PGA Tour Pro Reveals How Age and Scar Tissue Changed Golf for Him: "Never See a Kid With..."
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“Scar tissue builds up in the game of golf,” Joel Dahmen says, and he is not referring to physical pain. He is talking about experience. The kind that accumulates after years on the PGA Tour. Missed cuts. Close calls. Sundays that slip away.
“When you know too much, you know too much of the why. I think it can clog the brain a little bit,” Dahmen added during his appearance on the Fore Play Podcast Plus alongside Fore Play Golf.
Dahmen turned professional in 2010 and got his PGA Tour card for the 2017 season. In the meantime, he had over 241 PGA Tour starts and secured his first victory at the 2021 Corales Puntacana Championship.
“As a teenager, there was no internal dialogue,” Dahmen explains. “You never see a kid with the yips. You never see kids with issues.” Dahmen’s point highlights a key change that comes with experience and age.
PGA, Golf Herren WM Phoenix Open - Second Round Feb 6, 2026 Scottsdale, Arizona, USA Joel Dahmen of the United States watches his putt on hole 11 during the second round of the WM Phoenix Open golf tournament. Scottsdale Arizona USA, EDITORIAL USE ONLY PUBLICATIONxINxGERxSUIxAUTxONLY Copyright: xAnnaxCarringtonx 20260206_jla_rl4_194
PGA, Golf Herren WM Phoenix Open - Second Round Feb 6, 2026 Scottsdale, Arizona, USA Joel Dahmen of the United States watches his putt on hole 11 during the second round of the WM Phoenix Open golf tournament. Scottsdale Arizona USA, EDITORIAL USE ONLY PUBLICATIONxINxGERxSUIxAUTxONLY Copyright: xAnnaxCarringtonx 20260206_jla_rl4_194
In fact, that freedom, Dahmen suggests, disappears with time. The longer a player stays on tour, the more numbers, memories, and expectations crowd the mind. It is here that experience stops feeling like an advantage.
When Experience Stops Feeling Like an Advantage
Dahmen even references a line widely attributed to Johnny Miller: “I was the best putter in the world at 14 because I didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to make every putt.”
“And now we have all the data,” Dahmen says. “Eight-footer, 50/50 out here on the PGA Tour. As a 12-year-old, you don’t know that. You’re just like, ‘I’m going to make this eight-footer.’”
According to PGA Tour statistics figures, the player statistics through the WM Phoenix Open (Feb 8), show that the season average for the Tour when putting 5-10 feet is 56.19%. That points out how hard short putts actually are.
For a professional golfer, that knowledge can be both a tool and a curse. The problem for Dahmen is not getting more knowledge, but figuring out how to stay laser-focused on the task at hand.
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Written by
Dolly Bhamrick
Edited by
Sagnik Bagchi