He felt fresher for last year’s Q-School, though. Hitting balls out of mid-air had increased his confidence off the tee. If he could hit a moving ball reasonably straight, why couldn’t he do the same when it was sitting still, perched above the ground?
George IV saw a change in his brother’s demeanor on the course, too. Wesley was always the more outgoing one, quicker with a joke or sly remark, but he started taking the game more seriously once he started playing for money. That had a negative impact on his game. Hitting trick shots gave Wesley a break from the grind of pro golf and helped him get back to his fun-loving ways.
“That was the Wesley I knew,” George IV says.
The Bryan Bros’ success also increased Wesley’s desire to gain attention for his play, not his YouTube performances. “Wesley Bryan, PGA TOUR player” sounds a lot better than “Wesley Bryan, Internet sensation.” He put in the extra practice last summer to ensure that would happen.
“That’s kind of when I put my head down and went to work,” Wesley says.
With George IV on the bag, Wesley finished ninth at the final stage of last year’s Q-School to secure good status for the 2016 season. George IV still has his own playing aspirations, but he started the season as his younger brother’s caddie. Wesley finished seventh in his Web.com Tour debut, at the Panama Claro Championship.
Two starts later, he was one stroke off the lead entering the final round of the Chitimacha Louisiana Open presented by NACHER. Wesley, who’d won once on the mini-tours, was surprisingly calm in the final round. Three back-nine birdies, including one on 17, led to a one-shot win.
Wesley won again three starts later, at the El Bosque Mexico Championship presented by INNOVA, to ensure he would earn PGA TOUR status for the 2016-17 season.
“I was almost too nervous to take the club back,” Wesley says.
Hitting a golf ball out of mid-air is easy compared to clinching your first TOUR card and fulfilling a childhood dream.
Wesley didn’t have to wait until October to become a PGA TOUR member, though. His third victory of the year – in just his 13th start – earned him an immediate promotion. He was just the 11th player since 1997, when the three-win promotion was instituted, to accomplish the feat.
He won the Digital Ally Open in Overland Park, Kansas, on Aug. 7 by holing a 3-foot birdie putt on the second hole of a three-man playoff. The next morning, Wesley and Elizabeth made the five-hour drive to Silvis, Illinois, for the John Deere Classic, where Wesley would make his debut as a PGA TOUR member. The drive through rural towns and cornfields in America’s heartland gave the Bryans the perfect setting to reflect on how much had changed in just a few years.
“My wife was working full-time, basically, and I was playing mini-tours and we were living over someone’s garage, in a studio apartment,” Wesley said. “Then a lot of hard work and a couple years later, we finally got the Web.com Tour card and here we are.”
The Deere was a fitting place for his debut. Wesley had been communicating over Twitter with the John Deere’s tournament director, Clair Peterson, about receiving a sponsor exemption, but that conversation was no longer necessary. Wesley wouldn’t have to rely on trick shots or social-media savvy to get in the tournament.
He’d earned his spot with his play. Just as he’d always dreamt.