Highsmith: From cut line to Augusta
Lefty accomplishes rare rebound feat to book his first Masters ... and then some
Joe Highsmith and caddie Joe LaCava IV celebrate their first PGA Tour win (Ben Jared/PGA Tour via Getty Images)
Joe Highsmith provided a good reminder about why a golfer in peril should never give up.
Seemingly out of the tournament last Friday at the Cognizant Classic at The Palm Beaches, Highsmith faced a putt just more than 4 feet on the final green in order to make the 36-hole cut.
If he made it, he’d play the weekend and get a paycheck. But he would still be eight shots behind leader Jake Knapp.
No big deal?
It had been nine years since a player made the cut on the number and went on to win the tournament. The number-of-days-since clock goes back to zero since that’s exactly what Highsmith did at PGA National.
Behind a pair of weekend 64s at PGA National, the 24-year-old left-hander who played college golf at Pepperdine made up all that ground and then some, winning his first PGA Tour event by two shots.
By doing so, Highsmith earned a spot in this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, a signature event with a limited field that invites current-year winners who are not otherwise eligible.
Even more, the victory earned him a spot in his first Masters next month. Highsmith’s only previous major start was the 2021 U.S. Open when he qualified as an amateur.
“Did you say the Masters?” Highsmith said after all the spoils for his victory were rattled off at the press conference. “I went last year to the tournament just as a spectator because any chance that I can get to walk out there, I’m going to take advantage of that. But to be playing in that tournament is going to be very special and, obviously, something you work towards your whole life.
“But you never really know when you’re going to get that chance.”
The victory comes with all kinds of perks like job security through 2027 as well as starts in the remaining 2025 signature events, the PGA Championship, his first Players and next year’s Sentry at Kapalua. He also climbed from No. 170 in the Official World Golf Rankings to 59th.
And it was all made possible by a nervy putt on the 36th hole by a guy who in five previous PGA Tour starts this season had three missed cuts and a T66.
“I feel like once I made it on the number, I knew I was going to go out early on Saturday, and that was going to be a good chance because the scores just get so much harder as the day goes on,” Highsmith said. “I definitely took advantage of that. I played really nicely on Saturday.
“Then the course got really tough, so I ended up moving way closer to the lead than I should have. I knew that I was going to be on the opposite side of that (Sunday). I played really, really good, so it was nice to kind of conquer that course when it was a little easy but also when it was baked and crusty and windy and everything. It was really hard out there this afternoon.”
Making that par putt to give himself a chance was every bit as daunting. He became the first player to make the cut on the number and win since Brandt Snedeker at the 2016 Farmers Insurance Open. Before that, the last time it happened was in 2010.
“It was, like, the worst putt you’d ever want,” Highsmith said. “The greens were so baked out and bumpy and it was right to left kind of falling away. Just a super sketchy putt. I hate right-to-left putts because I have a tendency to wipe them or block them a little bit.
“I had already been kind of crumbling under the cut pressure. I think I had bogeyed two of the last five or something, made a couple pars, and of course I ended up with this 5-footer just to make the cut. Same kind of thing. I just tried to make sure, at a minimum, I committed to it. I didn’t want to leave knowing that I had wished the last putt on Friday, so I committed to it and fortunately it went in.”
Highsmith’s caddie is Joe LaCava IV, the son of veteran caddie Joe LaCava who looped for Tiger Woods for more than 10 years as well as Fred Couples. The elder LaCava now caddies for Patrick Cantlay.
Highsmith and Cantlay will be paired in the same group for the first two rounds of the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill this week, meaning father and son with caddie together for the first time.
The 2025 Masters is shaping up to have its largest field since 97 players teed it up in 2014 and 2015. Highsmith brings the count to 92 players who are already qualified with five more weeks before players head to Augusta.
There are five more PGA Tour events offering 2025 Masters invites to winners — including this week’s signature event at Bay Hill and the Players Championship which both have a high likelihood of being won by a player already qualified. The Valspar Championship, Texas Children’s Houston Open and Valero Texas Open also offer Masters spots to winners.
Players in the OWGR top 50 on April 3 will also qualify, of which there are currently two candidates lurking inside the bubble — England’s Laurie Canter (No. 42) and American Ben Griffin (48). Not far outside the top-50 bubble are Daniel Berger (53), J.J. Spaun (56), Alex Noren (60), Eric Cole (62), Mackenzie Hughes (67) and Michael Kim (68).