Club pro who got top tour cards to keep his day job

In what may be the most unlikely story of the year, 52-year-old club pro Jason Caron recently earned a coveted 2025 PGA Tour Champions tour card after playing just nine events.

At the start of a series of two senior tour tournaments, Padraig Harrington described the PGA Tour Champions circuit as “the toughest tour to keep your card in the world,” with only the top 36 players receiving full exemption status the following year. .

On a tour that includes legends and Hall of Famers like Harrington, Vijay Singh, Bernhard Langer, Retief Goosen and others, getting into their company is a daunting task for any player. But Caron, who played on the PGA and Korn Ferry Tours in the early 2000s and has served as the club professional at New York’s Mill River Club for the past decade, achieved the unthinkable over the weekend by finishing T3 at the Simmons Bank Championship. at Arkansas, which was enough to launch him to No. 35 on the Charles Schwab Cup points list.

“I’m kind of speechless, to be honest,” Caron said after his final-round 68, which featured birdies on three of his last five holes. “I didn’t have the will — you know, it’s amazing to think that I could get here. I don’t even know what to say.

“I don’t believe it, to be honest.”

While it’s not uncommon for club pros to find their way to the PGA Tour Champions through Q-School – Caron’s Met-section Professor Rob Labritz earned his card by winning Q-School in 2021 – Caron’s rise is more impressive, because he worked his way into the playoffs event by event:

-T4 at Senior PGA Championship in May (gained entry via qualifier)
-T31 at the American Family Insurance Championship in June (entered the field as an alternate)
-MC at the US Senior Open in June (gained entry through local qualifications)
-T3 at the Rogers Charity Classic in August (entered the field as one)
-T47 at Ally Challenge in August (entered the field at the end of last week)
-T4 at Constellation Furyk & Friends (sponsor release)
-T47 in the SAS Championship (entered the field at the end of last week)
-T26 at Dominion Energy Charity Classic (first PGA Tour Champions event)
-T3 at the Simmons Bank Championship (entered the 54-man field as No. 53 on the points list)

In nine events, Caron has finished T4 or better which is amazing four times. This past weekend, he had to finish T3 or better at the Simmons Bank Championship to move from No. 53 on the points list into the top 36 — and he did, landing at No. 35. That means he’s not just entering the season finale of the PGA Tour Champions. next week’s Charles Schwab Cup Championship at Phoenix Country Club, but you also get a fully exempt 2025 PGA Tour Champions card.

But unlike his card-carrying peers, Caron says he has no intention of quitting his day job at the Mill River Club to play the tour full time.

“I’m still going to work, I’m not going to work full time and every week,” Caron said on Sunday. “I will definitely play. I don’t see why we couldn’t fix things. I know Mil River will be very happy with this.

“At work it will be easier for me now to sit down with them and I can actually tell them, like listening, I can play any event. So tell me when you will have your events and we will do it.”

Mill River’s winter shutdown will also work in Caron’s favor, opening up his program earlier in the year.

“In dreamland I think I’ll play until April, that’s fine, then we’ll go back to work,” he said. “I will be there. I will hopefully play the PGA, obviously we had a good tournament there this year. Then I mentioned it to someone else, and they said that he would probably go into senior positions. I don’t know which ones. So those are the ones I will focus on until the end of August. At the end of August my schedule is free again, so I will be able to play more. “

In Mill River, Caron works alongside his wife, Liz, a former LPGA Tour champion. The couple has two young daughters, and Caron said her family is always busy.

“Like I said at the beginning, chasing a white golf ball down the fairway is not my best thing, my kids are,” he said.

Caron’s 2024 tour ends in Phoenix next week, where there is a $1 million bonus up for grabs. But for the first time, the full program is expected in 2025.

“I can’t say that I didn’t want this to happen, but I didn’t think it would ever happen,” he said. “Obviously I mean the top 36, like this is ridiculous, it really is.”