Max Greyserman earns long-awaited homecoming at Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches

Golf wasn’t in Max Greyserman’s DNA.

Greyserman’s parents Alex and Elaine, Eastern European immigrants who met in New Jersey, had a serendipitous intersection with the game. They were vacationing in South Florida and saw a flyer for free lessons from Mike Adams, a longtime instructor who taught at PGA National. A toddler Greyserman tagged along, and the seeds of a golf family were planted.

Fast forward 20-plus years, and Greyserman is back at PGA National, this time as a PGA TOUR member. The TOUR rookie will compete at this week’s Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches, contested at PGA National’s Champion course, in an adopted homecoming of sorts.

“They took me out in the stroller, and all of a sudden I got into it, and then I kept going,” Greyserman said. “(This week) is pretty special. Kind of something that I circled on my calendar … this kind of feels like home to me.”

From the stroller to now, Greyserman has seen plenty. The New Jersey native, who played collegiately at Duke, weathered early-career injuries before earning his first TOUR card via the 2023 Korn Ferry Tour standings as a seventh-year pro.

Greyserman, 28, is thoughtful and observational. While playing PGA TOUR Canada in 2018, he spent time living with Wyndham Clark in Las Vegas. Clark was playing the Korn Ferry Tour at the time; Greyserman saw Clark’s struggles with the mental game and how he worked to overcome them. This insight proved useful as Greyserman fought uneven play in his rookie Korn Ferry Tour season in 2019.

While working through a wrist injury in 2022, Greyserman briefly considered alternative career paths such as real estate. He was intrigued by Ben Griffin’s journey – the University of North Carolina alum spent time as a mortgage loan officer in summer 2021 before rededicating himself to the pro game – and Greyserman reached out to Griffin to discuss his refreshed perspective after stepping away.

Greyserman sharpened his mental edges, and improved stats followed – he ranked 123rd in scrambling (53.94%) as a Korn Ferry Tour rookie in 2019, and he progressed to 10th in the category (64.56%) in 2023, when he earned his TOUR card on the strength of 10 top-25 finishes in 24 starts.

It has paid off with a return to where it all began, PGA TOUR card in hand.

Greyserman’s parents immigrated from modern-day Ukraine, where “there were no golf courses,” he said, but his mom played tennis growing up and the family had an athletic bent. Greyserman has a sister and two younger brothers, and the growing family spent ample time in South Florida, living in a townhome adjacent to PGA National. He remembers walking to the practice facility, honing his chipping and putting skills with his sister (his brothers Dean and Reed were too young at first).

Greyserman was a natural. He first broke par at PGA National’s Fazio course (then known as the Haig) at age 9, shooting a 71. He has played that course an estimated 100 times through the years, in addition to some 50 rounds at The Champion, this week’s tournament venue. He considers New Jersey home, but Palm Beach Gardens is very much a second home, with PGA National sparking a love for golf that resonates through the family. Greyserman’s younger brother Dean plays college golf for Stanford; Reed is ranked top-100 on the AJGA and plans to play for Princeton.

Greyserman’s parents and sister will be in attendance this week, and potentially both sets of grandparents. His mom’s parents live an hour-and-a-half from PGA National and will be there, and he’s hopeful his dad’s parents will be up for the three-hour trip from Florida’s west coast. “That would be really special for me, for my grandparents to be out there,” he said.

Greyserman is proud of his family, whom he believes embodies the American dream. His parents fled from what is now Kyiv, Ukraine, as teenagers, and arrived in the United States with almost nothing. His dad now holds four degrees and spent 20-plus years as a math professor at Columbia; he also worked as a hedge fund manager and now works as a chief portfolio strategist. His mom played college tennis at Rutgers – funny enough, Greyserman also married a college tennis player, his wife Alyssa, who works as a product manager for Spotify.

Greyserman’s parents put in the work, and he has followed. Playing the PGA TOUR was never a sure thing, and doubts lingered at times, particularly amidst injury. But he persevered and has earned this week’s full-circle moment at PGA National.

“It’s inspiring to see where they came from,” Greyserman said of his parents, “and what they got to do.”

Their son is doing something pretty cool as well.