FARMINGTON — Daniel Summerhays has enjoyed many memorable moments playing golf at Oakridge Country Club. Not only did he grow up playing the course hundreds, perhaps even thousands of times, it was the site of his first Utah State Amateur title exactly 20 years ago. Then, a year ago this week, he experienced one of the top memories of his splendid career at the Korn Ferry Tour’s Utah Championship, when he was overwhelmed by the love and support he received as he contended for the title for four rounds.
This week, Oakridge will fittingly be the site of Summerhays’ final professional tournament. That’s right, Summerhays is retiring as a touring professional golfer at the age of 36.
“It’s hard to say it, but after a pretty long, above-average career on the PGA Tour, I’m going to step away and go another direction for awhile. I’m going to try the education system and move into a teacher-mentor role rather than the touring-golf-pro role.” — Daniel Summerhays
The former BYU all-American may still play in a tournament here or there, perhaps the Utah Open on occasion, but for all intents and purposes, he’s calling it quits as a touring professional golfer, in order to pursue a more stable lifestyle as a schoolteacher and golf coach.
“It’s hard to say it, but after a pretty long, above-average career on the PGA Tour, I’m going to step away and go another direction for awhile,” he said. “I’m going to try the education system and move into a teacher-mentor role rather than the touring-golf-pro role.”
Beginning this fall, Summerhays is going to teach a few classes at his alma mater, Davis High School, while serving as the school’s golf coach. It’s not a rash decision, rather one he’s been considering for some time. It solidified over the past few months while he’s been home during the COVID-19 shutdown.
“When I thought about how I’d want to make a difference and an impact, that was one of the ways I felt like I could touch a lot of kids and spread my influence a little bit,” he said. “The last several years it’s been in the back of my mind. Your kids get older and you love being around them and you start searching for ways to be home more and more. So I’ve loved being home especially through the coronavirus.”
Summerhays also had surgery on both feet and ankles in early February. That, coupled with being sheltered at home during the COVID-19 crisis, gave him plenty of time for reflection.
“It gave me a lot of time to think about what I want to do and evaluate everything,” he said. “The best way I can put it right now, is that the thrill of competition of tournament golf is outweighed by the satisfaction of being at home and being a part of my kids’ everyday life and being with my wife. Also being a figure in the community, day in and day out, week after week, month after month.”
Following his all-American career at BYU and a short stint on the Nationwide (current Korn Ferry) Tour, Summerhays has been a regular for eight years on the PGA Tour. He’s done quite well, earning $9.7 million with 19 top-10 finishes, including a pair of runner-up finishes, while playing in all four of golf’s majors.
His best years were 2015 and 2016, when he earned $1.6 and $2 million, respectively. After losing his PGA Tour card in 2018, he played the Korn Ferry Tour — the PGA’s Triple-A tour — last year and struggled to make cuts. He came to the Utah Championship and put together his best showing of the season, staying among the leaders until the final few holes and finishing in sixth place with rounds of 66, 68, 68 and 70.
He called it one of his top five golfing experiences.
“It’s right there in the top 5 because of all the support I had,” he said. “I was playing really well and had all that support from the hometown crowd.”
Ask him what the highlights of his golf career are and Summerhays has no problem coming up with a short list:
- Winning the Nationwide Tour’s Children’s Hospital Invitational in 2007 when he was still an amateur with one more year to play at BYU.
“That was a game-changing experience — literally overnight my career changed and I was able to have a place to play early in my career after winning that.”
- Finishing third at the PGA Championship at Baltusrol in New Jersey in 2016.
“I birdied six of my last 10 holes to finish in solo third place behind Jason Day and Jimmy Walker, and got a berth to the Masters.”
- Playing in the Masters in 2017.
“Making the cut and having all my siblings and parents there to watch, my brother Boyd there as my coach, my wife and kids caddieing for me in the Par-3 Contest . . . that’s a life-long memory that I’ll always cherish.”
- Last year’s Utah Championship.
“That last Saturday and Sunday I’ll never forget being right there and having people from all walks of my life from junior golf to church life to my pickleball friends to my high school friends to my college teammates, from all different areas of my life . . . that was an extremely satisfying and memorable moment of my career.”
- Becoming the youngest-ever winner of the Utah Men’s State Amateur at age 16 at Oakridge in 2000, and following it up with a title the next year at Wasatch Mountain.
“It’s hard to number them all, those State Ams for sure are highlights that won’t soon be forgotten.”
Besides what he calls the “super bright lights” of his career, Summerhays has had his share of disappointments, losing in a playoff at the Sanderson Farms Championship in Mississippi in 2013 and losing a three-stroke lead in the final round of the Memorial in 2017. There was also the 2015 heartbreak of not making the top 30 to qualify for the Tour Championship, when a chip-in at the final hole by Harris English at the BMW Championship dropped him to the No. 31 spot.
However, Summerhays says he has few regrets about his playing career.
“There’s always shots you wish you could have back, tournaments, rounds,” he says. “But there’s nothing I would trade. I certainly wish I would have won on the tour, I finished second a few times. There’s any number of inches or quarter of inches, you can regret, but I also scooped up a lot too, so it’s hard to have any major regrets.”
Danny and his wife, Emily, have four children, Jack, 12, Patton, 10, William, 8, and Lydia, 5, all of whom play golf, some more seriously than others.
Besides being home, he’s enjoyed being able to spend time with them this spring at the new Oakridge practice facility, which he helped design.
“We get to whack it around and not bother anybody. It’s pretty spectacular, and I’m proud of it,” he said.
The one drawback for Summerhays to playing in this year’s Utah Championship, which starts Thursday and runs through Sunday, is that no fans, not even his wife and kids, are allowed because of COVID-19 guidelines. There will be no large contingent of “Danny’s Army” roaming the Oakridge fairways.
“I’ll just have good visualization tactics for recalling last year’s success and the love and gratitude that was out there,” he said.
At least he won’t be the only Summerhays at Oakridge this year. His older brother, David, will caddy for him and his older brother, Boyd, will caddy for his 17-year-old son, Preston, who has also received an exemption for this year’s tourney. Everyone else will have to try to catch glimpses of the Summerhays’ on the TV broadcast on the Golf Channel.
So what happens if Summerhays — Daniel — puts it all together this week and wins the tournament? A win could go a long way to propelling him back to the PGA Tour.
“I’ve thought about that,” he says. “I was prepared last year and feeling, ‘if I win, maybe I’ll ride off into the sunset and call it good.’ If I won this week, I would probably play a couple of more events throughout the summer. I still like to compete and I feel like my game’s pretty solid, but as far as the grind of travel, week in and week out, I’m kind of spent that way. When it comes time for school in August, that’s where I’ll be.”
At that point, he’ll only be looking ahead.
“You always feel like you have a little bit more in the tank or you should have done a little better. But when I truly step back and look at it, I shake my head in disbelief and say ‘wow, that’s pretty amazing.’”