MISSOULA — Ryggs Johnston is diving straight into professional golf just a month after finishing his college career.
The Libby native is set to compete in the PGA Tour Americas starting on June 20 at The Beachlands Victoria Open in British Columbia. This will be his first of 10 tournaments over 12 weekends on the tour across Canada.
“It’s pretty cool,” he said from his home in Libby. “My goal since I was really young playing golf was to turn professional after college and try to compete on the PGA Tour. This puts me one step closer now having status on one of the development tours for the PGA. It’s exciting.”
Johnston, a four-time state champion for the Libby Loggers, qualified for the North America Swing of the PGA Tour Americas by being ranked between sixth and 25th in the Class of 2024 PGA Tour University rankings. He was 17th.
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Each of the 10 tournaments will be four rounds totaling 72 holes. The field will be cut to the top 60 golfers after two days and 36 holes. The purse for each tournament is $225,000, with the winner each weekend netting $40,500.
Additionally, golfers collect points based on their placing each tournament. The top 10 golfers on the points list at the end of the tour earn status on the Korn Ferry Tour, the next developmental level on the road to the PGA Tour.
“The players are good out there,” Johnston said. “It’s a lot of the top college guys — and college golf is pretty good right now — and a lot of other professionals that are still looking to get status on the Korn Ferry Tour and move up from there. It’s pretty good competition. It’s not going to be easy.”
Johnston heads into pro golf on a high note after five years at Arizona State. He placed second overall at the Pac-12 men’s golf championship in May to help the Sun Devils win the team title for the first time since 2008.
He also earned third-team All-America honors and first-team All-Pac-12 recognition this spring. He ended his college career with four straight top-10 finishes, giving him a total of 14 such finishes over 52 tournaments.
“It was good to finish strong,” he said. “It gave me the confidence that my game is good enough to compete with some of the best players and that I belong out there. I’m going to go into this stretch of tournaments with a little more confidence knowing that I just got to play my own game and it should be good enough to do well.”
Johnston had admittedly gone through an up-and-down time at ASU. He was a third-team All-American and first-team All-Pac-12 honoree in 2021, when he placed third individually at the NCAA championships.
He missed out on an all-conference award in 2022 and returned as an All-Pac-12 second-team pick in 2023. He finished college with a 71.42 stroke average over 157 rounds and he shot 44 rounds in the 60s.
“It doesn’t get much better than being at ASU to try to prep for a pro golf career,” he said. “Down there, I’m always surrounded by some of the best golfers in the world, whether it be college guys or even the pros that stick around Scottsdale. Being around them and getting to see what they do and practice with them and play with them all the time raises my own game up.”
After the Canada trek, Johnston will move back to Scottsdale, Arizona, while he competes in PGA Tour Q-School, which he qualified for by making the PGA Tour Americas. It’ll be another opportunity for him to try to earn a spot on the 2025 Korn Ferry Tour or even a PGA Tour card for the 2025 season.
Johnston will also finish up his master’s degree online in the fall. He graduated in 2023 with a bachelor’s degree in management and a certificate in sports business while being named the 2022-23 Pac-12 Scholar-Athlete of the Year.
“I want to be one of the best golfers in the world,” he said. “In order to do that, you got to play against the best golfers all the time. Any time I can play against some of the best golfers, I’m going to look forward to that.”
Frank Gogola is the Senior Sports Reporter at the Missoulian and 406 MT Sports. Follow him on X @FrankGogola or email him at frank.gogola@406mtsports.com.
