Following the two worst seasons of an otherwise solid career, Daniel Summerhays has decided he won’t be going back to Q School ever again. Instead, he’s going back to a different school at the end of this season. High school.
The 36-year-old tour pro is walking away from the game to return to his alma mater, Davis High School in Kaysville, Utah. There, he plans to teach and serve as the school’s golf coach.
“It’s hard to say it, but after a pretty long, above-average career on the PGA Tour, I’m going to step away and go another direction for awhile,” Summerhays told the Deseret News earlier this week. “I’m going to try the education system and move into a teacher-mentor role rather than the touring-golf-pro role.”
Summerhays was a standout golfer and a member of the state champion basketball team at Davis before becoming an All-American at BYU. He won a Korn Ferry Tour event while he was still an amateur and then racked up nearly $9 million in earnings during his eight full seasons on the PGA Tour, where he recorded two runner-up finishes and a solo third at the 2016 PGA Championship.
It’s on the developmental tour where Summerhays will play one final event before riding off into the sunset scurrying off to homeroom. He’ll tee it up at this week’s Utah Championship, where he finished solo sixth for his only top 25 last season.
But even if this week had the ultimate storybook ending, Daniel Summerhays seems pretty set on his fall plans.
“When I thought about how I’d want to make a difference and an impact, that was one of the ways I felt like I could touch a lot of kids and spread my influence a little bit,” the father of four told the Deseret News. “The last several years it’s been in the back of my mind. Your kids get older and you love being around them and you start searching for ways to be home more and more. So I’ve loved being home especially through the coronavirus.”