A Club pro on a spectacular run may get a senior tour card

Jason Caron is no stranger to Tour life.

The 52-year-old spent the early 2000s bouncing between the PGA and Korn Ferry Tours before beginning a career as a club professional in the New York Metropolitan area. Caron has been the head golfer at Mill River Club in Oyster Bay, NY for the past ten years, working with his wife, Liz – a former LPGA Tour player.

After starting their family in 2013, the Carons probably thought their touring days were behind them. But over the past five months, Jason has been on an incredible run that earned him a coveted card on the PGA Tour Champions.

It all started when Caron qualified for the 2024 Senior PGA Championship and ended up finishing T4 – the best finish by a club professional since 2002.

In June, Caron entered the American Family Insurance Championship as an alternate, finishing T31.

Next up was the US Senior Open, which Caron entered with a home draw. He missed the cut, but had a chance to make the cut again just a month later at August’s Rogers Charity Classic, where he re-entered the field as one. That week, Caron was T3 – a finish that put him straight into the Ally Challenge field for the following week, where he was T47.

In October, Caron received a sponsor’s release to play Constellation Furyk & Friends, where he cashed in again, finishing T4, and then competed in the following week’s SAS Championship, where he finished T47.

In just seven tournaments, Caron had earned enough Charles Schwab Cup points to qualify for the Charles Schwab Cup Championship playoff series, which began with last week’s Dominion Energy Charity Classic. Caron finished T26 to settle for No. 53 on the leaderboard — just high enough to enter this week’s Simmons Bank Championship, which is open to the top 54 players on the list.

With earnings of $446,734 this year, Caron’s story would be impressive if it ended here. But after shooting an opening round of seven-under 65 at Pleasant Valley Country Club in Little Rock, Ark. on Friday, Caron was just three strokes behind. If he is able to hold on to his current position in T3, Caron is expected to introduce himself from number 53 to number 35. The top 36 players in the points list at the end of this tournament do not get a medal. full exemption from the 2025 PGA Tour Champions, they also earned an entry to the Charles Schwab Cup at Phoenix Country Club in November – the only season to reward the top finisher with a $1 million bonus.

That’s sad stuff, but Caron says he can’t imagine what it could be.

“I don’t try to think too much out there, to be honest,” he said after his round. “I’m not trying to get too far ahead of myself. I know this is like — I don’t want to say it’s a free week, but I feel that way a little bit because I have nothing to lose no matter what. Almost everybody knows that he’s been watching golf for a while, I mean I have a job at Mill River, so I feel very fortunate there. This is just like a bonus. We’ll see what happens.”

With a steady job to his liking and two young daughters at home, Caron may be one of the few players in the field who isn’t feeling the pressure of securing a potential major Tour card this week.

“I already know my deal,” he said. “My deal is that I have a job and that’s number 1. I have two young girls and I want to be there to watch them grow up. These extra things here are a bonus for me.”

Depending on how things go this weekend, that bonus could be bigger than expected.