LA QUINTA, Calif. — Longtime Stanford men’s golf coach Conrad Ray called Cardinal senior Michael Thorbjornsen the physically most talented player Ray has ever coached. That’s high praise from Ray given his tenure at Stanford has seen him coach players like Maverick McNealy and Patrick Rodgers and that Ray played on the same Stanford team as Tiger Woods.
It’s a compliment Thorbjornsen doesn’t take lightly, but one he’s willing to accept.
“It’s a little shocking, but I do feel like I can hit the ball well,” Thorbjornsen said as he prepared to lead Stanford in this week’s Prestige at PGA West tournament. “When I’m on, I’m on. I can compete with anyone in the world when I am feeling good, when the body is feeling good, when it comes to ball striking.”
The 24-team Prestige college golf tournament continues through Wednesday at the Greg Norman Course at PGA West, as well as an individual tournament being played at Terra Lago Golf Resort in Indio.
The 22-year-old Thorbjornsen comes to the desert this week as the No. 4 player in the world amateur rankings, but perhaps more importantly as the No. 1 ranked player in the PGA Tour U standings. Should Thorbjornsen keep the No. 1 ranking for the rest of the spring and through the NCAA Championships, he would gain an automatic exemption to the PGA Tour, just as last year’s Prestige individual winner Ludvig Aberg of Texas Tech did. Aberg already has wins on the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour, a path Thoirbjornsen would like to follow.
“I have my own personal goals and just starting from very young junior golf, when I was 6 or 7 years old,” Thorbjornsen said. “I wanted to be the best starting at that age. Kind of at every level, I’m trying to be the best I can possibly be and so here we are toward the end of my amateur career, trying to be the best and as we head into professional golf, I’ll try to do the same as well. So I am always setting more goals, trying to reach higher levels.”
Those goals have been difficult for Thorbjornsen in the last year. A stress fracture in his back knocked him out of the U.S. Amateur last summer and kept him off the course for months. He returned to competition last month with an 11th-place finish in the Hero Dubai Desert Classic on the DP World Tour, finishing ahead of golfers like Tommy Fleetwood and Tyrell Hatton.
Ray says it is Thorbjornsen’s performance in events outside of college golf that justifies him being considered perhaps golf’s next big thing.
“If you just look at his college record, he’s battled some injuries this year, and with COVID and all of the things he’s been faced with in the college game, he’s got some room for improvement,” Ray said. “But I feel like if you look at his full amateur record, the work he’s done in U.S. Opens, he’s obviously played great during the summers, won the Western Amateur, all of those things factor into his high world amateur ranking and that backs up the case that he is the top guy.”
That record includes eight PGA Tour starts already, including a fourth-place finish in the Travelers Championship in 2022 and a tie for 17th in the John Deere Classic last summer. He also made the cut in the 2019 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.
Ray says one big change for Thorbjornsen has been PGA Tour U and the chance at a PGA Tour exemptions.
“I think it goes without saying the PGA Tour U has been a huge win for college golf, a huge win,” Ray said. “It is monumental. The reason for that is it keeps guys incentivized to go to school, play all four years, play for a great college team and be really ready to go. And I think the data supports that, too, that there is some compelling data that says if a guy finishes college, he’s going to be that much better.”
Ray says it is Thorbjornsen’s ability to drive the ball, as well as his unwillingness to tinker with his 10-finger grip, that makes him so talented.
“I think nowadays if you can drive it better than everyone, it is a weapon. With the way the courses are set up and just how much of an advantage it is to be 30 or 40 yards closer to the hole, I think he does that on a consistent basis,” Ray said. “He’s not the longest player I’ve ever coached, but he’s the highest combination of both length and accuracy. And so that’s special. You have to have some innate talent to do that at high speed. To me, that’s his biggest strength.”
As the spring season gets into full swing, it’s a balancing act to think about today and to think about the future, he said.
“You know what you are playing for, but you can’t always be thinking about that result while you are playing,” he said. “What’s ahead of you right now, in the moment, stay present. Nothing changes in your daily routine or practice routines. Just trying to keep it day by day.”