He gave up on pro golf, then qualified for his first PGA Tour event

Josh Goldenberg doesn’t plan to quit his day job. But he had a great time dabbling in his old career.

“This week was incredible,” he said. “A dream come true.”

It was nearing noon on Saturday, and Goldenberg was speaking by phone from the Toronto airport, about to board a flight home to New York. By Monday morning, he’d be back at his desk in Manhattan, working in finance for Goldman Sachs. But for now, he was still basking in the good vibes of the last few days, when he’d competed in his first PGA Tour event — the RBC Canadian Open — after late-qualifying into the field. 

While Goldenberg’s appearance at TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley hadn’t come entirely out of the blue — a former standout on the golf team at the University of Pennsylvania, he’d been a globe-trotting grinder on development circuits for several years — it also wasn’t anything he would have banked on. 

He knew the deal. He’d given professional golf a go, and he’d learned enough to know that he couldn’t make a reliable living at it. This past March, at 28, he signed on for a steady paycheck with Goldman Sachs.

Childhood dreams die hard, though, and Goldenberg’s status on the DP World Tour kept him eligible for Monday qualifying through 2025. It so happened that Monday qualifying for this year’s RBC was scheduled for a Sunday, relieving Goldenberg of any weekday work conflict. After getting the blessing from his bosses, Goldenberg flew north for the deciding round at The Pulpit Club in Caledon, Ontario, where he finished T2 to earn a spot.

“If you had told me that this was the timeline it was going to happen in, I would have laughed,” Goldenberg said. “I was out there playing for years. I’ve done quite a few of these qualifiers, and now, when I’ve been sitting at a desk for months and not practicing, now is when I make it in?”

Might as well enjoy.

During Monday and Tuesday practice rounds at Osprey Valley, where he pegged it with the likes of Joel Dahmen, Tom Kim, Ben An and Danny Willett, Goldenberg could hardly keep the grin off his face.

“I was looking around at the grandstands, the entire setting and I kept wanting to ask those guys, does this ever get old?” he said.

On Wednesday, he chose to simply walk the course.

“I was making a conscious effort to move slowly, just trying to soak it all in,” he said. 

As fresh as it was — his first time competing at the game’s highest level — the experience also struck him as oddly familiar. Working through his warmups before his opening round — chipping, putting, stretching, swinging — “it was kind of normal,” Goldenberg said. “I didn’t feel too out of my comfort zone.”

He couldn’t have asked for a better start. On Thursday morning, he introduced himself to Rory McIlroy on the putting green (“He was absolutely great.”) and then went out in the 8:24 a.m. grouping with Thomas Rosenmüller and Mason Andersen, birdying the 10th hole — his first — and following that with a gritty up-and-down for par on the tough par-3 11th. 

For a fleeting moment, he thought, “I’m up there on the leaderboard.” 

The electricity he sensed wasn’t just his nerves. Goldenberg had an entourage of family around him. His parents, who had raised him in Scarsdale, NY, and introduced him to the game almost as soon as he could walk, were in attendance, along with his three siblings, four cousins, an uncle and an aunt. He also had the backing of Rick Hartmann, the head pro from his home club of Atlantic CC on Long Island, who Goldenberg said, “has been with me on this journey since I was a kid.” Hartmann had called as soon as he saw the qualifying results.

“I’m so grateful for my support system, from my family to my coaches and pros back home,” he said. “They knew I could accomplish something like this even when I sometimes didn’t.”

Self-belief is big in golf. Ability is, too. But who makes it and who doesn’t can be hard to figure out. That was something else that Goldenberg was reminded of this week — the puzzling intangibles. With rounds of 74 and 71, he fell short of the weekend. But he finished four shots better than McIlroy, among others. And as impressed as he was by the Tour pros in his midst, not even the finest shots he witnessed seemed like feats he couldn’t pull off himself.

“I didn’t feel like there was anything revolutionary,” he said. “In that sense, I guess you could say it’s heartening and frustrating at the same time — knowing I have the ability but also fully appreciating how hard it is to make a living at it, which is something I was unable to do.”

As fallbacks go, finance is a good one. He enjoys the work and the collaboration that it requires.

“I am a very social person, and golf can be a lonely lifestyle — I’ve been there,” he said. “I want to be surrounded by a team, and as much as I love competing, I didn’t get to that point in golf.”

That he’s sticking with his day job doesn’t mean he’s giving up on the game. His DP World Tour status is valid through the end of the year, “so I want to take advantage of it as long as I have it.”

Other qualifiers are surely in his future. But maybe not right now.

“I just used up five vacation days,” he said.