Joel Dahmen has become emotional in his first full interview about splitting from longtime caddie and childhood friend, Geno Bonnalie. After nearly 20 years together, the duo parted ways mid‑season, shocking fans and leaving Dahmen visibly reflective.
Talking after a low‑round 61 at the Wyndham Championship, Dahmen said: “Man, I love Geno… we still text almost daily. I miss him… he’s my best friend.” But he also shared that the decision was driven by a need for personal growth: “It was more about me… my mentality… I needed to take ownership”
🎥 In this video:
The emotional statements Dahmen made post-round
Why he felt the split—even from his best friend—was necessary
How his game responded: first round lead at Wyndham after the change
What the split means for his future on tour and his mental game going forward
👇 COMMENT: Should a player ever part ways with a friend in search of personal accountability?
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And um just since we haven’t asked it on video, I would feel remiss without but could you kind of reflect a bit on what it meant to have that time that decade with Gino on the bag and all the experiences from KFT just in uh man I love Gino. Uh we still text almost daily. Um he’s doing well. Uh yeah, I I mean I I miss him. Uh but sometimes you the hardest you have to do something hard to uh look I mean it wasn’t an easy decision. I’m I say I’m not happy about it, but like it’s it’s hard. I mean, it’s he’s my best friend. He’s still my best friend, but I had to I had to change something with me. It was more about me. It was my mentality. It was what I was doing. And um I needed to take ownership of what I was doing. I was not doing a good job of that. So, for a way for me to do it as simple as just playing golf on my own a little bit. Um so, yeah, I I love him. I miss him. Uh I think we’ll see him out here again soon. Awesome. Cheers. Really good. Uh drove in the rough a couple holes early, but um got away with a couple of them and then uh I hit a ton of fairways after that and hit the numbers I was trying to and rolled in a few putts. So it was as basic as it gets, but typically when you do all those things, it adds up to a a really low score. Can you talk about course conditions, your flat stick working so well today, and just overall your mindset? Yeah, I’m impressed with how firm it is out there. We’ve the notoriously have rain, especially last year. Um, I think it’s my seventh or eighth year playing here and typically gets a little wet, so it’s fun to see the ball bounce on the fairways. Um, greens are if you hit good putts are they’re going to go in. So, they’re they picked up a lot of pace from I played late proam Wednesday. They picked up a lot of pace this morning. So, there was a few downhillers that were really quick, but um yeah, it’s good. You made a statement. You know, there were five guys tied for the lead and and and now we’re seeing you emerge as as the overall leader today. What was your overall mindset? What was working that way? Uh just keep compounding good shots. Uh hit it in the fairway, hit it in the right spot on the green, and try to make a putt from there. I mean, it’s Thursday’s a long ways from Sunday. Uh, I’ve been here a lot, so uh, just happy to get off to a good start and, um, yeah, we’ll see where things fall. Thank you. Did you see this coming this round? I don’t know if you ever see 61 coming, but I saw good golf coming. Uh, I mean, I went 45ish holes last week without a bogey to start the tournament. Um, played really well in uh, Truckucky at the Barracuda besides kind of a weak Saturday. I mean, if you take like four holes away, last week I was kind of going to be in top five. So, um trending, as we like to say in golf, we’re always trending, right? But, uh we’re actually trending. Uh which is nice when in terms of trying to make the playoffs, you alluded to it with Kevin, but how would you kind of compare contextualize what you need to do this week and how realistic it feels? I mean, I’ve had like three top twos in my career. I don’t know, four of them maybe. Like, it’s not even a thing, right? And it’s like, yeah, great to make a playoffs. That would be unbelievable. Uh, give me a lot of time off this fall. Uh, we got a baby coming, so that would take some pressure off of that. But the playoffs are a bonus for me. I’m just going to go out and try to play good golf. And, um, I guess if I play really well, then I get to play another week. If you were to zany question, but if you’re the Seahawks in the last game of the year needing X to make the playoffs, where are you in that game? if they needed the feel like there’s a point differential. I know there’s not a point differential, but it’d be one of those where you have to like blow out a team by like 50 or something to somehow get through. It would be it’s uh I mean you it’s not farfetched, but I mean if you look at numbers starting the week, it’s uh it’s farfetched. So, I’m happy with where my game is. I played a nice round of golf today and I’m going to rest and I’m going to try to do it again
