LA QUINTA, Cali. — One week ago, 18-year-old Caleb Surratt was just chilling out at the University of Tennessee where he is a freshman on the Vols’ golf team when his phone buzzed.
It was an invitation to play in The American Express golf tournament as a sponsor’s exemption. He was caught off guard, because, unlike other events where he had lobbied to be invited, he didn’t do that with The American Express.
“Yeah, it was unexpected for sure, and an hour later I was making flight arrangements to get out here,” said Surratt after his round Friday. He’s the youngest player at this event and the only amateur in the pro field. He is at 4-under midway through the tournament after shooting a bogey-free 3-under 69 on Friday at the Stadium Course at PGA West in La Quinta.
AMEX: Saturday tee times
This marks the second time he’s played in a PGA Tour event after also competing in the Butterfield Bermuda Championship in October.
But this week has been pretty special for Surratt. He arrived Sunday, played a practice round with Will Zalatoris on Monday and Tuesday, and a practice round with fourth-ranked Jon Rahm on Wednesday. So he went from not being in the event last Saturday to tooling around the course with one of the world’s best players four days later.
“Obviously, it’s an awesome opportunity. I feel like my good golf can compete with these guys. But it definitely is a bit of a learning curve, and I’m definitely learning some things out here from these guys,” Surratt said. “It’s the mental aspect and consistency that a guy like Rahm has that’s impressive. He won his last event, he might win this one and he’ll probably be in contention at his next one. It’s impressive.”
Though only 18, Surratt has been in some pretty pressure-packed situations already. He was one of six players representing the United States on the junior Ryder Cup team and he finished second at the 2022 U.S. Junior Amateur.
Surratt said he hasn’t felt overmatched in Bermuda in October or this week in La Quinta, even playing against the best pros. He has confidence in his game, which features the ability to hit some long drives, evidenced by his 332-yard beauty that led to a finishing birdie on the 18th hole Friday.
“I’m not trying to limit myself by saying I’m just out here to have fun, ya know. I’m not trying to be scared of anybody out here. Obviously, there are great players in amateur golf, too, but out here there is a difference, of course,” he said. “And that difference is if you play bad out here you are going to get beat, and if you play decent you’re going to get beat. These guys are playing great golf every single week.”
Surratt shot a 71 on Thursday and a 69 on Friday, which are relatively uneventful scores compared to the almost unprecedented event he had in his first PGA go-round in Bermuda.
In Bermuda, he shot a 71 the first day and then birdied the final three holes in a sizzling 64 in the second round to make the cut by one stroke. He followed his 64 with, get this, an 85 that included a 12 on one hole where he went out-of-bounds four times and actually chipped in to save octuple bogey. Showing his mettle, he then followed the 85 with an impressive 65 on Sunday. That’s right, 71-64-85-65. That’s something you don’t see too often.
In fact, according to golf statistician Justin Ray, the 21-shot swing between his second round and third round was the largest by a player in a PGA Tour event since John Daly went 63-86 at the 2012 Shriners Children’s Open. On the positive side, he became the first teenager to have two rounds of 65 or lower in a PGA Tour event since Joaquin Niemann in 2018.
“Yeah, that 12 was …. unfortunate. I hit four balls out of bounds and three of them weren’t bad shots. They went right over the pin, but other than that, which was pretty demoralizing, it was a pretty good week,” he said. “I learned a lot there and it was nice to play well on Sunday.”
If Surratt is going to play on Sunday this week, he’ll need an excellent round at La Quinta Country Club on Saturday, which is certainly possible. He finished Friday in a tie for 88th place in the 156-player field and needs to be among the top 65 to make the cut.
Even though his mindset is that he belongs in events like this, he did take some time on Friday to stop for a second to just kind of take in the moment and realize that his life is pretty cool.
“Obviously, I want to go out there and play great, but there were a couple of times, like walking up 17 today (the famous island green) and it was like, this is — hopefully not for me — but for a lot of people this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. So it was definitely cool to acknowledge that. It was I guess, kind of peaceful.”
Shad Powers is a columnist for The Desert Sun. Reach him at shad.powers@desertsun.com.