“It was pretty good,” said Tom Vaillant at the 2023 Nelson Mandela Bay Championship. His goal, though, Vaillant admitted, was “just trying to do my job the best I can every day and hopefully that takes me to the right place. I just try to keep going and do the same things every day.” Two years down the line, Vaillant is keeping true to that sentiment.

But who’s the guy building a storm at the 2025 BMW PGA Championship? The “Golfeur professionnel,” as reads Vaillant’s Instagram bio, was born on December 14, 2001, in France. His stint at Arkansas State, where he made his mark with 2 impressive performances, included a pair of 67s at the 2020 Bubba Barnett Intercollegiate and a program-history-defining 65 at the Little Rock Invitational.

By 18, he’d already racked up six appearances

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