- Joel Dahmen leads the 2025 Corales Puntacana Championship by four strokes after two rounds.
- Dahmen tied the course record with a 62 in the first round and followed with a 66 in the second.
- He attributes his success to his putting, saying, “I’ve been making everything this week.”
- Dahmen previously won this tournament in 2021.
He tied the course record on Thursday with a 62. His 66 on Friday gave him a two-day total of 128, which set the 36-hole record. Maybe it’ll be Joel Dahmen’s week to win again on the PGA Tour.
Dahmen has 16 birdies – 10 in the first round, six more in the second – over the first two days. More importantly, he’s avoided recording any bogeys so far, as he’s opened a four-shot lead at the midway point of the 2025 Corales Puntacana Championship in the Dominican Republic.
It’s Dahmen’s putter so far that’s driving his low scores.
“I’ve been making everything this week,” he said. “You have to make everything with the scores I’ve shot. Like it starts to look like an ocean, you think you can make ’em all.”
As for leading the tournament, he was up two shots after 18 holes and now four shots after 36.
“It’s just fun, I’ve never been in this position before. Maybe back in my amateur days or something like that, but I feel like I did a good job of not protecting. I didn’t see a scoreboard, honestly, until 18 green,” he said. “Two great days and need two more of them.”
Dahmen’s one PGA Tour win came in this event in 2021.
Michael Thorbjornsen shot a 63 on Friday to join a three-way tie for second at 12 under, along with Charley Hoffman and Garrick Higgo.
Charley Hoffman tames the ‘Devil’s Elbow’
When asked about his closing trio of birdies, Hoffman said, “Birdieing those last three is definitely a nice little kickstart to the weekend.”
Chan Kim, Keith Mitchell and Dylan Wu are in the next bunch at 11 under, tied for fifth.
The winner this week gets $720,000 of the $4 million purse. He also gets the standard two-year PGA Tour exemption, but the winner does not earn entry into the Masters as opposite-field events do not have full-point allocations.
