Jordan Niebrugge Embarks On Pro Career After U.S. Open

It’s kind of a tough start to begin your pro career knowing you’ll likely only ever be the second-best athlete with your name in your own sport, but Jordan Niebrugge will do his best to chase down Jordan Spieth and Co. when he starts his professional career after the U.S. Open this week at Oakmont.

“I’m pretty pumped,” he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “I’ve been waiting a while for this and it’s pretty cool to finally get going. It’s just total excitement. There’s no fear. I’m so ready to get out there.”

Niebrugge, who finished T6 at The Open last year, signed with TaylorMade and will get six sponsor exemptions plus a return trip to The Open in July to try and earn temporary status as a PGA Tour member.

The qualifications for such a thing are pretty complex, and there are a lot of moving parts, but the bottom line is simple: Niebrugge, because of his terrific amateur career at Oklahoma State, will get a handful of opportunities to make it on the PGA Tour early on in his career. Opportunities that might never come for other college players.

“I have a lot of opportunities this summer,” he told the Sentinel. “I’m just going to go out there and play golf like I know how.”