Dalton Ward's mindset shift powers climb to PGA TOUR status

Dalton Ward has a simple explanation for the year-to-year difference for him as he continues to chase status on the PGA TOUR for the first time.

For 2024, he was going to prepare for every moment as if it was a big one.

“Whether I was going out to play with my buddies or going to the gym or even going to eat breakfast,” Ward explained, “and it may seem complicated, but I just tried to prepare myself for a bigger moment no matter what it was.”

Ward missed 13 of 19 cuts on the Korn Ferry Tour last year, including five of his final six, to end up 135th on the Points List. He also missed out at First Stage of PGA TOUR Q-School presented by Korn Ferry. He had no status for the Korn Ferry Tour this year, but got through the Monday Qualifier for the 117 Visa Argentina Open presented by Macro and would go on to finish tied for third – essentially locking up playing opportunities for the balance of the season.

“I missed out on First Stage and that really sucked,” Ward said. “What I did differently though is just prepared myself to be ready for the moment when I got the opportunity. Went into Argentina with no status but I was ready when I got there. It wasn’t like, ‘Yeah, let’s get there and see how it goes and get ready for the next week.’ It was more of a mindset to be ready whenever I got an opportunity – and it worked.”

Ward notched another third-place finish at the AdventHealth Championship and another top-10 at the BMW Charity Pro-Am presented by TD SYNNEX. It now, of course, makes complete sense when he says his 2024 goals have pivoted at the halfway mark of the Korn Ferry Tour season.

Most guys, when the calendar turned, just want to make it to the PGA TOUR and stay on the PGA TOUR, Ward says of his Korn Ferry Tour contemporaries. For Ward, he had just one goal for his trip to Argentina – to win. When that didn’t happen, he knew how many points he would have to get for temporary status, and he did that just about a month later. The weekly goals, he said, are what keeps the fire burning. He’s still playing, now, like each week is make-or-break. Ward has the mindset of if he doesn’t finish inside the top 25 in a particular week then he doesn’t get into the next tournament.

There have been some missed cuts along the way, but when he finds the weekend, the results have been solid enough that he keeps padding the points.

“That (mindset) was kind of working for me,” Ward said. “It all happened pretty quickly. I got into the top 30 (on the Korn Ferry Tour Points List) and now the mindset has changed. I’m trying not to think too ahead of myself, but the goal is to stay inside the top 30.”

Ward sits ninth on the Korn Ferry Tour in scoring average, with closing rounds of 64 on two occasions, and a 62 at the Visit Knoxville Open. He shot a 59 in 2021 at a Forme Tour event, too. He said playing on the Korn Ferry Tour teaches you to go low and sitting on cruise control through rounds is just not something you can do. Thankfully that’s not in Ward’s nature.

“When I get it going my way one thing is that I’m definitely not afraid to shoot low numbers,” Ward said. “You just try to get one more (birdie) and you just never try to stop. You don’t want the round to end. Whereas in the past you might get to 5- or 6-under and you try to hold on to that; that’s something I don’t like to do. Once I get low, I want to take it even lower.”

Ward has played a handful of events on the PGA TOUR in his career, starting in 2015 at the Wyndham Championship, but this is the closest he’s been to earning a TOUR card. He was a bit of a late bloomer, not taking up golf until he was about 13, but got “pretty decent” quickly. He admits he wasn’t a standout junior but knew as a teenager playing pro golf was what he wanted to do. Ward walked onto his college team, got better every year, and in 2017 he moved to Sea Island, Georgia – the long-known hotbed for TOUR stars and stars-in-waiting.

“Moving to Sea Island – I just thought that would be my best opportunity to get a lot better at things and learn to be a professional,” Ward said. “I like to pick a lot of people’s brains who have been successful. Been fortunate enough to play a lot with Harris English, Brian Harman, Patton Kizzire – guys that have won on TOUR and been very successful. There’s just not one recipe for how they all prepare. It’s all different. But it’s nice to see all that, and piece it all together for me.”

Ward has certainly been putting his own pieces together well this year with a mindset shift to the ultimate in preparedness. He’s been seizing plenty of moments so far, and he’s now inching closer to completing the puzzle.