New goals for rookie Sudarshan Yellamaraju at PGA Championship

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NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — It’s been a whirlwind year for PGA Tour rookie Sudarshan Yellamaraju and this week marks another first as the Canadian makes his major championship debut.

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“I’ll have moments where I’m kind of thinking, you know, that I’m out here,” Yellamaraju said of soaking in his recent accomplishments. “But it’s just moments, to be honest. It’s nice if I’m feeling a little stressed or a bit down to kind of think that I’m out here playing in these tournaments. It helps me feel a little better.”

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There hasn’t been much to be down about for the 24-year-old golfer who enters the week 38th in FedEx Cup standings, tops among Canadian players. Yellamaraju’s surprising T5 performance at the Players Championship mixed with his unique origin story has the golf world paying attention to the self-taught left-hander who moved from India to Winnipeg at age four.

“It’s been a little bit (busier), to be honest,” Yellamaraju said of his life after his strong finish at TPC Sawgrass in March. “I think I’ve been doing my best to try not to get into anything too extra.”

“That was one tournament that I had to go and play well, and I still had to go play well after that,” he added.

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Yellamaraju kept things rolling in his first start following the Players, finishing T6 at the Houston Open and T14 a week later at the Valero Texas Open.

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His success through the first half of the season has forced the rookie to recalibrate his goals on the world’s top golf tour.

Good start, better finish?

“I think naturally you kind of have to, because you can’t just settle with what you’ve got, right?” he said. “Obviously, going into the year, the goal was to keep my card and get enough points to do that. I think I’m pretty close to doing that. Now, the aim is to finish as high as possible so I can kind of pick and choose my schedule for next year.

“So obviously being top 30, top 50, and getting into these events — that’s another thing. But it’s a little more complicated to know exactly what it takes, so we’ve just been trying to play the best I can. If we get into an event like this, great. If not, we’ll play whatever else it is.”

Like many breakthrough players, Yellamaraju’s overnight success was years in the making. Having turned pro in 2021 at 19 years old without any college golf experience, he competed in mini-tour events and spent two years each on PGA Tour Canada and the Korn Ferry Tour before earning his spot on the PGA Tour.

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Considering the path he took, pressure is nothing new to Yellamaraju. Having learned the game with the help of his cricket-playing father and YouTube videos but zero golf lessons, he might as well have a PhD in problem solving which will come in handy this week.

“I think it’s the same,” he said of the challenge of playing in his first major. “Like I said, each week I’m trying to learn each course, and this is kind of no different. The name obviously is the PGA championship, but like I said, I’m just going to try my best to just play. That’s it.”

Yellamaraju wouldn’t be described a particularly muscular, nor is he skinny despite not carrying any extra weight. If one had to guess where his ample power and golf swing come from, it could be said that he’s blessed with long levers; all knees and elbows as he walks down fairways.

Rookie’s stats are impressive

So far, the young problem-solving golfer has figured out how to be a very good all-round PGA Tour player, with stats inside the top-40 in every category except around the green, which he’s working on.

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“Like in any job, there are times where you have to dig deep and figure out what’s going wrong and fix it from there,” he said.

Despite learning the game from YouTube, Yellamaraju is something of a throwback golfer, preferring to dig the game from the dirt rather than staring at swing monitor numbers. He sees diminishing returns hitting the ball off perfect lies on the driving range or in the controlled environment of a simulator when a golf course presents countless variables on every shot.

“Some weeks I haven’t played my best, and I feel like I’ve kind of been scraping around trying to figure out my game a little bit more,” he said of the ups and downs of life on the PGA Tour. “But that’s just part of golf, and part of going and playing each tournament. You’re not going to play well every single week, and each course is different. You’ve got to figure it out if it’s there.”

In recent weeks he has noticed a little extra love from fans, especially Canadians that have travelled to watch PGA Tour events. He has also heard from some players he used to play against in junior golf, and says this week’s PGA Championship has brought a few more familiar faces saying hello.

“I’m just trying to be the person that I can be, and if people are being nice about it, then that’s great. I’m just trying to be me, and that’s it.”

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