Nashville-area resident Dawson Armstrong remembers pro debut at Simmons Bank Open

Catching a Nashville Predators game is just a different vibe, same with cheering on the Tennessee Titans. Having a honky-tonk time at a downtown bar is just a regular occurrence.

It’s NashVegas, baby, and Dawson Armstrong is all in.

“You can hang out and have a good time – and do that on a pretty regular basis,” said Armstrong of the Tennessee capital. “You don’t have to plan your entire week around going somewhere … you just kind of do it.”

Armstrong, who went to Lipscomb University – which is about 15 minutes from downtown Nashville – was as eager as anyone for what was supposed to be this week’s Simmons Bank Open for the Snedeker Foundation. It was the first event he played as a professional, right out of college, and he had just recently signed on as an ambassador for Simmons Bank, to boot.

Alas, he, like all others on the Korn Ferry Tour, will wait until 2021 for his next chance to compete in Music City.

And although Armstrong says he didn’t have the best start to 2020, results-wise, he’s confident with how he prepared for the season and once things resume, he believes he has a lot of positives to build on.

The 24-year-old won the Mackenzie Tour-PGA TOUR Canada’s 2019 Windsor Championship and ended up eighth on that Tour’s Order of Merit. He headed to Final Stage of Q-School and had a strong week, finishing T7.

After his year on the Mackenzie Tour, Armstrong had a laser-like focus on playing well at Final Stage. He didn’t work on anything in particular before Final Stage, but just had to wrap his head around the challenge presented by such a week.

“I feel like a lot of my game is very consistent. I don’t hit it overly long, I don’t hit it sideways or anything, I don’t chip it poorly or putt it poorly. I just had to hone in a few things and tighten the screws (before Final Stage),” said Armstrong. “That’s something I feel like I did very well that week.”

Back in 2018 when Armstrong made his professional debut in Nashville, he teed it up alongside country music superstar Jake Owen. Armstrong had just left college (his father got a job at Lipscomb that helped solidify his decision) but despite the fact that he helped the team on a hard rise in the collegiate rankings – across a four-year stretch, the school moved up almost 200 spots – they didn’t make the national finals during his final year. Armstrong qualified as an individual but didn’t want to go as a single. He did all he could for the team, he said, but it was time to move on to the next chapter.

He finished T30 in his debut (“It was definitely the biggest paycheck I had ever seen,” he recalls now, laughing) and said the experience was a good one.

“I got off on the right foot for my professional career,” he said.

As Armstrong improved, so did his mental approach to professional golf – culminating in the victory last year in Canada.

“Experience is the best teacher,” he said. “As I’ve got to play in more and more tournaments … you just kind of learn the ropes. You learn where you should be at the right time and what it’s like to be a real professional from Monday to Sunday. That’s just my thing. I’ve always had the work ethic and get out there and practice and try to perform. It’s time management.

“I’ve learned to be a professional golfer, not just a golfer … that’s’ the biggest difference for me so far.”

And while there won’t be a Korn Ferry Tour event in Nashville this year, the city will still be as vibrant as ever when it’s safe again.

“It’s just become a destination place,” said Armstrong. “A lot of people see it as filled with tourist attractions, but it’s not that touristy. It’s just what we’re used to. We see it as home.”