Florida State golf star Luke Clanton reflects on earning PGA Tour card, strong recent play
Florida State junior Luke Clanton has continued to take the golf world by storm in recent weeks, winning two collegiate events as well as earning his PGA Tour card at the Cognizant Classic at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens.
The Cognizant Classic was Clanton’s second chance at earning his tour card after he missed the cut by just a stroke at the Waste Management Phoenix Open a few weeks prior.
Going into the second round of the Cognizant Classic, Clanton was at 4-under par and on the cut line, and an early bogey actually put him on the wrong side. However, learning from his experience at the Waste Management, he fired a 66 to make the cut.
“Definitely a little vengeance for sure,” Clanton said when he spoke to the Florida State media on Wednesday. “I was definitely a little upset after Waste. But again, like I said before, it wasn’t my time. I’m still in my faith and my belief that He always has a plan for me, and golf is just golf. It is the game of golf. We get to play every single day, but I knew that if I could go into Cognizant with the preparation I’ve done and how I’ve been playing, it’s going to be OK.
“That Friday, I woke up that morning with definitely a little more bite on the bullet for sure — to go out and get it done. To even try to give myself a chance to win the event. So it was really cool.”
Earning his card at his hometown event in South Florida just added some extra excitement for the Florida State standout.
“So my caddie after Waste, he looked at me and he said, ‘Man, we know it’s just not your time yet at Waste Management. It would’ve been cool to get it done there, especially at that event, but we didn’t even know if we were in the Cognizant yet. About a couple days later, we figured out that we were getting the Cognizant Classic, and I was like, ‘Damn, this could be a really cool moment for us because I played their growing up and everything.'”
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On the front-nine of that second round at Cognizant, after dropping a shot early, Clanton went on to birdie five of the next six holes, putting him well inside the cut line. However, he said the goal the whole time was to do even more than that.
“I was trying to win the damn event. I was trying to go out there and prove a message, man,” Clanton said. “It was so much of just making the cut. And that Friday morning, I looked at my caddie and I said, ‘We’re going to go out there and try to win this thing.’ And you know, I think if we try to go out there [just] to make the cut, it’s not going to be too good. When we made five birdies in six holes, I was like, ‘This is getting pretty good now. We can actually make a little bit of a charge.'”
Clanton ended up running into some trouble over the weekend and didn’t finish as high as he would have liked. But it was still an incredible experience and gives him even more confidence for the future.
“I’m still learning out there,” he said. “It is a little bit different coming down that stretch — the pressure you feel and the cameras on you 24/7. It’s definitely different, but it’s something that we’re learning every week, which is cool.”
Clanton now will likely play in the Valspar Invitational in Tampa next weekend as he earned an exemption by winning the Floridian Collegiate Invitational last year. Outside of that, he is fully focused on college tournaments and helping Florida State win a national championship in May.
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