 13 of those. He beat just 28% of his competition, too.
And his only two career top-10s came in individual events in Puerto Rico.
“I was not very good, to be honest,” Chandler said. “And playing as bad as I did, there were a lot of times where I’d get discouraged. But I also never lost my love for the game.”
Chandler turned pro in 2021, the same summer as Georgia stars Davis Thompson and Spencer Ralston, but instead of heading to the Korn Ferry Tour or PGA Tour Canada like those guys, Chandler was consigned to the mini-tours, mainly the GPro Tour, where he’d earn just enough cash to keep going. Chandler earned full status in Canada two summers ago, only to miss five of nine cuts and then fail to get out of first stage later that year.
But at the start of this year, Haack’s phone started buzzing again. This time it was rumblings that Chandler had been taking everybody’s money in games around St. Simons Island, Georgia, where Chandler lives.
Not long after that, Chandler went on a run, Monday-qualifying for four Korn Ferry Tour events, the first coming in April at the Veritex Bank Championship. He turned that success into 10 starts, including a T-2 at The Ascendant in July, and conditional KFT status for next year via his No. 85 finish in points.
Chandler arrived at final stage last week in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, having finally mastered, with help from new instructor Mike Lipnick and sports psychologist Dr. Mo Pickens, a work-smarter-not-harder approach. When he bogeyed his final hole on Saturday at Sawgrass Country Club, still shooting 3-under 67 but leaving himself three shots outside of the top five and ties, Chandler quickly headed across the street to TPC Sawgrass, where he’d play the Dye’s Valley Course for Sunday’s final round, to stroke a few putts and get readjusted to the green speeds.
That explains a perplexed Chandler that next morning, as he couldn’t get anything to drop on the front nine, which he played in 1 over and without a birdie, his PGA Tour hopes all but dashed for yet another year.
Or so he thought.
“I changed balls at the turn and started holing everything,” said Chandler, who rattled off three birdies in a six-hole stretch before hitting 4-iron to 60 feet at the par-5 16th hole and draining the emphatic eagle putt that launched him back into the hunt.
“I didn’t even know I was really in contention until I made eagle,” Chandler added.
Later that evening, Chandler was still in shock as PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan handed him his physical card, marking Chandler as one of 10 Georgia alums who will have full-time status next season. Ever since those twilight rounds as a kid, where he and his dad, Ricky, would speed around Cherokee, often playing matches against each other, Chandler had dreamed of this moment. But he admits, “It just seemed so far away – it seemed so far away even like a month or two ago.”
Chandler is now proof that any ‘Dawg can, in fact, have his day.
“You always just thought to yourself, man, that poor guy, he just works so hard at it,” Haack said. “But golf is funny, and sometimes it just clicks, and something happens, and you have that magical moment on the back nine like he did, and next thing you know you’ve got your PGA Tour card.”
For once, Haack is happy to be wrong.
