Weeks prior to the start of the 2022 Korn Ferry Tour season, MJ Daffue could barely get out of bed, much less envision earning his first PGA TOUR card.

Daffue was recovering from COVID-19 when he learned his position on the Priority Ranking would give him a spot in The Bahamas Great Exuma Classic at Sandals Emerald Bay, the first Korn Ferry Tour event of 2022. Daffue, the seventh-to-last player in the field, hadn’t touched a club in 12 days due to the virus.

After starting the week 5-over through eight holes, Daffue played the remaining 64 holes at 11-under, and he finished T15 to begin a dream season that would earn him a PGA TOUR card for 2022-23.

Here’s how Daffue became the third player in 2022 to earn a #TOURBound designation …

Until the beginning of 2022, Daffue’s 10-year professional golf career was filled with grinding for status worldwide, tragedy and glimpses of success on the largest stage.

Born in Pretoria, South Africa, Daffue was introduced to golf at age 4 and grew up competing against PGA TOUR winners Erik van Rooyen, Dylan Frittelli, and five-time DP World Tour winner George Coetzee.

It was clear early on that Daffue was gifted with natural athleticism. He exceled in rugby and cricket, playing competitively until he was 14. Starting at age 5, Daffue would join his father Willem and approximately 20 friends at Waterkloof Golf Club on Saturday mornings. Using a makeshift set of clubs and sporting a pair of cricket cleats when metal spikes were still in vogue, Daffue developed the fundamentals around his natural, pure swing.

The decision to commit to golf full-time came a few years after Daffue had the opportunity to play golf with his idol and countryman Retief Goosen just five months before Goosen won his first of two U.S. Opens at Southern Hills Country Club in 2001.

“My dad gave me a call, ‘Listen, I’m gonna come get you from school, and we’re going to go play a round of golf.’ I showed up and we’re playing with Retief. I still remember it as if it happened right now, standing behind him on the first tee,” Daffue said.

The two bonded that day at Centurion Country Club, and Goosen became a mentor and someone Daffue could call for advice on and off the golf course.

In addition to connecting with Goosen, Daffue said his mind was set on coming to the United States for college golf. The game came easy to Daffue at a young age, and he began thinking of how he could boost his golf career prospects via development of other life skills.

“I had to get myself to a point where I could earn a scholarship, because that was the only way for me to get to the U.S.,” Daffue said. “I started really focusing on my English classes because I grew up speaking Afrikaans. I worked on things that would make me a great professional, like being nice to people, networking, how to deal with crowds, connecting with sponsors, and stuff like that. I didn’t know how to do it, but at 14 years old, I acted like I did.”

By 17, Daffue was the No. 1 junior golfer in South Africa, the ranking backed up by a win at the 2007 South African Boys Championship. His sights were set on attending Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, but a month before he was scheduled to start his freshman year, the NCAA Eligibility Center did not approve some of Daffue’s high school credits from South Africa. He needed a new plan.

The day before the start of the 2008 school year, one of Daffue’s friends suggested that he check out Lee University. Lee, located 30 miles north of Chattanooga, Tennessee, was an NAIA university at the time. Lee had a scholarship spot for Daffue with an understanding that he would transfer to Lamar after his freshman year.

After earning NAIA All-American honors under coach John Maupin, Daffue left for Lamar University, as planned, and he began a dominant three-year run in Beaumont. After Daffue’s junior year, he was awarded 2011 Southland Conference Player of the Year and first-team All-Southland Conference.

“My development at Lamar was mainly just taking the wild horse and putting some reins on it,” Daffue said. “I learned how to hit a consistent low cut off the tee and worked a fade into my game.”

Daffue turned pro in fall 2012 and found fast success. After a T4 finish at the Telkom PGA Pro-Am on the Sunshine Tour, Daffue earned his first professional win at the NeSmith Chevrolet Classic on the NGA Pro Golf Tour in April 2013. However, less than a month later, Daffue’s world fell apart.

On May 4, 2013, Jill Badeaux, Daffue’s future mother-in-law, tripped and fell at a street corner in front of a speeding car. She was rushed to a hospital and, after a series of surgeries, was declared brain dead. Daffue was leading a Hooters Tour event in South Carolina when he received the call about the accident.

Daffue took nine weeks away from the game to be close to his now-wife Kamie as they mourned the shocking loss. When he returned, it wasn’t only his game that he needed to return to form, but also his emotional state.

“I didn’t even touch my clubs during that time, so I did lose my game a little,” Daffue said. “And when I started playing again, I struggled all the way until 2017. I was always missing cuts by a shot, barely not getting into a tournament, and missing at Q-School by a shot. The more it happened, the more I struggled mentally.”

His anxiety worsened to full-blown depression as Daffue continued to fight himself. He began to feel a financial pressure after years of failing to bring home a paycheck.

“We got to the point where there was no money,” Daffue said. “There was just no money to play golf anymore. If I had money, then I would go play and miss a cut. Then I would have to wait another month to go play again. When you’re only able to play five to six events a year, there’s no way to make it in golf. And that trend continued to the end of 2016.”

Enter Jonathan Dismuke, Director of Golf at the University of Houston.

By summer 2016, Daffue no longer had a place to practice and was desperate for changes that could lift his career off the floor. He approached Dismuke, who knew Daffue from his days at Lamar, and asked him if he could use Houston’s practice facility after hours.

“I told him ‘Hey, I’ll help you out, but I think it would be a really good avenue if you decided to be our volunteer coach,’” Dismuke said. “’I’ll be able to spend more time with you and it’ll give you an insight to why we are working on certain things.’”

Daffue took the position and ran with it. He loved being back on a daily routine. Playing with the University of Houston squad made him feel like he was back in college, consistently challenged with good competition.

Daffue didn’t know how much he could add as a coach, but the ability to serve others gave him a sense of purpose that soothed the cloud of depression that had burdened him since 2013.

Dismuke’s work with Daffue centered around ball striking and the mental approach. The first line of order for Dismuke was to increase the apex of Daffue’s ball flight to turn his low cut into a high draw. Dismuke stressed that if Daffue wanted to become a successful professional golfer, he would need to become more proficient at missing on one side of the golf course. Daffue worked on his high draw, modeling the likes of Zach Johnson, Andrew Landry and Kenny Perry.

Together, they figured out Daffue’s optimal mental state, referred to as the “flow zone.”

“He would be there for team meetings, contribute his knowledge and then would play qualifying with us, which was cool,” said Denmark native Alex Frances, an All-American at Houston who recently completed his collegiate career. “Then after his first year of coaching and working with Dismuke, you couldn’t beat him.”

Despite progress at home, Daffue had another setback at Korn Ferry Tour Q-School in fall 2018, falling one stroke short of advancing to Final Stage. Making the sting even more severe: he went triple bogey-double bogey on Nos. 11 and 12 in the final round at his Second Stage site in Plantation, Florida.

The following season, his fortunes began to change. He Monday qualified into six Korn Ferry Tour events in 2019, recording top-25 finishes at the Simmons Bank Open for the Snedeker Foundation, Pinnacle Bank Championship and Price Cutter Charity Championship. The impressive run of qualifying was a testament to his resilience, Daffue’s greatest asset according to Dismuke.

“We talk about playing offense and that’s really helped him in the Monday qualifiers,” said Dismuke. “We talk about how his job is to go out there and shoot 8- or 9-under par as a professional golfer. He’s resonated very well with that as a player.”

Daffue continued his incredible run of qualifiers in 2020, and he took it a step further. He qualified for the Puerto Rico Open in February 2020 and made the cut in his first career PGA TOUR start, finishing 52nd.

Five months later, he qualified for the Workday Charity Open and finished T22, his first top-25 finish on the PGA TOUR. He ended the year with a T40 finish at the South African Open on the DP World Tour.

Since 2020 Q-School was canceled due to COVID-19, Daffue returned to the Monday qualifier circuit. He was successful in qualifying for six PGA TOUR events to start 2020-21 and finished T12 at the 2020 Sanderson Farms Championship.

His play earned him sponsor exemptions into the 2021 Barbasol Championship, 3M Open, Barracuda Championship and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Houston Open. He made the cut in all four events. Without status on the PGA TOUR, Daffue had made the cut in eight of 13 PGA TOUR starts between February 2020 and November 2021.

Despite the successful stretch in 2020-21, it wasn’t good enough to guarantee Daffue status anywhere the next year. Again, he would put his talent to the test at Korn Ferry Tour Q-School in fall 2021.

Daffue made it all the way to Final Stage before bad weather in Savannah diminished his momentum. He ultimately finished T50, one stroke shy of the top-40 number to secure guaranteed starts in 2022. To make matters worse, Daffue caught COVID-19 in early 2022 before he was scheduled to travel to Hawaii for the Sony Open’s Monday qualifier.

After being released from COVID-19 protocol, he received a call that he made the field at The Bahamas Great Exuma Classic. He flew directly to the Bahamas after not touching a club for 12 days with minimal expectations.

He finished T15 and didn't look back. Two weeks later, beginning with the Astara Golf Championship, Daffue went on a 10-tournament stretch that included five top-10 finishes.

On May 22, Daffue finished third at the AdventHealth Championship, his second consecutive third-place finish, passing the 900-point fail-safe threshold to secure his PGA TOUR card for the 2022-23 season.

“It doesn’t feel real,” Daffue said. “I’ve been grinding and doing qualifiers for so long. I’ve put in the work and missed by a shot again and again. It doesn’t feel real because I’ve been focusing on the process so much that I’ve forgotten about the results and implications of playing well.”

The timing couldn’t be better for MJ and Kamie, whose family grew larger last year when they welcomed baby Oliver to the world. Oliver was present in Knoxville, giving fist bumps to hundreds of people when M.J. holed out on the 18th hole.

“Just speaking about him gets me emotional because, man, he makes me so happy,” Daffue said with his voice cracking. “The first 10 months of being a father were really hard on me with all the travel, and tough on us as a family because I still have waves of depression and anxiety when I’m not home helping on this or that. But since he was about 10 months old, it’s been a big change with his personality coming out, and we love it so much.”

Daffue’s path to the PGA TOUR has been one of the grittier journeys in the history of professional golf. Many professional golfers might have opted to change career paths after navigating this set of circumstances, but not this 33-year-old South African whom Retief Goosen met as a fired-up 11-year-old.