Two years ago, with the sun setting on the Copperhead Course, Peter Malnati was overcome with emotion. It had been 3,058 days since Malnati had won on the PGA Tour at the 2015 Sanderson Farms, and he had just survived a packed leaderboard on a brute of a course to win the Valspar Championship and claim the security and confidence that come with a trophy.
After his final putt dropped, Malnati’s tears flowed as he described the trials and tribulations an everyman PGA Tour player faces as they try to cobble together a career, give their family financial stability and stay afloat in a time of untold talent at golf’s top level.
“You wonder if you are ever going to do it again,” Malnati said while holding his son that day in Tampa. “It’s hard. In the nine years since my last win, it has gotten a lot harder. … You just wonder.
“Life is hard. It’s obviously glamorous at times like this and it’s absolutely my dream job and it’s amazing. But life is really, really hard too when you’re trying to figure out how to live this lifestyle and have two kids and be everything that you want to be. It’s really hard.”
That emotional win came with a two-year exemption — the job security that let Malnati, a usual FedEx Cup bubble boy, exhale, knowing he still had his “dream job” for a while longer. That exemption ends this year, and Malnati’s results have left him scratching and clawing to hold on to it this fall. He made just 11 of 23 cuts this season. His best finish was a T19 at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson. He finished 169th in the FedEx Cup standings, meaning he entered the fall needing to play the type of golf he hadn’t played since his magical win at Valspar to jump inside the top 100 and retain full playing privileges.
Malnati went T17-CUT-T25-CUT across his first four FedEx Cup Fall events, putting him at 157 entering this week’s World Wide Technology Championship at El Cardonal at Diamante in Los Cabos. With just three events left, the 39-year-old Malnati needed to conjure something to keep his dream alive.
In golf, one round, one swing or one tournament can change everything. Naturally, with his back against the wall, Peter Malnati fired an opening round 66 and backed it up with an 8-under 64 on Friday to head into the weekend in second place, one shot back of leader Ben James.
Just like that, Malnati, the floppy-hat-wearing, yellow-ball-playing grinder, has his dream job within his grasp.
“The pressure I’m feeling is that I love my job. This is what I strived for,” Malnati said on Friday after his round about playing for his job. “I’m feeling a lot of pressure in that I’m not ready to be done doing that yet. It feels like the game, because there are so many really talented young players, and the PGA Tour is working so hard to ensure that the best players from wherever they are in the world end up playing here, like if you fall off the PGA Tour, it might not be easy to get back on the PGA Tour.”
But Malnati quickly noted that even if his late FedEx Fall charge falls short, his family’s financial future is safe. His grind is not about putting food on the table, as it is for many this time of year. It’s about believing he has more in the tank. That 39-year-old Peter Malnati still has good golf to play that would make 14-year-old Peter Malnati, the one who dreamed of playing on the PGA Tour, proud. In order to do that, he has to shoot the scores to keep himself in the fight at the highest level of professional golf.
“My family’s future is secure at least for a little while. Like the PGA Tour has given us an amazing life,” Malnati said. “I’ve played well enough and been wise enough for a while, like the pressure is not that my family’s going to starve and I’m really thankful for that.
But the pressure is this is what I love to do and I don’t think that I’ve done it to the best of my ability yet in life. I think I have more. Need to be out there with a chance in order to find out, so that’s the pressure I’m feeling.”
He’ll have to overcome that pressure this weekend as he looks to track down 23-year-old James, secure two more years on the PGA Tour, and earn a spot in 2028’s Championship Series.
Two years ago, with his latest triumph still sinking in, Malnati described a moment he’d long envisioned — winning on the PGA Tour with his wife and kids there to celebrate. It was a moment Peter Malnati had conjured in his mind since college, but one he was unsure would ever arrive. When it did, it brought him peace and pride, but also the realization that his Valspar-winning moment might be the top of the mountain for him.
“You don’t know if you’re ever going to have another moment like this,” Malnati said. “Pretty amazing to have that dream come to life.”
With 36 good weekend holes in Mexico, Peter Malnati can prove he still has more good golf to give and more dreams to realize.
