It’s Tuesday at Riviera Country Club, a couple days before one of the biggest non-majors on the PGA Tour calendar, and Ryan Gerard arrives on the driving range like he’s been there for years. Never mind that this is Gerard’s first trip to Hogan’s Alley. Unlike those 20-somethings who are still trying to find their sea legs, the 26-year-old Gerard struts around like a pro-golf avatar – tall and lean, perfectly fitted in refined Peter Millar threads and white FootJoy Premieres, and flanked by an agent from the same firm that reps Jordan Spieth and a major-winning looper so veteran that he goes by merely a nickname, Pepsi.
Gerard finds some grass and squeezes in between Tour-winning pals Ben Griffin and Andrew Novak, eager to soon lighten their wallets over a back-nine practice round. He then grabs a wedge from his staff bag, rolls a ball into position and begins to pull the club back. In that moment, it’s evident that this guy isn’t your typical pro golfer.
He doesn’t just swing his swing; he believes in it with unbreakable confidence.
Gerard once shared with Golf Digest, “I’ve been told my swing looks like Daniel Berger and Jon Rahm had an aneurysm on the downswing.” In getting there, Gerard takes an abbreviated backswing, the club noticeably laid off at the top and his hands getting outside but never above his right shoulder. It’s different, for sure, but Carl Lohren, Gerard’s former longtime instructor, takes offense when he hears Gerard’s action described as unorthodox.
After all, it resembles what Lohren witnessed from his idol, Ben Hogan, at the 1964 Carling Open at Oakland Hills. The now 88-year-old Lohren, an assistant club pro at the time, still vividly remembers Hogan launching an 8-iron some 150 yards to 10 feet on one hole, generating such enormous power by shifting his hips left while he was still in his backswing. Gerard’s superpower is that his swing, like Hogan’s, has no top.
“For the last 30 years, all these players have been shaped by a computer,” Lohren said. “Ryan’s swing is only different because I never changed his natural swing; I just made it fundamentally sound. If you go back and look at Sam Snead, or Ben Hogan, or Jack Nicklaus, or Arnold Palmer, you could say the same thing about all those guys. They all had their unique swings … natural swings that got fundamentally sound because they hit a lot of balls and had talent. So, when you say Ryan’s swing is unorthodox, it’s only unorthodox because it’s orthodox. It’s his swing.
“All these kids are programmed. He’s not programmed.”
When Gerard was 15 months old, his father, Bob, who played collegiately at Florida Atlantic University and dabbled in mini-tour golf, gifted him his first putter, a small, Newport 2-style blade made for kids. He barely put it down, and there wasn’t a time when Bob or his wife, Judy, would pick Ryan up from daycare that he wouldn’t be begging to stop by the golf horse. It took Ryan longer to get the pronunciation right than it did for him to start venturing from the practice green to the nearby 10th tee box when no one was paying attention. Before anybody realized, Ryan would have plopped a ball down on the tee, turned his shoulders naturally and taken a mighty lash with the flatstick, the ball scooting across the grass, sometimes as far as 50 yards. When Ryan spotted the driving range, it was game over.
On his second birthday, Ryan unwrapped his first set of U.S. Kids clubs and proclaimed to his parents, “I want to be a golfer when I grow up.”
“And he never veered from that,” Bob said.
A few years later, the Gerards bought a house along the 15th fairway at Wildwood Green Golf Club in Raleigh, North Carolina, a kid-friendly club that had quite the ratpack of young talents – the late Grayson Murray, twice a PGA Tour winner, lived across the street; Doc Redman would win a U.S. Amateur and later make the PGA Tour; Carter Jenkins and Zach Seabolt were accomplished college players; Kevin O’Connell won a U.S. Mid-Amateur. The Gerards’ backyard was usually littered with abandoned slices, meaning Ryan never ran out of golf balls. Most evenings he’d sneak out the back door, find an open hole and play until dark. When he got a little older, he’d call the pro shop and slot in between groups for a seven-hole loop, Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 13, 14 and 15, which he could play alone without having to cross Wildwood Links, the neighborhood’s main thoroughfare. Eventually, Ryan was almost never home. And when he was, he couldn’t pass the dining room without stopping to roll a few putts on the 3x12 mat that the Gerards kept on the floor.
Bob is a native Long Islander, growing up in East Norwich, and as a teen, he took a handful of lessons from Lohren, the longtime head pro at North Shore Country Club who preached four principles to the golf swing – axis, radius, plane and torque – and whose stable of pupils included PGA Tour winners Deane Beman and Babe Hiskey. Lohren also authored a couple instructional books, including one titled, “One Move to Better Golf,” which Bob later used as guidance for teaching Ryan. Ryan had the move, meaning he started his swing with his left shoulder, then, like Hogan, got his hips moving left toward the target before his hands could get to the top of the backswing. But his action was so unconventional – he took the club back so far inside and below plane – that Bob struggled to find a prospective instructor who didn’t want to blow it up and start over. So, Bob called the one man he trusted: Lohren, who had relocated to Knoxville, Tennessee, about a four-hour drive from Raleigh.
Ryan remembers Lohren saying during their first lesson, “We’re not touching the swing.”
Ryan Gerard learning to swing his swing pic.twitter.com/gg6rsFsAP9
— LKD (@LukeKerrDineen) January 1, 2024
Instead, Lohren bolstered Ryan’s fundamentals, mainly his setup and pre-shot routine, using the wisdom he’d gained from decades of studying Hogan. When Ryan is swinging it well, Lohren says, he steps into the shot with his shoulders open to the target.
“The simpler you can make the golf swing, the less that can go wrong,” Gerard said. “My swing might never be the model, but it’s like when you look at guys like Rahm or Scottie [Scheffler], you see guys get really comfortable with what they’re doing to the point where they can repeat it and hit it from the same position every single time.”
During the 2022 Memorial Tournament, Jack Nicklaus joined Jim Nantz and Nick Faldo in the CBS booth, where Faldo asked Nicklaus why he once claimed, “I have never missed a putt on the back nine of a major.” Nicklaus, who had, in fact, failed to convert such putts, responded that while the ball might’ve missed, he never thought it was going to. “You’ve got to have that kind of attitude,” Nicklaus explained. “Otherwise, you’ll never make anything.”
“That’s Ryan Gerard,” says North Carolina head coach Andrew DiBitetto. “The thing that’s literally always been there is the self-belief. The guy never gets down on himself.”
Not even when he shot 49 to open his first college qualifier.
Gerard hit seven balls out of bounds on the front nine at Hope Valley Country Club, a tight layout in Durham but not that tight. “I played with him, and I remember thinking, what is going on with this guy?” said Austin Hitt, a sophomore on that Tar Heels squad. Gerard shot 34 coming in, though still failed to qualify by a mile. He didn’t earn his first start until the second event in the spring and was the substitute at the NCAA Championship at Karsten Creek, where he was inserted into the lineup for the final round and promptly carded 81 despite birdieing two of his first three holes.
“And yet, he would still talk at that time like he was going to be a PGA Tour player,” Hitt recalled. “Back then, all of us were like, you’re delusional. But he probably remembers it a little differently because he was always so confident in himself.”
So confident that for years, Gerard frequently wore a black, Nike t-shirt that read, in big, white letters, MR. CLUTCH.
“I was maybe a little bit cockier as a freshman than I should’ve been,” Gerard said. “But you come into a team like that with Ben Griffin, Will Register, Austin Hitt, you have to make a name for yourself early on, and I came in with the attitude like, dude, I’m going to beat these guys.”
Gerard has never been one to shy away from competition, or shots. He has the uncanny ability to lean the shaft forward and hit whatever club as far, short, high and low as he desires – well, almost. He once tried to flop a 3-iron over the Tar Heels’ facility, the Chapman Golf Center, but instead buried the shot into the building’s white, stucco cornice, where the ball remains to this day, stuck right below the roofline. Then there was the time where Gerard opted for pitching wedge from about 200 yards out on a par-5; he had some help but still rinsed his shot in a pond, albeit less than 5 yards from the green. He did flag an approach over a massive tree during the practice round for the 2019 NCAA Stanford Regional, flabbergasting teammates who then exhausted every effort to replicate it, all unsuccessfully.
“I’ve seen guys try to club off him,” Hitt said, “but I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Gerard won just once in college, though it could’ve easily been a few more times, as he was runner-up on four occasions. He was twice an All-American, ranks fourth in career scoring average (71.65) and was the only Tar Heel with at least five rounds of 65 or better until David Ford came along. Not that any of that mattered to the one nicknamed Golf Gerard, a moniker given by former North Carolina basketball player Andrew Platek, who was charmed by Gerard’s enthusiasm.
“He always talked about how he was going to play on the PGA Tour, how he was going to live in Jupiter (Florida), in a big house, and make a lot of money,” said Hitt, who now rooms with Gerard in, you guessed it, Jupiter. “Whether it took him one year or 20 years, he was going to do it. He was either going to make it, or he was going to die trying.
“Now that he’s backed that up, it’s like, shoot, maybe I need to start talking like that.”
PALM BEACH GARDENS, FLORIDA - FEBRUARY 25: Ryan Gerard of the United States walks alongside Chris Kirk of the United States on the 9th hole during the third round of The Honda Classic at PGA National Resort And Spa on February 25, 2023 in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. (Photo by Douglas P. DeFelice/Getty Images)
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It’s been three years since Gerard’s professional breakout. He was already a winner on PGA Tour Canada and fresh off a T-3 finish at the Korn Ferry Tour event in Bogota, Colombia, when he Monday-qualified into the 2023 Honda Classic and eventually finished solo fourth.
That Sunday at PGA National, Gerard, like he’d said countless times before, announced it for the world: “I believe that I can play and win out on the PGA Tour.”
“But deep down, I wasn’t prepared for the PGA Tour,” Gerard admits now. “I wasn’t prepared for how demanding it was.”
Gerard called his Honda performance both a blessing and a curse. Sure, it helped him lock up special temporary status later that spring, but he’d spend the rest of the season in purgatory, buried on the priority list and struggling to get enough starts in that super season, which included bookend fall series, to keep his card.
“I’d be sitting around on a Thursday, knowing I probably wasn’t getting off the alternate list, but I had to be there anyway,” Gerard said. “That taught me a lot of patience. When I got back to the Korn Ferry Tour, I knew I was going to get right back to the PGA Tour, and when I got back to the PGA Tour, there was no doubt I was going to play well.”
Bolstered by a victory at the BMW Charity Pro-Am, Gerard breezed through the KFT in 2024, placing 12th on the points list. He wasn’t in the signature events to start 2025, but he placed second at the Valero Texas Open, locked up four signature starts starting at RBC Heritage, picked off his first win at the Barracuda Championship in July and finished as the only KFT grad inside the top 50 of the FedExCup, at No. 39.
While Griffin ascended into the top 10 of the world rankings with three wins and a Ryder Cup debut, Gerard was rocketing up the ranks, too. After a missed cut at the RSM Classic in November, Gerard dropped from world No. 49 to No. 53. Wanting to qualify for his first Masters, he scoured the DP World Tour schedule, looking for somewhere to earn some points. The only option was the Mauritius Open, less than a week before Christmas. The initial projection was that he’d need a top-15 finish, but when he arrived, he discovered he required a two-way T-4. No biggie, as he ended up losing in a playoff to Jayden Schaper. The Masters invitation arrived in the mail a few weeks later.
“Last year, everyone would be asking me about Ben,” Hitt said, “and I was always like, man, I think Ryan is playing just as well as Ben, he’s just having to battle his way up to the right tournaments.”
BEL OMBRE, MAURITIUS - DECEMBER 21: Ryan Gerard of the United States and Jayden Schaper of South Africa shake hands following the second play-off hole on day four of the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open 2026 at Heritage La Reserve Golf Club on December 21, 2025 in Bel Ombre, Mauritius. (Photo by Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)
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Gerard no longer works with Lohren, but only because of the travel constraints; Gerard has a hard time getting to Knoxville, and Lohren can’t travel like he used to. But when Gerard was interviewing potential replacements a couple years ago, it was important that whoever took the reins would foster what Lohren had built. Enter Jason Baile, who began working with Gerard toward the end of his first season on the PGA Tour.
Baile, the director of instruction at Jupiter Hills, counts a wide spectrum of players as students – Lucas Glover, Peter Uihlein, Bud Cauley, Christiaan Bezuidenhout. “Ryan Gerard takes it the most inside on Tour, and Hayden Buckley takes it the most outside,” Baile says. “It’s a fun group.” Baile raves about Gerard’s ability to consistently hit the center of the clubface and his fearlessness in the arena, stating that Gerard is “comfortable within the chaos of the PGA Tour.”
Gerard also hates losing. As he’s climb as high as No. 23 in the world – he’s currently No. 26 – he’s gotten, in his words, grumpier.
“The closer I get to being the best player in the world, the more I can taste it and the more I want to push myself to get there,” Gerard explained. “All these close calls, they eat at me.”
So, at the start of the season, about 10 days before the Sony Open, Gerard called a meeting in Baile’s office and asked his coach, “How do I get better?” Baile responded, “Well, let’s start with what you do well, so that what we do to make you better doesn’t take any of that away.” Baile then had Gerard build his ideal golf course – 7,400 yards, tight fairways, high rough, windy conditions, plenty of knockdown opportunities. “You give me that golf course, and I’ll win every week,” Gerard told Baile, who followed with, “Now, what if we’re playing the exact opposite course? Can you win on that?”
At the end of the exercise, Gerard identified a couple of target areas for improvement. One is on the greens, as Gerard ranked No. 154 in strokes gained putting last season, just a year removed from ranking fifth in putting average on the KFT. The dining area in Gerard’s townhome already doesn’t have a table, as it’s littered with putting mats, training aids, even a keyboard and a couple guitars (Gerard also played violin for 14 years). Soon, though, Gerard is clearing out the space for a virtual green, which retails for $80,000. That’s easy to afford when you’ve earned almost $2 million in five starts this year.
Gerard opened the season with back-to-back runners-up, at Sony and The American Express. The latter showing was especially encouraging as PGA West and La Quinta Country Club aren’t exactly the most conducive to Gerard’s skillset. To excel on firm, baked-out greens in dome-like conditions, Gerard needed to channel his inner Scheffler.
“A lot of guys, when they take speed off a golf club, the ball flight comes down,” Gerard said. “Scottie hits this shot with this smooth knockdown swing, but he launches it higher, spins it more, and it bridges the gap between two full numbers. I’ve kind of been obsessed with this shot since I played with him the final round of Houston last year, and I’ve gone about learning how to hit it. The ball is a little more forward in my stance, I choke down on it and feel like I’m slowing down through the ball and speeding up after. That launches it higher with less speed. I don’t have the extra spin like Scottie, but it’s coming out higher and softer. … I think it’s going to serve me well at Players, Augusta, PGA, U.S. Open.”
All the tournaments that Gerard is dying to win. Just don’t tell him Masters first-timers never win.
“I wouldn’t rule anything out,” Bob Gerard said. “He’ll go in there with the attitude of not just wanting to make the cut.”
Added Baile: “He’s the type of player where just because it’s the Masters, he’ll show up.”
Gerard didn’t have the type of week at Riviera that he’d hoped for, at least short game wise. He lost nearly five shots around the greens and putting, which led to a T-28 finish, a dozen shots back of winner Jacob Bridgeman, who turned pro in 2022, the same year as Gerard. The positive, though, was that Gerard ranked fourth on approach and is now inside the top 20 in strokes gained tee to green for the season. Now, he’s set to return to his comfort zone in Florida, and he’ll play each of the next three weeks, at PGA National, Bay Hill and TPC Sawgrass.
Like Hogan, Golf Gerard loves digging in the dirt.
In Riviera’s sprawling clubhouse, one of the more fascinating pieces of Hogan memorabilia hangs about halfway down a staircase that connects a second-level ballroom to a foyer that leads either to a dining area, the pro shop or out to the first tee. The magazine article, matted and framed, features a six-shot, swing sequence along with an article titled: Ben Hogan’s Secret: The champ says he has one (try and find it) as experts debate what it is.
Gerard knows the secret.
He’s got one, too.