Guy and Wendy Leach purchased a golf course in western Wisconsin in 1998. The following year, they had a son and named him Tyler. The family lived across the street from the 12th tee of Spring Valley Golf Course, which is named after the town they belong to, a town of just 1,400 people. Tyler and his older sister, Taylor, spent about half the week at daycare and the other half with Wendy, who worked at the clubhouse. One day, Tyler discovered the putting green and he never looked back.
“I could just walk across the street and play whenever I wanted,” Leach said. “I basically lived there. I barely spent any time at home.”
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You can probably find some PGA Tour dreams at Spring Valley, a tree-lined public course that doesn’t have a driving range and still costs less than $30 to play on Saturday mornings. But that’s not exactly where you’d expect them to materialize.
And yet Leach, now a 25-year-old Marquette graduate, finds himself on the cusp of realizing a dream. Leach’s journey on the PGA Tour Q-School began three stops ago, during pre-qualifying, and continues at this week’s final stop in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., where Leach is among 176 players competing for five PGA Tour cards.
Only one of them has experience trying to shoot in the tight lanes of Spring Valley’s last nine games. Spring Valley barely peaks at 6,000 meters, but Leach warns of its difficulty. He was the Big East freshman for the Golden Eagles, and even he couldn’t break 7-under 65 there.
The pines, Leach said, “taught me to hit straight.” And no range meant no more actual golf, which taught Leach how to score. He arrived at Marquette as a talented ball-striker who didn’t miss a start his freshman year, then caught fire as a sophomore, winning his first tournament and averaging 71.9 in seven events before the pandemic canceled the rest of the season. He would play five seasons for the Golden Eagles, earning first-team All-Big East honors twice and finishing his career helping Marquette to Big East titles and NCAA regional berths.
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But as well as Leach could throw the ball, his putting held him over late in college and into Leach’s professional career, which began two years ago.
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“You could even say I had yips,” said Leach, who recalled the low point of the 2022 Wisconsin State Amateur, where he lost more than 16 strokes, matching the PGA Tour average through four rounds and still tied for sixth. “It was quite demoralizing,” he added.
The following summer, he still turned professional.
“My expectations were to work a little bit every day and start moving up the ladder,” Leach said. “I knew I wasn’t good enough when I turned professional, but I felt like if I kept working, I could definitely get there. I started to see progress, but the only thing that was missing was the putter. I just couldn’t figure it out.”
It wasn’t for lack of trying, and Leach tried just about everything – low left hand; hips and shoulders open, closed; firm grip, weak grip; lots of face rotation, and none at all. The only place he never went initially was the long putter.
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“I actually made fun of people who used the broomstick or arm lock,” Leach admitted. “I said, I’m not going to use that. I’m going to putt conventionally and figure that out.”
Marquette head coach Steve Bailey praises Leach’s confidence, which Bailey calls his “X factor.”
“Even during periods in college where he wasn’t playing his best, he had the superpower of not letting adversity faze him,” Bailey said. “Tyler had his unique way of overcoming obstacles and never doubting his abilities.”
Leach’s stubbornness over his stroke finally dissipated last June, when Leach’s wife, Abby, essentially told him, “It can’t hurt,” referring to the broom. So, Leach threw a center-axle LAB Mezz.1 Max into his bag. During his first test with the broomstick, he missed a mini-trick reduced by nine. He held on, and that’s a good thing; Leach recorded his first professional victory at the Minnesota State Open in July, riding it beautifully.
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“Once you have a good week of putting, you kind of prove to yourself: OK, I did it once, I can definitely do it again,” said Leach, who has just two career PGA Tour-sanctioned starts under his belt, both in Canada.
Through three stages of Q-School, Leach wins more than one and a half shots per round, about three shots better than his college average. He also won back-to-back medals, including last week’s second stage in Tucson, Arizona. Leach began the final round at Starr Pass three shots outside the number before shooting a 7-under 63, more than seven shots better than the field average on the day. The round ended with seven birdies in Leach’s final nine holes.
“It was just one of those days where you pass out,” Leach said. “You try not to think about anything. I knew there was a lot at stake, but I was so locked in.”
Leach, among five players in the final stage who started during pre-qualifying, was also one of two medalists from the second stage outside Marquette. Hunter Eichhorn shot 21 under in Savannah, Ga., to advance to the finals for the first time since turning pro in 2022. Eichhorn hails from a town even smaller than Spring Valley — Carney, Mich., located in the UP and home to fewer than 200 residents. He won six times for the Golden Eagles and was a three-time Big Ten Player of the Year. He was also Leach’s roommate for three years and a groomsman at Leach’s wedding.
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The two friends have already played a few practice rounds together this week as they look to become the first and second Marquette alumni to win PGA Tour cards.
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“And neither guy ever had a swing coach,” Bailey said. “Such a beautiful story.”
Leach, ranked 4,896th in the world rankings, doesn’t shy away from the prospect of such a feat.
“I’ve been through some pretty dark times with my putting, and it’s definitely a huge accomplishment to come out of that because it’s hard to be successful in professional golf if you can’t make putts,” Leach said. “I had a couple of years there where I was struggling and I definitely had my doubts. But if I could finish in the top five it would mean I overcame that obstacle and achieved my dream, which is incredible to imagine.”
Leach’s parents recently sold Spring Valley, but it will always be their home — and this putting green, the start of a dream that could finally come true in just a few days.
