At age 41, with roughly half his life playing golf for money and exactly one win in 408 PGA Tour-sanctioned starts, Spencer Levin often called a “journeyman”.
But, really, he’s an “everyman.”
He doesn’t hit it far. He fought with his flat stick and beat with his jab, adopting a technique used by Happy Gilmore. In his PGA Tour biography, he lists his greatest thrill as “making a putt.” Levin has a sense of humor. He also has a temper. He once dropped his golf bag throwing the javelin the flagstaff in it.
In summary: tour pros don’t get much closer. And yet, 20 years after turning pro, Levin continues to do things the rest of us can’t.
On Saturday, for example, in the third round of Q-School FinalsLevin went lower than anyone in the field, shooting a 7-under 63 at Sawgrass Country Club in Ponte Vedra Beach to give himself a chance to regain something he hasn’t had since the end of the 2017 season: a PGA Tour card. Levin’s blistering score, highlighted by five consecutive birdies on the back nine (his first nine of the day), left him at 9-under for the week and tied for sixth, two shots behind co-leaders Ben Kohles and Marcelo Rozo, heading into Sunday’s final round. Only the top five finishers will earn full PGA Tour status – a change from previous seasons when the top five finishers and ties made it.
This time the math is different.
The pressure, however, is familiar to Levin, who reached the Q-school finals in 2022 and 2023 and has been sharp in the game since many of his competitors were in diapers.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time,” Levin said Saturday. “I’ve seen every scenario there is. The thing you learn is there are no secrets. You just have to go out tomorrow and execute and play well. And that’s it.”
Easier said than done. But Levin has managed to do it often.
A native of Elk Grove, Calif., Levin played baseball as a child, but took up golf in earnest at age 13, inspired by Tiger Woods’ Masters victory in 1997. By PGA Tour standards, his swing has never been a study in mechanical perfection. But he has long been accurate off the tee and was known early on as a dead-eye shooter. A two-time All-American at the University of Mexico, Levin turned pro in 2005, a year after finishing T-13 and earning low amateur honors at the US Open at Shinnecock Hills.
In the 20 years since, he has amassed more than $9 million in career earnings and scored a Korn Ferry Tour victory at the 2023 Veritex Bank Championship. But he has never won on the PGA Tour, and once went five years without making a cut on the game’s top circuit. When he finally broke the drought, he did so in memorable fashion, playing the weekend at the 2022 Shriners Open with a split glove straight from Happy Gilmore with his right hockey stick down on the club.
Levin will need his player to work on Sunday, among other clubs in his bag. The leaderboard is stacked, with 11 players separated by two shots. Levin is the oldest of the contenders, and he’s seen the most, for better or for worse.
Everyone or not, a good Sunday can change everything for them again.
