Luke Clanton has unfinished business at Florida State: A national championship

Luke Clanton wants to be challenged.

As a younger Clanton debated where to play college golf, he connected with Florida State men’s golf coach Trey Jones, who insisted that no spot in the Seminoles lineup was guaranteed. Some college coaches might use a buttery approach to land a highly coveted junior, but Jones uses an inverse perspective that resonated with Clanton, whose blue-collar upbringing cultivated an attitude that nothing should be given before it’s earned.

Last summer, Clanton authored a historic run of PGA TOUR performances by an amateur that launched his rapid acceleration to a PGA TOUR card. But his college coach’s message never changed.

“Trey called me up after one of the events in the summer and said, ‘You still have to qualify for the team.’ I just love that kind of stuff,” Clanton said last month. “I don’t want to be treated differently from anyone else.”

At this week’s NCAA Championship, Clanton has entered the Seminoles lineup for the final time, with the stakes higher than ever. He has accomplished mostly everything in college golf – he has won four individual titles as a junior this season, stands atop the World Amateur Golf Ranking and earlier this week accepted the Ben Hogan Award for college golf excellence. After reaching 20 points on PGA TOUR University Accelerated, his PGA TOUR card is waiting for him after NCAAs, and he will make his TOUR debut as a member at next month’s RBC Canadian Open.

But there’s one thing he has not done: win a national championship with the Seminoles (something Florida State has never done in men’s golf). After being close for his first two collegiate seasons – including last year’s heartbreaking defeat to Auburn in the championship match – Clanton burns to leave Florida State golf with the ultimate parting gift. Clanton, 21, expects to compete on the PGA TOUR for decades (and his immense skill indicates he’ll have the chance to do so) but after this weekend, he’ll never have the chance to win with his Florida State teammates. It’s not lost on him, or them.

“Last year, we didn’t really talk about it," Clanton said. "This year, screw it, man, let’s focus up on the national championship. That’s what we’re here for, that’s what we’re here to win. I know that, and I know people may say it’s applying pressure to yourself, but that’s what we need to do.”

“Being with Luke every day, living with him, the No. 1 thing that he wants to do is win a national championship,” added Clanton’s three-year roommate Jack Bigham. “He’s good enough to be on the PGA TOUR right now, and he still wants to win a national championship with us. He’s putting us before himself at the end of the day, and that’s just great to see.”

For men’s golf, the NCAA Championship format is as follows: 72 holes of stroke play (Friday-Monday), after which an individual champion will be determined and the 2025 PGA TOUR University Ranking will be finalized (No. 1 earns PGA TOUR membership, Nos. 2-10 earn Korn Ferry Tour membership, and Nos. 11-25 earn PGA TOUR Americas membership). The top eight teams after stroke play will qualify for match play. The quarterfinals and semifinals will be played Tuesday, and the team championship will be played Wednesday. (Each matchup consists of five singles matches, with one point per match.)

Clanton earned his 20th and clinching PGA TOUR University Accelerated point at the Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches in February, and he could’ve turned pro immediately to begin accruing non-member points that could convert to FedExCup points upon accepting membership in June (starts wouldn’t have been guaranteed, but it’s easy to imagine abundant sponsor exemptions for the rising star). His teammates would not have begrudged him.

But that thought never crossed Clanton’s mind. He had unfinished business at the NCAA Championship. It’s a message he has consistently shared in media appearances at PGA TOUR stops – and reading between the lines, the sting from last spring’s NCAAs fueled his torrid TOUR run across the next nine months.

With Clanton as a freshman, Florida State reached the semifinals of the 2023 NCAA Championship but fell to rival Florida. It was an encouraging sign. Then came the 2024 postseason and scar tissue that lingers 12 months later. The Seminoles took down North Carolina in the quarterfinals and then dispatched Georgia Tech in the semifinals. But in the final match, Florida State fell to Auburn by a 3-2 margin, with Clanton losing his match to J.M. Butler. His teammates disagree, but Clanton takes ownership of that loss.

“The story plays in my head a ton,” Clanton said of last year’s NCAAs. “From the chip shots to the putts, everything you can imagine. I definitely feel like the guys just played so well that day and it came down to me and I couldn’t close it off for the team, and they’ll always say it wasn’t my fault, but I always feel like it is. It definitely drove me to be a little bit better, not just as a golfer but as a teammate.”

A few weeks after the 2024 NCAAs, Clanton made the cut in his TOUR debut at the U.S. Open, made the cut and finished T41. Early that week at Pinehurst No. 2, he reminisced on having watch parties with childhood friends to watch the U.S. Open in his formative years, soaking in the knowledge that he was about to compete in his first major championship. His mom Rhonda remembers relishing the fact that he was around the cut line at all on Friday, and it’s unlikely either could have anticipated what was soon to come. Two weeks after the U.S. Open, Clanton finished T10 at the Rocket Classic, which he quickly followed with a runner-up at the John Deere Classic. He added a fifth-place finish at the Wyndham Championship and another runner-up at The RSM Classic, becoming the first amateur since Jack Nicklaus in 1961 with three or more top-10 finishes in a PGA TOUR season. He had shown himself as a PGA TOUR-level player who happened to still be a college golfer – and therein lies the key. Until he turns pro, he’s a college golfer first and foremost.

“Every time I come back, I will not talk about it,” Clanton said of his TOUR appearances, “and they (teammates) will be the first ones to bring it up, which is cool. This year has been a bit more emotional for me, I guess you could say, every time I step back here. Every time I play a college event, I know it’s probably going to be my last (at that event), and our goal is to win a national championship.”

Clanton played last year’s NCAA Championship having yet to make a single PGA TOUR start, and he begins this year’s NCAAs with a TOUR card awaiting him in two weeks. The past year has marked a nearly unprecedented ascent for the South Florida native who grew up at the public-access Country Club of Miami, was home-schooled by his mom Rhonda (who doubled as a flight attendant for Delta), and coached into his teenage years by his dad David. The Clanton family, which dubs themselves the “Country Club Outlaws” as a nod to their status as “not poor, but the poor people in golf” per Rhonda, has been along for the ride – and Clanton can’t wait to treat his parents to a serene retirement. Through his career as a professional golfer, he should have the chance to do so.

But for the next few days at Omni La Costa in California, the PGA TOUR will be far from Clanton’s mind. He expects to grind in professional golf for decades, maybe for the rest of his life.

It’s time to chase a national championship.