Joseph Bramlett’s story is not unlike that of Sisyphus, the ancient king of Ephyra who was famously punished by Zeus to roll a massive boulder up a steep hill repeatedly, with no end to the task in sight. Many have commented on the mythology, including French philosopher Albert Camus, who concluded that the struggle is “enough to fill a man’s heart.”
Bramlett’s continued pushing of his proverbial boulder has indeed pumped his heart full of perseverance. For starters, he recently earned a PGA Tour card for the first time in nine years. That alone is a remarkable accomplishment, but everything that has transpired around it makes Bramlett a player every golf fan should be rooting for this season.
The Californian first came to prominence when he qualified for the 2002 U.S. Amateur at age 14. At the time he was the youngest to qualify for the championship, and it was an early sign of the player he would develop into at Stanford a few years later. His collegiate career brought with it a weighty comparison – Bramlett is biracial, the son of an African-American father and a Caucasian mother, so parallels were drawn between Bramlett and Tiger Woods, another California kid who attended the same university.
“It’s the elephant in the room,” said Stanford head coach Conrad Ray. “He’s not shy about carrying that torch with the kind of background he has. I think he remains so focused because he quietly respects doing right by those expectations.”
Early on, it appeared he could approach the success Woods enjoyed at Stanford. Bramlett competed in all 13 events as a freshman and finished with a shimmering 71.5 stroke average to earn All-Pac 10 and second-team All-American recognition. The 2007 Cardinal went on to win their eighth NCAA Championship. Bramlett was on a course to the dominant collegiate career many expected.
Through a series of unfortunate circumstances, Bramlett never fulfilled those expectations. He started respectably in the first five tournaments of his sophomore year, but then slipped during a workout and bruised a bone in his right wrist. As a junior, Bramlett had a strong showing in the fall and appeared back on track until a day in December when he fell off his bike on his way to submit a final. He suffered a triangular fibrocartilage complex tear in his right wrist that kept him out for 13 months. And if that weren’t unlucky enough, Bramlett could not redshirt and receive an extra year of eligibility – in both years in which he was injured, he already had played too many events to redshirt.
So, after playing his last semester as a senior, Bramlett’s college career ended unceremoniously. That created the unusual circumstance of a golfer who had extraordinary talent but didn’t have much sustained playing time in college. Still, Bramlett remained dedicated to being a professional golfer, and his determination paid off when he earned a PGA Tour card at the 2010 Q-School.
“I really stayed proactive while I was injured,” Bramlett said. “I was very reflective of my game and what I needed to do to get ready for post college. I had a really successful summer after my senior year, qualifying for the U.S. Open and winning the Northeast Amateur. When I got through Q-School that fall, all of a sudden I was on the PGA Tour and I really hadn’t played a lot.”
At the time, Bramlett remembers the feeling of relief. He finally had recuperated from two freak injuries and had no problems with his battered right wrist. He had reached the PGA Tour immediately after college, just as he had hoped all along. Sure, he wished his college career hadn’t been curtailed by injuries, but the bottom line was that he had achieved a lifelong dream.
Like many players who first reach the tour, he simply wasn’t ready.
“I had never played a full season of professional golf,” Bramlett said. “That’s a huge jump to make from college to professional. It was just an enormous lifestyle change. All of a sudden, you are a boss and you have people who work for you. You’ve got a caddie, you’ve got an agent, you’ve got a team around you and you have to figure out how to run it.”
Bramlett missed the cut in 13 of 25 starts in 2011 and finished 199th in the FedEx Cup standings, meaning he would play the 2012 campaign on what would soon become the Web.com Tour. After a runner-up result in the Chile Classic early in the season and two other top-10s later on, it appeared likely he would regain his PGA Tour card, but untimely missed cuts near the end of his year put him at No. 28 on the money list, which was a stroke or two short of a return.
The next year, Bramlett endured a fate much worse than narrowly missing a chance to return to the big leagues. He had four top-25 finishes in 13 starts when he went to hit balls on the range before an event at Willow Creek Country Club in Sandy, Utah. He got over the ball and his back gave out.
Bramlett was diagnosed with an annular tear in his L4 and L5 vertebrae, the two lowest in the lumbar spine. It’s an injury that typically takes about 18 months to heal fully. But Bramlett didn’t recover in that time frame and was left searching for answers.
Throughout the time after his injury, Bramlett visited 15 spine surgeons and seven physical therapists. He wasn’t a candidate for surgery, and some of the individuals he saw suggested that it would be best to discontinue his golf career.
Bramlett didn’t play a full round of golf for 21 months, and when he did come back to the Web.com Tour in 2016, it didn’t go well. He finished tied for 18th in his first tournament before a pair of missed cuts, but the real story was that he still didn’t feel healthy.
One might say Bramlett’s reached a turning point by never allowing his drive to fall below 100 percent. What’s also accurate is that a swing change probably saved Bramlett’s career.
“I was a ticking time bomb.” Bramlett remembers. “It quickly got way worse. We had to go back and restrategize. That was really frustrating, but I still thought things were going to be OK.”
He didn’t play for the rest of 2016 and all of 2017. He would attempt to practice for two weeks and then have to lay flat on the floor at home for two weeks. Suddenly, as the uber-talented kid from Stanford approached age 30, it appeared his professional career was over.
At that point, he could have left the game and not a soul would have blamed him. He had earned a degree from Stanford and easily could have enjoyed a fulfilling life outside the realm of professional golf.
The thing is, that isn’t Joseph Bramlett. Of all the players Ray has coached, he considers Bramlett “the most unwavering in his desire and path to play pro golf.” True to that sentiment, if there is one characteristic that defines Bramlett’s life, it is this:
He won’t be denied his passion.
“My whole life, I’ve had this vision that I’m going to play the PGA Tour and I’m going to be one of the best players in the world,” he says with a bit of emotion in his voice. “This is who I am. I’ve always loved golf and I’ve always been self-driven. Ever since I was 5 years old, this has been what I’ve wanted to do.”
One might say Bramlett’s reached a turning point by never allowing his drive to fall below 100 percent. What’s also accurate is that a swing change probably saved Bramlett’s career.
John Scott Rattan, a former college player at Tennessee who played four years professionally, is an instructor at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md., and had formed a relationship with Bramlett’s agent, Fred Fried. When Rattan and Bramlett connected and began working together, the cause of Bramlett’s back issues immediately became apparent to Rattan. Bramlett didn’t turn his hips on his backswing and would use his athleticism to quickly spin through the ball on the downswing, Rattan observed. His feet were also stagnant, and this move put continuous torque on his lower back.
“We wanted him to create force from the ground up instead of the top down,” Rattan said. “His posture is a lot taller (now), his address is more neutral, we got him longer clubs and he’s using his feet differently now.
“He’s a very organized and thoughtful guy, so we went about it in a very practical way. We went from just trying to get two practices in a row, to three rounds in a row to now where he can play 12 weeks in a row without pain.”
Bramlett’s back not only improved drastically with a swing change and the help of a physical trainer, but he eventually reached a point where the once-constant maintenance – receiving injections and other forms of treatment – wasn’t at all necessary. He could play just like any other professional golfer. The swing change had, quite simply, been the only prescription he needed.
Armed with a more efficient swing, Bramlett returned to the Web.com Tour in 2018 for what would be his first full season of professional golf since 2012. He immediately posted a top-10 at the El Bosque Mexico Championship and didn’t miss a cut in his first nine starts. Despite adding another three top-10 results, Bramlett needed solid play in the last few events to get back to the PGA Tour. He missed the cut at the Price Cutter Charity Championship and KC Golf Classic before finishing T24 in each of the last two regular-season events. That put him at No. 27 on the money list, less than $4,000 from earning a spot. He opened the Web.com Tour Finals with a tie for fifth in Columbus, meaning that making the cut in a couple of the remaining three three events likely would earn him passage to the PGA Tour. Instead, he missed the cut in all three tournaments.
For some reason, Bramlett couldn’t get off the bubble.
“I wish I had the answer to that,” Bramlett says, laughing. “For some reason, I like to scare the heck out of everyone around me.”
This year, the bubble boy was back on the renamed Korn Ferry Tour. Arriving at the regular-season finale in Portland, Ore., 32nd on the points list (the Korn Ferry Tour had switched from money to points-based standings), Bramlett missed the cut and would have to compete in the three-tournament Korn Ferry Tour Finals to earn a PGA Tour card.
You guessed it. After finishing T23 and T25 in the first two events, Bramlett found himself on the bubble one more time. He needed a similar finish in the last event to squeak into the top 25. He opened with a 64 at Indiana’s Victoria National Golf Club and appeared to be in the clear to coast home. It didn’t work out that way. Bramlett fumbled his way to a third-round 76 and found himself projected right near the edge.
He opened the final round with a 3-under 33 on the front nine but a bogey on the par-3 11th left him facing a stressful finish on a demanding golf course. The clincher came on the par-3 16th when Bramlett made birdie. After finishing par-bogey, he could finally celebrate being a PGA Tour player once again.
How would Bramlett sum up his experience on the Korn Ferry Tour? It’s the same way he describes his battle through the past decade, and the belief that kept him going.
“It was a really stressful month, to be honest. Out here, sometimes it is a grind and it seems like there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, and then all of a sudden everything you have been working so hard for is right in front of you.
“But that’s one of the beautiful things about golf. It seems like every week you play, there is something amazing that can happen.”
And just like that, Bramlett has pushed his boulder over the hill, crumbling it into a million golf-ball-sized pieces.