As far as rookie seasons go, Daniel Rodrigues' first campaign on the DP World Tour could not have gone much better.
After an impressive amateur career that saw him become Portugal's top amateur and play at Texas A&M, he joined the paid ranks in 2024 and came through all three stages of Qualifying School the following year.
His first start as a DP World Tour member was just the 16th ranking appearance of his career but a week later he held the 36-hole lead at the Crown Australian Open.
A runner-up finish in Turkey and three other top trens then helped Rodrigues sit 63rd at the conclusion of the DP World Tour regular season.
As part of a series focusing on the 2025 Q School graduates who have made it all the way to the 2026 Play-Offs, the DP World Tour caught up with him ahead of the Abu Dhabi Aldar Championship.
It's your rookie season on the DP World Tour and you've made it all the way to the Play-Offs. How excited are you to tee it up next week?
Very excited. It's like you set goals in the beginning of the year because you don't really know what things are going to look like with Q School status. The main goal was to just keep my card and get my playing rights for next year and have a better category. When you get to the finals and you have a little bit more to fight for in the end of the year, it's always great. So I'm very excited and super happy.
You only graduated college and turned professional in 2024. Has success come a little quicker than you thought it would? And do you ever have to pinch yourself a little bit as to where you are in such a short space of time?
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think golf is a sport where no matter how good you think you are, there's always those doubts that creep into your mind: how fast is this going to happen? Am I going to take five years? Is it going to take ten years? You never know. And I think college was a great stepping stone. I think it was a very big challenge and it came at the right time because it just helped me grow very fast. And just everything that Texas A&M gave me was incredibly helpful. And even before that, I think the support system that I had helped me grow faster as a person and as a player and I think that helped to take this big step.
Most players either go the collegiate route or the traditional European route but you not only played college golf, you came back, you won national titles, you played team golf. Do you think combining those two things has maybe given you a better understanding of your game and the game in general?
Yeah, I think it's always very important to test your game in different places, to be honest. I grew up in Portugal, so you go through all the usual European tournaments, all the European international tournaments, the Spanish, Portuguese, French, all the German, all those tournaments that help you grow up. But I knew that if I could do it in the US and take my game there, then whatever that looks like after in professional golf, whether I stay in the US or not stay in the US, I think that was always my idea to go there. It's going to help me grow. And I think that's one of the reasons that it helped me for sure.
How would you rate your rookie year on a one to ten scale and why?
I'd probably rate it a 7.5 to eight. I think there's a lot of highs, there's a lot of things that happened very quickly. I got a second place in May and while you always think you can do it and you always think you're good enough and stuff like that, to actually have a really good chance of going to the last hole or the last couple of holes to win a golf tournament, it's pretty awesome. So there's those highs but also there's some stuff that happened in the middle that maybe I didn't like so much. So probably like an eight. I'd say an eight.
From across your professional and amateur career, do you think there's one experience that's particularly helped you to get where you are and helped you learn?
I think what helped me grow the most, to be honest, was not something that was good exactly, but probably a couple of things that happened not to my advantage at that point. So I missed the PGA Tour University, not by much, that would give me a spot in PGA Tour Americas at that time or Korn Ferry conditional status. And then a couple of months later I missed Q school in the US again. And I think those were the two moments that I think helped me most because I had to completely regroup and come back home and do mini tours by myself for three months and really try to get better on my own and get better in a way that maybe a lot of people wouldn't do it, just by yourself and not playing stuff that you think is going to help you but you still have to do it because there's nothing else. And I think those two moments combined together were what made me wake up and really helped me dig deep into what I thought was going to make me better and not really listen to anything else that was exterior or outside of my realm and I think those were the two things that were very, very important.
It's incredible to think that in terms of the Official World Golf Ranking, this week is just your 41st ranking event on any tour. So despite the fact you're relatively inexperienced, do you feel ready to win at the professional level?
Yeah, for sure. I think in this year in general, there's been a lot of moments that I felt really close or that I felt like if I'm presented with the chance that I can really do it. I showed it in Australia in just my second event of the year and then again in Turkey, then there's a couple of fourth, sixth places here and there that going to Sunday or in the middle of the round on Sunday, you look at the leaderboard and it's like, okay, if I make a couple of birdies here and there, I really have a good chance, which I did, if I did feel comfortable in those moments. And I think that means that if I'm presented the chance, then yeah, I would think that I have a good chance to win. But it's always those predicaments, you don't truly know until you actually do it. From what I've seen for myself this year, I'm pretty sure, I'm very positive that I am, yeah.
If that win comes in the next couple of weeks, you'll improve your category to Category 3 but at the minute you're guaranteed Category 10 for next year. With it you know you'll have a set schedule. How do you plan on maintaining this momentum next year?
I think it's by doing the exact same things you've been doing until now. I think golf is a tough enough sport for you to change your routines and change what you're doing when stuff is going well or going in the right direction. I think just staying true to what I think makes me good and true to what I think makes me better every day and trying to achieve just a little better version of myself every day. I think that's what's going to make me better. And obviously in the beginning of the year, everything resets back to zero. So it doesn't really matter how good you were the year before, you've got to do it all over again. And it's just the mindset of being a little bit of an underdog in the beginning of the year. I think that's what got me to a hot start in the beginning of the year. It's what I'm going to try to do again.
This week it's an elite field but you've had a taste of these fields before in Scotland and in India and in Ireland where you had that tie for 11th. What have you learned from the experience of playing in those fields? Do you feel they present a different task and do you think maybe you're a better player for it?
I think it makes you better, to be honest. Well, I think it makes me better. It depends on the player. Obviously there's some players like it, some players don't. I think when I'm presented with the chance to play with better players, I think it elevates my game to a new standard because you just find stuff in yourself that sometimes you didn't think you had. And to me, that's happened a couple of times this year. Australian Open, playing on Saturday in the last group, Turkey as well, Ireland as well, playing in the second last group. I call it like a drug. It's like a little drug that you have that's so addicting and you just want to do it again and do it again and do it again. It's just a great thing to have and I'm very grateful that I feel like that in those positions because it frees me up to play just the way I want and not really think of pressure or anything.
And would you say you feel comfortable in those scenarios or is it maybe a little bit of discomfort that almost drives you on and keeps you on the edge?
No, I think I feel very comfortable. I think it's just like before I got into those moments, you don't know what to expect. You're just nervous and you don't know where those nerves are going to take you. And to me, it always took me to almost like a peace place where this is really what I like to do, this is really cool. I like to be here. I like to be in this position. I like to have people watch me. I like to have good players playing with me. And I felt like it always elevated my game.
Portugal has produced some great players but is not historically a large golfing nation. But in the Play-Offs this week we have Ricardo Gaveia there as well. How proud are you to have two Portuguese players in there? How proud are you of the position that Portuguese golf is currently in? And do you know Ricardo very well? Has he been any influence on your career?
I always knew Ricardo growing up. We're quite far apart in age, so it's tough to have a relationship before I actually got on the Tour, but I met him a couple of times. And obviously growing up, there's not many Portuguese players that you look up to because there's not that many. And he was always a reference. And yeah, it's amazing to have two people in the Play-Offs. There's always stuff that's got to happen before we get to these places. And I think there's a lot of work to be done when it comes to Portuguese golf in that aspect. But to have two people that reach DP World Tour Play-Offs, it's got to be for the first time ever, I would say. It's really exciting. And if people take the good side of it and they really get excited and behind this, it could be a good thing.
We're back in Portugal on the DP World Tour next year for a regular event. How much of an influence and impact do you think that can have? And how excited are you to be playing on home soil at that level for the first time?
It's huge. I think if you want to grow the game in your country, you have to have a big event. And it was a shame that the Portugal Masters went away in 2022. Everyone was really bummed. Now the Portugal Open is back on the DP World Tour schedule and it's amazing. If you want to have the game grow, have kids want to play the game, you've got to have something that's close to them and that's as big as all the other countries have. And I think this is going to be amazing. Hopefully I'm fit to play and hopefully everything goes well. But no matter if I play or not, whatever happens, I think it's going to be very special.
You've had a fast start to your professional career. Where, if you have one, do you think your ceiling is? What are your ambitions for this week, for next season and beyond?
I'm going into this week not really thinking about anything that's after that. I'm going into it wanting to have a good week, wanting to just finish the year off right and enjoy the week because if you go into the week thinking 'I've got to do this to get to there', to me it's just not going to help. Yeah, I have that in the back of my mind, I know I have to have a good week but I'm going to enjoy myself, I'm going to play good golf and whatever happens from that happens. For next year, I'm going to pick my schedule once the year's done and every tournament that I go in, I'm not really going to think about what I did this year, I think it doesn't really help. Obviously you take the baggage and you take the experience that you have but I'm going to start off the year like I started last year with a chip on my shoulder and just with the idea and with a big understanding that you have to earn everything that you want to get and in golf nothing is really given to you. You've just got to go out there and beat the course and beat the field like everyone else does. So yeah, I think I have my little internal goals. I would love to win. I would love to set myself up for a chance to be successful and to play Majors and to do all that stuff. But I think just sticking to what I do and sticking to having that mentality of everything earned and nothing given is what I'm going to aim for.
