Matteo Manassero's comeback now includes thoughts of PGA TOUR card

NORTH BERWICK, Scotland – When his game was in a freefall and he dropped all the way to world No. 1,805, Matteo Manassero bounced between the Alps Tour and Challenge Tour as he tried to piece his game back together.

Today, he is eligible for majors again, will play for Italy in the upcoming Paris Olympics, and is 10th in the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai Rankings – PGA TOUR Eligibility Ranking. If the season ended now, Manassero, 31, would earn a PGA TOUR card for 2025, affording him the luxury of playing the two biggest tours in the world simultaneously.

“There is such a long way to go still,” Manassero said with a laugh after shooting 63 to reach 10-under par, two behind leader Ludvig Åberg, at the Genesis Scottish Open on Friday. “But yeah, playing on both tours has been something I wanted to do since I nearly got my card for 2014-15, and it’s something I would like to do now.

“It’s an achievement that comes from an amazing season,” he continued, “and the guys that have done that step this year are doing well, so that proves a lot of things.”

Matthieu Pavon and Robert MacIntyre, each of whom got their PGA TOUR cards via the Race to Dubai Rankings, won this year’s Farmers Insurance Open and RBC Canadian Open, respectively.

Playing on the biggest stages once seemed like Manassero’s birthright. At 16, he finished T13 at the 2009 Open Championship at Turnberry, where he played the first two rounds alongside then-59-year-old Tom Watson. He made the cut at the 2010 Masters, was among the top 30 in the world, and racked up four DP World Tour victories.

Then, as quickly as he arrived, Manassero vanished, a prodigy overcome by doubt. One bad week led to the next, and soon he lost his DP World Tour status. He made big changes, he said, in 2019, and while the game was slow to come back to him, it did return. He won twice on the Challenge Tour last season, and in March broke a nearly 11-year win drought with his fifth DP World Tour victory at the Jonsson Workwear Open in South Africa.

“Lots of people were supportive,” Manassero said. “There is not that much that people outside can do. It comes from you wanting to change things and taking the decisions at the end. It’s not simple. Like, ‘Why are you playing bad?’ It’s a lot of things.”

At one point, Manassero called Francesco Molinari, the ne plus ultra of Italian golf, to ask if he had any ideas on how to cobble his game back together.

“He’s kind of a younger brother to me,” Molinari said after a second-round 69 got him to 5-under overall at The Renaissance Club. “When he came out in 2016, we spent a lot of time together, and then we sort of went separate ways. I don’t know everything he went through, but it’s incredible to see him back hitting the shots and playing like he was before all the tough times.

“There was a time when he started going downhill and he was looking for a coach, and he asked me for my advice,” Molinari continued. “He rebuilt himself on his own and needs the credit.”

(Manassero works with Søren Hansen, the Dane who coaches Nicolai and Rasmus Højgaard.)

Cleaning up some of his first-round mistakes, Manassero carded eight birdies and just one bogey at The Renaissance Club on Friday. Now he’s got a chance to win for the second time this year.

He’s also back to playing majors again. Although he missed the cut at the U.S. Open at Pinehurst last month, more importantly, it was his first major start in nearly eight years. And he’s proud that his overall body of work this season – three top-10 finishes and his win – got him into next week’s Open Championship at Troon.

He’s no longer 16, but maybe that’s a good thing.

“It's much easier to put things in perspective after you've been through more difficult times,” he said. “… I know much more about me on the golf course, and I think I can handle myself a lot better, and enjoy more the good things that come, and be a little more prepared for the future.”