Gligic is poised to get PGA Tour card after win
Burlington golfer just needs one more showing in top 10
When Michael Gligic was 13, his mom took him to Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, Ont., and told instructor Sean Foley her son wanted to take the sport more seriously.
More than 15 years later, Foley got great joy out of seeing a fellow Burlington native record the greatest triumph of his rollercoaster golf career — making a spot on the PGA Tour next season a very strong possibility.
Gligic, 29, who now lives in Kitchener, captured the Web.com Tour’s Panama Championship by one shot after shooting a 5-under 65 in the final round on Sunday.
“I’ve been a part of so many wins with players — wins of the U.S. Open or the FedEx Cup and they’re building their legacy — but that win (Sunday) ... it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a win that literally could change the trajectory of someone’s life,” said Foley, a former instructor to Tiger Woods who now counts world
No. 1 Justin Rose as one of his clients.
“If he has one more top 10, he’s on the PGA Tour and he has 22 tournaments to get to that number. Mike’s always been focused on making it, and when you’re focused on making it, maybe you just make it. Whereas now the focus should be on what he could do to finish No. 1 on the money list.
“If I said that to him six weeks ago, he might have thought in his heart of hearts (he’d) really not believe he could be, but now he’s just learned something you can’t teach people. When push comes to shove, you can do it.”
Gligic is the fourth Canadian in the last four years to win on the Web.com Tour — the feeder circuit to the PGA Tour — following Mackenzie Hughes of Dundas (2016), Ben Silverman of Thornhill (’17), and Adam Svensson of Surrey, B.C. (’18). The top 25 at season’s end earn tickets to the PGA Tour, and Gligic — currently second — simply needs to stay consistent to finish in that group.
Hughes, Silverman, and Svensson are now playing on the PGA Tour.
But Gligic’s road to the top tour hasn’t been as smooth as some of his fellow Canadians.
He turned professional at 18, forgoing a post-secondary education to chase his golf dreams. He earned his Mackenzie Tour-PGA Tour Canada card on his
19th birthday and won his first event four years later.
The win came the year before the Mackenzie Tour was brought under the PGA Tour umbrella, so he spent the next five seasons in Canada with only brief appearances on the Web.com Tour.
A breakthrough came at the end of last year’s Mackenzie Tour season — he was named the Canadian player of the year — and earned a spot in the first eight Web.com Tour events through his position at the final stage of Web.com Tour qualifying school.
Now, all signs point toward Gligic joining the Canadian contingent on the PGA Tour.
“I’ve always known I’ve had it, but there are so many good players in golf,” Gligic said by phone from Panama before flying to Florida for this week’s Web.com Tour event.
“The one thing I get asked a lot is ’What’s the difference between you and them … the guys on the PGA Tour?’ My answer has always been the same. You can put the top 50 in the world on their own level, but then you put No. 51 in the world on the driving range with a Mackenzie Tour player, and you can’t tell who is No. 51 or who is on the Mackenzie Tour. I think that’s what has kept me going.”
Gligic grew up playing both hockey and baseball and was a goalie for 12 years. He wanted to be a pro hockey player, but after realizing he wasn’t going to make it (he had dropped baseball at that point), Gligic told his parents he wanted to practise golf indoors instead.
Gligic played only recreationally to that point, but then hooked up with Foley — the former instructor to Tiger Woods who now counts No. 1 Justin Rose as one of his clients. He went to Florida with Foley, who was just starting his own career, and participated in an elite junior program before turning professional. Gligic admits he wasn’t a standout junior golfer like Hughes, who is now a winner on the PGA Tour, but worked as hard as he could. He said it was “pretty cool” to have Foley text him Sunday night. Gligic was one of his first notable pupils.
“At the end of the day if you just keep working hard … I believed it would all work out,” said Gligic.