Three years ago, Brandon Matthews suffered the worst slump of his golf life. He made just one cut in his final 18 starts of the 2019 Korn Ferry Tour season, finishing well outside the top-100 on the Points List and bringing an uncertain fate. For the first time since he was a kid, he wondered if professional golf was a viable career option.

But the native of Scranton, Pennsylvania – a self-described “golf sicko” – has never wanted to do anything else job-wise, and his love for the game carried him through. He returned to his hometown and dug it out of the dirt with instructor Dale Gray; the left side of the range tee at CC of Scranton “was a divot.”

Matthews returned to PGA TOUR Latinoamerica, on which he won the 2020-21 Order of Merit to earn full Korn Ferry Tour status. The momentum has continued throughout the 2022 Korn Ferry Tour Regular Season; a runner-up at The Panama Championship in February was followed by a victory at the following week’s Astara Golf Championship presented by Mastercard in Bogota, moving him to the verge of securing a spot in The 25.

With a final-round 67 at this week’s BMW Charity Pro-Am presented by TD SYNNEX, Matthews has crossed the fail-safe threshold of 875 points to secure his first PGA TOUR card for the 2022-23 season.

The Temple alum and avid Dave Matthews Band fan, one of the longest hitters in professional golf, will put his talents to the test on golf’s biggest stage next season.

“It’s pretty amazing,” said Matthews after punctuating his #TOURBound moment with a birdie on the 72nd hole Sunday in the South Carolina Upstate. “Obviously it’s been a lifetime dream of mine since I was a little kid. It’s amazing that I’m in the moment that it’s true now.”

After crossing the threshold to secure his first TOUR card, Matthews is pleased but not satisfied. He’ll head to Boston to compete in next week’s U.S. Open at The Country Club – where he reached the quarterfinals of the 2013 U.S. Amateur – and then return to the Korn Ferry Tour with the aim of improving his spot on The 25 as much as possible.

“There’s a lot of work to still be done,” Matthews said. “Everybody knows that the No. 1 spot means a lot. Hopefully we can continue to trend in the right direction … I think I’ve found a little something the last few weeks. If we can continue on this path, I think we’ll have a good shot for that 1 spot.”

This file will be updated in the coming days with a more extensive look at Matthews’ journey to the PGA TOUR.