Luke Clanton is all set for his professional debut at the RBC Canadian Open, and his first PGA Tour start in which he's eligible to collect a paycheck is akin to an NBA rookie facing Steph Curry in their first game.
That's because on Thursday and Friday on the North Course at TPC Toronto, the 21-year-old will be grouped with five-time major champion Rory McIlroy, who famously just completed the career Grand Slam at The Masters, and Ludvig Åberg, who already has two PGA Tour victories on his resume and enters the week as the eighth-ranked player in the world.
How's that for pressure?
Clanton played alongside Åberg at last fall’s RSM Classic, where he tied for second, by the way, and has no problem admitting that he was in awe of the Swedish star's game.
“It was really cool,” Clanton said about playing with Åberg. "I had my best friend on the bag at the time, and we were admiring his 8-iron on 8.”
But that wasn’t what impressed him most about Åberg, who made his pro debut at this very same tournament just two years ago.
“What he does so well is he's so locked in on what he's doing. It's not whatever anyone else is doing. It's what he's doing,” Clanton noted.
It’s a hard skill to master, but for a professional, it’s important to be able to do it. Ben Hogan, they say, was noted for not talking to other golfers when he played with them because he was so focused on his game.
Jack Nicklaus naturally had great focus, as did Tiger Woods.
More recently, McIlroy, usually affable, took heat from the media after this year’s Masters because he didn’t talk to Bryson DeChambeau during the final round, instead concentrating solely on winning.
Whether his playing companions are chatty or not, Clanton is sure to learn a lot by being in a group that includes Europe’s greatest player to date and perhaps Europe’s next great player.
It may be a little nerve-wracking playing with McIlroy, but if the past history of Florida State golfers is any guide, Clanton should be ready.
Brooks Koepka, Paul Azinger, Hubert Green, Jeff Sluman, Jonas Blixt, Nolan Henke, Kenny Knox, and Daniel Berger were all Seminoles who eventually became winners on the PGA Tour. The late Hubert Green won 19 times, including two major championships: the 1977 U.S. Open and the 1985 PGA Championship. Both Azinger and Sluman won the PGA, and Koepka has five major titles to his credit.
And Clanton's already been close to victory on the PGA Tour. He appeared in 13 events as an amateur and was a runner-up in two of them last year, those being the John Deere Classic and the aforementioned RSM Classic
Of the 13 starts, he only missed the cut in three of them. So, he’s a rookie who’s not quite a rookie.
What Clanton intends to do at the Canadian Open is what has worked for him in the past, and that is to focus on the process. Although he admitted it is a cliché, he also insisted that it really is important to remember that golf is played one shot at a time.
As he’s getting ready to play with bonafide superstars, he was asked what was impressive about McIlroy's and Scottie Scheffler’s games, and Clanton’s answer was the way they are able to handle themselves in pressure situations.
“When they're coming down that final stretch to win a golf event, they know how to handle themselves well. They've been in that moment multiple, multiple times now,” Clanton observed. “What they do so well is their emotions never get too high or too low.”
However, he thinks he has a non-golf talent that will serve him well as he embarks on his PGA Tour career: his mental strength.
“I think it's something my dad created in me,” Clanton explained. “My dad took that step of pushing me to my limits when I was a kid and making me train as hard as I can and hit golf balls in the dark with a flashlight. Those kinds of things are created to make a person mentally hard, mentally ready for these kind of big moments.”
Will Luke Clanton's first big moment on the PGA Tour come this week? We'll find out soon enough.