Welcome to a new series I’m starting called “Player Spotlights.” The idea, at least to start, is to highlight and shine light on the newer and younger players in professional golf that the average fan may not know about yet. I’ll do this by providing context around their accomplishments, how they got to where they are today, and anything else worth mentioning. Hope you guys enjoy the first of many pieces, first up is the lefty David Ford!
Path to the PGA Tour
David Ford is a 23-year-old American and is currently in his first full season as a professional golfer. He plays on the PGA Tour after earning his Tour card through the PGA Tour University program in spring of 2025.
PGA Tour University launched in 2020 as a pathway for the top college golfers to earn status on the Korn Ferry Tour. In 2022, the program was revamped, with the most significant change awarding the No. 1 Senior in the final PGA Tour University rankings a fully exempt two-year PGA Tour card upon turning professional. In reality, the exemption functions closer to a year and a half, as the “first exempt year” begins when a player turns pro in the spring, midway through the PGA Tour season.
The first recipient of this revamped exemption was Ludvig Aberg out of Texas Tech University in 2023. He was followed in 2024 by Michael Thorbjornsen out of Stanford University (Stay Tuned!) and in 2025, the honour belonged to David Ford, who earned his card after a standout collegiate career at the University of North Carolina. Ford turned pro in May of last year and played out the remaining season of the PGA Tour season and now begins his first full year on the PGA Tour.
Junior Golf Achievements
Before his college golf as a Junior Golfer Ford had some notable achievements such as winning the 2020 Junior PLAYERS Championship. The Junior PLAYERSwhich takes place at the iconic TPC Sawgrass and host of the PGA Tour’s premier event the “Player’s Championship” is a huge event for Junior golfer’s. It takes place over three rounds and in 2020 Ford won by 2 strokes with a final round 66. Notable players he beat that day included PGA Tour winner’s Karl Vilips and Nick Dunlap, and other PGA Tour memeber’s such as Luke Clanton and Gordon Sargent.
Other big events he won as a junior before heading to college included the 2020 AJGA Invatational (American Junior Golf Association) and the 2020 Rolex Tournament of Champions.
College + Amateur Golf
David Ford committed to play his College Golf at the University of North Carolina in September 2020 and joined the Tar heels in 2021 and never looked back. Ford had an outstanding collegiate career setting numerous North Carolina and ACC Golf records. Individually he won 9 (7 collegiate) times in College and Amateur Golf tournaments between 2021 and 2025. Some of his wins included the Southern Amateur Championship, Jones Cup Invitational, Ben Hogan Collegiate Invitational and as a Senior last year he won in three consecutive starts winning the Valspar Intercollegiate Invitational, Augusta Haskins Award Invitational and the Tar Heel Intercollegiate. He would go on to finish T9 in the ACC Individual Men’s Golf Championship and unfortunately North Carolina’s golf team failed to qualify for the NCAA Championships like previous seasons. His best individual finish at the NCAA’s Stroke Play Championship was T5 in 2022. Ford set numerous UNC golf records during his time too some of which included: Scoring Average (2nd in ACC history, 6th in NCAA history), Rounds in the 60’s (ACC Record, 2nd most in NCAA History), and Match Play Wins
He also was also apart of the prestigious Walker Cup, on the 2023 U.S team and apart of the 2023 and 2024 Palmer cup teams.
The Walker Cup is the “Ryder Cup” for amateur American Golfers, sort of. It is comprised of Team USA versus Team Great Britain & Ireland and happens every two years, first established in 1922. The Palmer Cup is an annual college golf competition for men and women contested between a US team and an International team, with each team including 12 men and 12 women.
To go with his tournament wins + records Ford also won multiple national and ACC awards during his time in college:
National Awards:
2025 Fred Haskins Award and 2025 Jack Nicklaus Award presented to the National Player of the Year
ACC Awards:
Player of the Year: 2023, 2025 | All-ACC: 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 | ACC Freshman of the Year: 2022
As I mentioned above this decorated college career allowed Ford to finish as the #1 Senior College golfer in the PGA Tour University final rankings, earning him a PGA Tour card right out of college.
PGA Tour Career so far
At this point, David Ford has made 16 starts as a professional on the PGA Tour (13 in 2025 and 3 so far in 2026.) As expected, the transition from college golf directly to the PGA Tour has been a steep learning curve. Ford struggled early in his rookie campaign, missing the cut in seven of his first eight startsin 2025. However, signs of progress began to appear during the PGA Tour’s Fall Series, where he started to look far more comfortable at the professional level. During that stretch, he made three consecutive cuts and posted by far his best result as a pro, finishing T3 at the Bank of Utah Championship.
Results prior to the FedEx Cup Playoffs and Fall Series:
CUT, CUT, CUT, CUT, CUT, 75, CUT
Fall Series results were:
CUT, T44, T3, T40, CUT, CUT
Clear Step forward in the fall!
The 2026 season has gotten off to a solid start and has further reinforced the upward trend. Ford has made two of his first three cuts, including a strong performance in difficult, windy conditions at the Sony Open. He followed that up with an excellent week at The American Express, finishing T13, which currently stands as the second-best result of his PGA Tour career.
2026 Season (so far): T50, T13, CUT
The ball-striking and approach play has really started to trend upward as Ford has grown more comfortable and gained experience on Tour. Most importantly, the improvement has been consistent. He has gained strokes on approach in all of his 2026 starts, and in five straight starts overallwhere ShotLink data is available. That’s a massive step forward from when he first turned pro in May, when he lost strokes on approach in 8 of 9 starts. He’s coming off his first missed cut of the season at the Farmers Insurance Open after back-to-back solid starts, so it will be interesting to see how he responds. Even in that missed cut, he still gained +1.60 strokes on approach, with the damage coming almost entirely on and around the greens.
Off the tee remains the biggest strength of David Ford’s game. Since turning pro, it’s the one area where he has been consistently positive, gaining strokes off the tee in 14 of 16 starts. That level of driving consistency is impressive, and when paired with his newly improved approach play, it has led to noticeably better form and results of late.
The areas that continue to hold Ford back are his putting and around-the-green play, where he consistently loses strokes. To this point, he has gained strokes in putting and around the greens in only 3 of 16 starts. However, in two of the three starts where he gained strokes putting, he finished T3 and T13; and in both of these events, he still lost strokes around the greens.
If Ford can begin to improve his putting and raise the floor in that area, the rest of his game is already strong enough to allow him to consistently contend near the top of leaderboards.
Let’s hope Ford continues to trend upwards and starts to become more of a regular on the leaderboard, he has all the talent and potential to be a really special player.
Hope you guys enjoyed this first “Player Spotlight” much more to come!
