To see Nate Lashley play on the PGA TOUR is to witness resilience in action.
He’s a rookie, but he’s not just any newcomer to golf’s largest stage. He’s a 35-year-old with a fighter’s heart.
May 23 will mark the 14th anniversary of the death of his parents and his college sweetheart. The three were tragically killed in a plane crash while traveling back from one of Lashley’s college golf tournaments.
Rather than retire his clubs, he continued to compete the following year, his senior season at the University of Arizona. He let golf — the sport his parents introduced him to — elevate him from insurmountable sadness. And in the 13 years that followed, he made it his mission to play at the highest level.
A Lashley Family portrait. Photo c/o Nate Lashley
Now 14 tournaments into his PGA TOUR career at the time of this writing, he’s made the cut six times, finished as high as 15th and teed off with legends Phil Mickelson and Lee Westwood.
“It’s a dream come true,” Lashley said. “Everything is top-notch from the golf course to the amenities, but it’s also very stressful at the same time. You want to play well, keep your card and get some high finishes so you can stick around.”
After all, this isn’t a man who’s interested in playing anywhere else.
Nate, the Natural Athlete
Growing up in western Nebraska, Lashley first picked up a golf club at 6 years old.
“My parents both played golf. They would take me out to the course, let me hit some balls and ride in the cart,” he said. “I learned to play more from my father than my mother, but I just loved the game when I was little.”
It wasn’t all golf, all-the-time, however. Lashley played football, baseball and basketball as well. In fact, he was a three-time all-state selection in basketball and, during his senior year, averaged more than 23 points per game.
“Basketball helped me with golf because rather than being very fundamental and analyzing everything like you tend to do in golf, basketball taught me that sometimes you’ve just got to let it go, relax and hit your shot. And I think I’ve carried that to the golf course.”
Lashely went on to earn a scholarship for golf at the University of Arizona. His parents even bought a small second home in nearby Phoenix, in part to watch him play often.
Lashley’s father, who was in the car business, also had an affinity for flying, so he earned his pilot’s license and bought a single-engine plane. So, it wasn’t uncommon for his parents to travel to away tournaments either.
At the end of Lashley’s junior year, his parents and girlfriend took the small plane from Nebraska to Sunriver, Oregon in order to watch him in the 2004 NCAA West Regional.
A natural at a young age. Photo c/o Nate Lashley
“We were trying to qualify for nationals,” he said. “I think we qualified fairly easily, but it was kind of a stressful day with that pressure. Then the team had to leave fairly quickly after the round to catch a flight back to Tucson, so I hugged everyone and off we went.”
That night, he didn’t hear from his parents or his girlfriend, which was unusual. The next day was filled with more deafening silence.
“I had a horrible feeling, like ‘what’s going on here?’ I knew something was wrong, so we started making phone calls to the FAA,” Lashley explained.
The FAA mapped the flight path and discovered that the plane crashed in west-central Wyoming, near the state’s tallest mountain. Due to bad weather, it took investigators three days to locate the precise crash site.
In the meantime, Lashely and his older sister prayed for a miracle as they traveled to Wyoming. But nothing came, and the eventual news that all three had been killed leveled Lashley.
“For a long time, I was in a state of disbelief, anger and sadness,” Lashley said. “It was a wide range of emotions and a lot of patchy memories.”
An Up and Down Path to Golf’s Big Stage
Lashley went on to compete during his senior year, which was bittersweet.
“Golf was good for me because I was so focused on the shots that it took my mind off other things, and being around friends and traveling helped some,” he said. “But it was different because my parents came to so many tournaments that it was hard not seeing them there. That year was kind of just a blur. I don’t remember a lot of it to be honest with you.”
Lashley still led his team to the NCAA championships and earned All-America honors along the way. He turned pro and started working his way through PGA TOUR Q-school. He also received a sponsors exemption to the 2006 Tucson Open, his first taste of PGA TOUR life.
Though he was so nervous he could barely place the ball on the tee, he only missed the cut by a shot.
“That experience made me realize how great it is out here, and how much I wanted to be out here,” he said.
The Lashley Family takes in the views. Photo c/o Nate Lashley
He went on to earn partial status on the Nationwide Tour, now called the Web.com Tour, but struggled to make cuts there. In the meantime, he worked on his game, day and night, and earned his real estate license so he had something to fall back on. It came in handy in 2012 when he took a brief mental break from golf and wanted something to occupy his time.
He flipped homes and made a few sells, but quickly discovered “I would have much rather been on the golf course.”
After three months, he started practicing again, and got right back into the swing of things. The time away from the sport seemed to have helped. After playing on PGA TOUR Latinoamerica in 2016, and finishing high on the money list, he earned an exemption onto the Web.com Tour in 2017.
His confidence grew after a fifth-place finish in his first start and he moved up the money list again. Then, at the Corales Puntacana Resort and Club Championship in the Dominican Republic, he took home a win, which launched him up to No. 2 on the Web.com Tour and earned him a coveted PGA TOUR card.
Finding His Way with ‘Lefty’
Photo c/o Nate Lashley
Lashley’s first appearance on TOUR (with his card) came at the 2017 Safeway Open in Napa.
“I just wanted to play solid golf, which I did, but I just didn’t make any putts,” he said. “I ended up missing the cut on my last hole where I three-putted, so it was a hard way to start the year. It took me a week or two to get over it.”
Fast forward to April and he put together one of his best performances of the season at the Houston Open, where he was paired with Mickelson and Westwood in the third-round.
“I was pretty nervous, but both Phil and Lee were great. Phil and I had a lot of chats about Arizona, Arizona State and different courses,” Lashley said. “He made the day really enjoyable. There were a lot of people following us, but I got to a place where I was really relaxed playing with them. It was by far the most fun round of golf, or one of them, that I’ve ever played.”
The result? He finished tied for 18th and, most importantly, he realized he belonged.
A Seasoned Rookie
So, what’s it like being a rookie at 35?
“Guys will throw a couple jokes, but I haven’t gotten a whole lot of crap from anybody. I think a lot of the guys think I’m younger than what I am,” Lashley said with a chuckle.
HUMBLE, TX – MARCH 31: (L-R) Nate Lashley and Phil Mickelson walk to the green on the second hole during the third round of the Houston Open at the Golf Club of Houston on March 31, 2018 in Humble, Texas. (Photo by Josh Hedges/Getty Images)
Because of his maturity and rather raw life experience, Lashley believes that compared to his younger years, he now has a greater appreciation for golf, one of the many lasting gifts his parents bestowed.
“Obviously, I want nothing more than for them to just be able to come to one tournament and be able to watch,” he said. “They got me into the game, took me to junior tournaments and put so much time and care into seeing me play. I know they would be ecstatic to see me here, and they’d be super proud, just like I’m proud to be their son.”
Lashley’s PGA TOUR career is just beginning, but it’s fair to say that when golf puts him to the test, he’ll dig deep into a reserve of fortitude that rivals any of the veterans on TOUR.
