Lowvelder Thriston Lawrence earns PGA Tour card
Lawrence has had the most successful season of his career in 2024.
Mbombelan Thriston Lawrence has officially received PGA Tour eligibility, earning his tour card courtesy of his third-place finish in the DP World Tour’s 2024 Race to Dubai rankings.
This year has been Lawrence’s most successful of his career to date, earning just shy of €3m (just under R56m), and it has become only more of a success after the season came to an end last week. While Lawrence might not have had the finish to the season he’d have liked, with a T30 finish at the DP World Tour Championship, he still ranked third on the tour’s Race to Dubai rankings.
This third-place finish on the rankings meant Lawrence became one of the 10 golfers on the DP World Tour to be handed dual membership for the DP World Tour and PGA Tour next season. Lawrence has already taken part in co-sanctioned events between the two tours in the past, as well as a handful of solo PGA Tour events.
He’s had a tough time of things in these five events, with four missed cuts and a T36 finish at the Myrtle Beach Classic his best yet at a solo PGA Tour event. His T4 finish at the 2024 Open Championship is his best finish at a co-sanctioned event and the most significant result of his career thus far. It moved him 27 places up the Official World Golf Rankings and set him on his way to being 47th in the rankings come the end of the season, having peaked at 46th after the BMW PGA Championship.
His T4 finish at The Open was one of 10 top-10 finishes on the DP World Tour this season, which is the most top-10 finishes by any player on the tour in 2024.
Lawrence has the backing of many fellow professionals around, including BMW PGA Championship winner Billy Horschel. “I played with Thriston at The Open, where he impressed me with how aggressive he is,” he said. “He’s a terrific ball striker, especially with the irons. I can see him doing really well on the PGA Tour.
“Like just about anyone, it is in the short game where he will need to improve most. Very few players arrive with a PGA Tour-quality short game. But it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see him win. He is not scared by the moment. I saw that at Troon. I expect him to have a good season and be a real contender for rookie of the year.”
The 2025 PGA Tour season will tee off at The Sentry in Hawaii on January 2.
