Peter Malnati poses with the Valspar Championship trophy on March 24, 2024. (Photo by Charlie Anderson)
BY JESSE SMITHEY
Negative thoughts don’t stand a chance in the mind’s eye of Peter Malnati, if they even exist at all.
Still, should one happen to sneak through, whatever bouncer guarding the door to his mental state promptly tosses the intruder back out into the alley.
An unabashed will and unrelenting positive outlook have served as the hallmark traits of the 36-year-old during his professional golf career, ultimately driving a work ethic in Malnati that has now landed him in a spot to make his first Masters appearance.
Not prodigious driving distance. That’s not Malnati’s game.
Not elite iron play. That’s more of a Scottie Scheffler thing.
Just sheer determination.
Malnati won the Valspar Championship on March 24 in Palm Harbor, Fla., and that PGA Tour win automatically catapulted him into the Masters field.
The Knoxville resident will arrive in Augusta, Ga., on Saturday in advance of the April 11-14 event, the season’s first major tournament. He won’t be hard to find, he of the bucket hat and highlighter-yellow golf ball.
But expeditiously learning the ropes at Augusta National will be no easy task, no matter how quick of a study he might be. Picking the brains of veteran players and past champions will be a must; the greens are complex and nuanced. Precise ball placement and wind recognition about the grounds are paramount.
Fuzzy Zoeller, in 1979, was the last player to win the Masters in his debut showing.
That trend won’t prevent Malnati from trying like mad, though. He’ll get his crash course this weekend and take his chances.
“I’m trying my best to treat it like it’s a normal tournament. I don’t want to feel exceptionally out of my routine. But with that said, I do want to enjoy and appreciate how special it is,” Malnati told 5Star Preps. “Obviously, my whole family is going to be with me. I do want to stay in my normal routine. But I am going to get there Saturday.
“I normally would show up to a tournament on Monday or Tuesday. But I’m going to get there on Saturday, to get a couple of extra days in early – hopefully to let the shock and awe of the place sink in so it feels more normal by Thursday.”
Peter Malnati meets Nicklaus Children’s Hospital patient Jaxon during Malnati’s time at the Cognizant Classic in March 2024 in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. (Photo by Jeff Marsh)
Though born in New Castle, Ind., Malnati grew up in Dandridge, Tenn., where he helped lead the Jefferson County High School boys golf program to the 2004 Class AAA state championship alongside fellow standout Jonathan Hodge.
Hodge won the individual title and Malanti tied for fourth. Hodge went on to an illustrious career at Chattanooga. Malnati signed with Missouri. He played four seasons with the Tigers, earned All-Academic Conference honors twice and qualified individually for the NCAA Tournament as a senior.
He turned professional in 2009, but it wasn’t until Malnati won the 2013 Visit Knoxville Open that his career took the big leap.
That win, grouped with the strong finishes he had leading up to the event, gave him enough status on the Korn Ferry Tour to earn his PGA Tour playing card. After a tough rookie season (2013-14), Malnati managed to earn his PGA Tour card back for the 2015-16 season through another solid year on the Korn Ferry Tour.
This time, Malnati set up shop for good on the big circuit. He won the 2015 Sanderson Farms Championship. But back then, the Masters didn’t give that event’s winner an automatic exemption into the following year’s Masters.
More than eight years later, Malnati played his way in the Masters field via his second career PGA Tour win.
He shot a back-nine, 4-under-par 31 on Sunday, March 24 to win the Valspar by two shots — a victory made even more impressive by the fact that Malnati has been on the front lines lately of the PGA Tour’s public ongoings against and with the LIV Golf Tour. Malnati is one of the chosen few who serve on the PGA Tour’s Policy Board. The weight of that responsibility alone could derail a player’s career; Malnati has handled it with grace and compartmentalized it well enough to find the winner’s circle.
Tee times for the 2024 Masters will be released next week, most likely on Tuesday.
The putter will be key to Malnati’s performance at Augusta National, as will his well-respected short game.
He ranked fourth (following last week’s event) in strokes gained putting on the PGA Tour while ranking 26th in putts per round. Malnati also ranked 12th in scrambling, as of March 31.
And if there’s one common thread that weaves through the list of past winners and contenders at the Masters, it’s the ability to navigate the ball on Augusta National’s greens.
“I think when I was a little kid, I’d dream about — I’d be on the putting green at Dandridge Golf Course, probably on the clock when I worked there; I probably wasn’t supposed to be on the putting green but I was — and I’d always have this putt, with right-to-left break, for ‘birdie to win the Masters!’ … I always had those dreams,” Malnati told 5Star Preps.
“It’ll be really fun to go play there, to experience the tournament but also to compete. I’m playing well. I’m playing the best golf of my life. From everything I can tell, the golf course at Augusta, it helps if you have a little length off the tee, which I have now. But it seems like having a good short game and good touch on the greens is important. I feel like I have that. So, heck, I’m excited to go play well. I feel like I can.”
Malnati has always declined invitations from friends and acquaintances to either attend the Masters or even play the course.
So when he arrives this weekend and steps foot on Augusta National for the first time, he’ll realize what so many have before him; TV broadcasts don’t do the place justice. The topography is more drastic than it appears.
He knows that. He’s heard that. But his senses will finally get to take it in.
And while Malanti might be arriving earlier to get more acclimated to the course and tournament protocols, the arrival of patrons for practice rounds Monday will heighten the electricity all the more.
“Going back to when I was really young — a kid in Dandridge — someone offered to take me down to a practice round. They had an extra ticket. I was like, ‘Nah. I don’t want to. I want to wait until I get to play there.’ That’s probably a dumb thing for a kid to say. And I, sort of, have stuck with that all along. I haven’t been to the Masters to watch,” Malnati told 5Star Preps. “Since being a member of the PGA Tour, I’ve had a couple of connections where I’ve had a few invites here or there to go play at Augusta National. And I’ve said, ‘No. I don’t want to go play it just for fun on a weekend. I want to get an invitation to the Tournament.’
“I didn’t know if that would ever happen, but I always believed I was capable of making it happen. To have it be reality and sneak up quickly — I earned my invitation two weeks before the Tournament — is a little bit of a whirlwind. I’m trying to sort everything and get it all figured out. But it’s going well. I have amazing support from my whole team around me and my family. We’re feeling good. Ready to go.”
MALNATI’S PLAYER PROFILE on The Masters website HERE.
Peter Malnati shows off the ball that he made a hole-in-one with on the 223-yard, par-3 seventh hole at the Texas Children’s Houston Open on Sunday, March 31, 2024. (photo: John Bush/PGA Tour).