Isaiah Salinda locks up first PGA TOUR card for 2025

Isaiah Salinda has been long regarded as one of golf's rising young stars, and he has delivered on that buzz. He's headed to the PGA TOUR.

Salinda finished T24 at the Simmons Bank Open for the Snedeker Foundation, the Korn Ferry Tour Finals' second leg, to clinch his 2025 PGA TOUR card with two events remaining. The top 30 on the season-long standings after the Korn Ferry Tour Championship presented by United Leasing & Finance will earn 2025 PGA TOUR membership. Salinda ranks No. 17 on the standings and cannot be bumped from the top 30.

It's the culmination of a steady rise for Salinda, who was an accomplished junior golfer in the San Francisco Bay region and blossomed into a standout collegiate golfer at Stanford. He was a second-team All-American as a college senior in 2019, where he helped Stanford to the NCAA Division I men's golf title, and he turned pro after representing the United States at the 2019 Walker Cup.

Salinda, 27, competed on PGA TOUR Canada in 2021 and 2022 before earning Korn Ferry Tour membership for the 2023 season, where he recorded five top-25 finishes in 21 starts and placed No. 80 on the season-long standings. Entering this year, he was motivated to take the next step, which was quickly apparent as he won The Panama Championship in February in his first start of 2024, merely weeks after having his appendix removed. After some up-and-down midseason play, he found his stride in the late-summer months with four straight top-20 finishes in August to move to the verge of his first TOUR card.

Salinda's #TOURBound moment was nearly a formality at that point, and he made it official at the Korn Ferry Tour Finals' second leg in the Music City.

About Isaiah Salinda

Age: 27
Hometown: South San Francisco, California
Alma mater: Stanford University
PGA TOUR starts: 11
Cuts made: six
Best PGA TOUR finish: T7, 2023 Shriners Children's Open