Wyckoff Golfer Carving Out Pro Career

Morgan Hoffmann’s golf career has changed dramatically in the last year, but the sport itself is a constant in the Wyckoff native’s life—the 23-year-old wouldn’t remember a time before he hit the links.

“I was in diapers,” he said of his first golf outings in Paramus with his father, Greg. “I’ve had a club in my hand since I was one or two, and I started playing tournaments seriously when I was eight.”

Hoffmann lives in Florida now, but is set for a return to his home state in August when he competes in the Barclays Tournament at Jersey City’s Liberty National Golf Club.

The tournament will be Hoffmann’s first championship as a PGA pro, following a hard-fought road since his time on the Oklahoma State University golf team.

“My whole life it was a dream to join the tour,” he said, and after leaving Oklahoma the professional status looked like a realistic goal. But setbacks in the last two years held him up until an unlikely qualification for the tour last year.

In 2011, he said, a broken ankle kept him out of qualifying tournaments for the tour, and he began 2012 still without a status. Hoffmann would have to show up for “Monday qualifiers,” games played in the beginning of a tournament week, where only the top three or four finishers are allowed the few spots remaining after the pros have entered.

“It was a long stretch because I was on the road every week. It wasn’t the easiest way to go, but I’m just happy I made it,” he said in an interview.

He made it after his performance on the 2012 Web.com tournament, qualifying on the Monday before the outing and finishing 19th in prize earnings, forging a place on the 2013 PGA Tour.

In June, Hoffmann competed in his third U.S. Open, though halfway through failed to make the cut to continue. But despite the disappointing finish in that tournament, out of 17 outings this year, he’s finished three times in the top ten and seven times in the top 25. He ranks 120 in the world among professional golfers, according to the PGA website.

This week was a rare one off between events, and Hoffmann said he was taking it easy and working with his longtime coach, Gary Gilchrist, to prepare for the Canadian Open next week.

In the day-to-day, going pro has given the golfer more stability, allowing him entrance to tournaments without the uphill battles of last year, when he often had to qualify last-minute.

“I haven’t had a schedule my whole career because I didn’t know where I was going,” he said. “If I missed a Monday qualifier I had to make plans for the rest of the week.”

The Barclay’s won’t be a total homecoming—he’s never played the Liberty Course, despite growing up in Jersey—but he’s confident that he’ll be prepared to face off against the other pros in the coming tournament, and looking forward to having familiar faces along the course.

“I’m excited, it’ll be nice to have friends and family around,” he said.

Check out Hoffmann when the Barclays kick off Aug. 20.