Built in the Dirt

Fred Biondi’s hands were bleeding as he dragged himself through another six-hour session on the range at Timuquana Country Club in Jacksonville, Fla. Every swing brought more frustration, more doubt. Most days it was just him and his thoughts — plus a constant stream of texts to his swing coach, and his former coaches at the University of Florida, JC Deacon and Dudley Hart, all asking the same desperate question: How do I find it again?

He would show up before sunrise and stay long after he could see the ball land. For the 2023 NCAA champion and two-time All-American, being this lost didn’t feel real. But it was.

Fast-forward to last earlier this month: Biondi stood on the 108th and final hole of DP World Tour Q-School needing birdie to earn his card. His NCAA title was only two years old, but it felt like something that happened to a different person entirely.

He was in Spain for Q-School by himself, having lost Korn Ferry Tour status the previous season. When he first turned pro, I asked, did he ever imagine standing here like this? “No,” he said. “In college I never thought I’d be in this position. But a year ago when I was struggling, I wasn’t sure I’d be back here ever. Golf just humbles you so fast.” 

It was the clearest look yet at the depths of his struggle — and the determination behind his comeback.

Biondi had a standout amateur résumé, but his early years at Florida were bumpy. He struggled during his first two seasons in Gainesville before turning a corner with a strong junior year and a spectacular senior season. He not only won the individual NCAA Championship, he added two more victories and delivered the clinching point in the Gators’ national title win over Georgia Tech.

With his Korn Ferry Tour status locked up thanks to a second-place finish in the PGA Tour U rankings, Biondi turned pro that summer. He made the cut in his first two starts and, even though the weekends didn’t go as planned, he appeared to be on the trajectory everyone anticipated.

Then everything started to unravel. He broke 70 only twice over his next 20 rounds and missed nine straight cuts, a stunning slide for someone who had seemed destined for the fast track.

Florida’s head coach, JC Deacon, who’s spent more than a decade running the program, says no former player is closer to him than Biondi. He and assistant coach Dudley Hart, a two-time PGA Tour winner, were in nonstop communication with Biondi as the struggles mounted. When I asked Deacon whether Biondi stayed composed through it all, “It was pure panic,” he said.

Biondi finally broke the drought in Bermuda on the PGA Tour, firing a second-round 64 — his lowest round as a professional — and following it with a Sunday 65 to finish T13. He backed it up the next week at the RSM Classic with another solid showing and a T23. A month later he added a T10 at the final stage of Q-school for the Korn Ferry Tour, and for a brief moment everything seemed to be back on track.

The 2024 Korn Ferry Tour season began only a few weeks after Q-School, and nothing early on suggested trouble. Biondi opened with a T7 in the Bahamas, made his next three cuts, and added a T21 in Panama. But even then, he sensed something wasn’t right. “I’d find something that would work for a little bit,” he said, “but it wouldn’t last.”

What followed was a steep slide. Biondi made only three of his next 18 cuts, and finished nearly last in two of the made cuts. Lost didn’t begin to describe it. 

After every missed cut, Biondi did the same thing — stay at the event and pound balls all weekend, or fly home and do it there.

He’d always loved the technical side of the game, studying swings and obsessing over mechanics. But in a slump that only made things worse. He sent his longtime coach, Matt DeJohn, multiple swing videos a day. The panic Deacon mentioned had returned.

Swing changes sparked brief hope, but the fixes never stuck. A few swings, a few days — then the same frustration, and the same spot on the range, searching for something that would hold.

DeJohn, who has coached Biondi since he was a kid, encouraged him to seek out other eyes, and Biondi did — but every road seemed to lead back to the same place: the range, filming his swing, and sending videos to DeJohn.

He also texted with Hart and Deacon often, it wasn't daily, but it was often. When I asked Deacon how many texts he received during the times Biondi was struggling, he didn’t hesitate. “A LOT,” he said.

Eighteen months after winning the NCAA Championship, Biondi found himself 117th in points, without KFT status, and he missed getting through Q-School. The staggering fall left him almost completely forgotten in a sport that moves on quickly.

Biondi’s work ethic stayed relentless. He worked out before sunrise, then spent the rest of the day on the course, often hitting balls nearly 50 hours a week. His hands bled, and he left the range drained in every way — only to wake up the next morning, tape his hands, and start again.

This season, Biondi was back on mini-tours, buying his own golf balls and chasing Monday qualifiers. The turnaround began over dinner with DeJohn. “Teach me like I’m a five-year-old,” Biondi told him. They scrapped the overanalysis and built everything around two simple fundamental drills.

One of them, the “Rory Drill,” works on upper–lower body separation. As he explained the name, Biondi broke down Rory McIlroy’s swing in exact detail — proof of how deeply he studies the game.

Things started to really click. In July, he received an exemption into a Korn Ferry Tour event, made the cut, and finished T47. Few people noticed, but Biondi didn’t mind. For the first time since turning pro, he finally felt himself moving in the right direction.

He keeps his goals in the notes app on his phone, and as we talked he pulled up an entry from late summer. On August 4th, just a few weeks after that T47, he wrote: “I understand what it takes to be great.” The work ethic, the swing, and — most importantly — the belief were finally aligned.

Later that month, Biondi flew to Belgium for his first DP World Tour Q-School. He liked what he felt on the range, but he knew that wasn’t enough. “Playing well at home didn’t get me anywhere,” he said. He needed to see it under pressure.

A closing 66 made him medalist by two.

Fast forward to October. Biondi still believed in his game, but as he stood on the first tee of the final round at PGA Tour Q-School’s First Stage, he was nowhere near the number.

At Q-School, the walls close in quickly. With nine holes left, he was three shots outside the five-under total needed to advance. With two holes to go, he was still stuck at three under. He birdied the par-5 17th to give himself a chance, then stepped to the tricky 18th at Bermuda Run, a hole that had played over par all week. One perfect approach later, he rolled in the birdie he needed. His 66 was tied for the low round of the day. One more escape. One more step forward.

In late October, Biondi and his girlfriend, Ansley, flew to Spain for the second stage of European Q-School. He didn’t have his best stuff, but he fought his way to a final-round 70 that left him into a 10-man playoff for the last five spots into Final Stage.

He made par on the first playoff hole, advancing as four players were eliminated. Six players were left for five spots.

On the second hole, Biondi pulled his tee shot left. As he and Ansley walked toward it, they hoped he’d at least have a swing. He didn’t. The ball was unplayable, and just like that, he was the odd man out.

I’ve been to plenty of Monday qualifiers where playoffs end in some quiet corner of the course — players who advance celebrating, while those who don’t stand alone, replaying how close they came. At Q-School, that walk is heavier.

Biondi told me that for much of the summer and fall he had felt good about his game — and that’s what made this sting. “It was pretty hard,” he remembered.

The next morning he headed to the airport. Technically, he still had a chance to get into the final stage as an alternate, but he just wanted to get home.

He touched down in Florida at 11 p.m. Six hours later, at 5 a.m., his phone lit up with “some random UK number.” On the line was the news he never expected: he was in. Enough players had withdrawn. He had a spot in Final Stage.

Fourteen hours after getting home, he was already on his way back to Spain for six rounds that would define his year.

There was a wait on the 108th hole. When you need a birdie on the final hole of Q-School, the last thing you want is a backup, but Biondi forced himself to stay positive. As the group waited for the fairway to clear, he told his caddie that when he landed in Florida after losing the playoff at Second Stage, he would have given anything to be standing here with a chance.

A nearly perfect drive left him 215 yards into the par-5, water guarding the left side and the pin tucked in the back right. He flushed his second shot but “overdrew it a bit,” and his stomach dropped. With everything on the line, that’s easy to do. The ball landed softly on the far left portion of the green, 45 feet away. Two putts for status.

“It had about six feet of break,” Biondi said. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t have been overly difficult. With a European Tour card on the line, even breathing felt hard. He steadied himself and rolled the putt to three feet.

He’d made a million of these. A straightforward three-footer — except this one wasn’t simple at all. This was for status. For validation. For every hour on the range and every swing video he’d sent. “My legs felt like jello,” he told me. It went right in the center. 

He FaceTimed Ansley; she cried. Then he called Deacon and Hart. Deacon told me they’d talked every day that week. “I’m just so proud of him,” he said, praising Biondi’s work ethic before adding, “He’s just a really good young man.”

This week, Fred Biondi will tee it up in his first DP World Tour event at the Australian PGA in Brisbane. Then he’ll fly back to the U.S. for Second Stage of PGA Tour Q-School in Florida — and, if all goes well, Final Stage the following week.

It’s been just two years since his NCAA Championship. It feels like a lifetime ago. But Biondi has learned to embrace the long days on the Timuquana range. “This has made me a better person and taught me a lot.”

His game is back. Now it’s time to show the world.

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