A few spots to his left was Jordan Spieth, a three-time major champion and the last Open champion at Birkdale. Down a ways to his right was two-time U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau with a stationary camera behind him. It was a lot to take in.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s awesome,\u201d Plunkett said. \u201cAs cool as it gets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Plunkett, a 32-year-old from Atlantic Beach, Florida, was among the 20 players who made it through\u00a036-hole qualifying in the U.K.<\/a>\u00a0a few weeks ago, holding steady on the last four holes at Dundonald Links to grab the final spot.<\/p>\n He has been all over the world, and not just his Army stops in South Korea and Afghanistan. He made it through Asian Tour Q-school last year and already this year has gone from the Philippines to Malaysia to Singapore and Morocco. He is 20th on the Order of Merit.<\/p>\n Plunkett getting a card anywhere \u2014 the Korn Ferry Tour in 2025, the Asian Tour in 2026 \u2014 came about when he least expected. All it took was one impromptu round of golf, and the COVID-19 pandemic certainly played a part.<\/p>\n Plunkett finished his college career at Army by helping the Black Knights to the Patriot Conference title with brother Matt a freshman on the team. That would have seemed to be the end of his golf. He was a logistics officer during his five-year Army stint, specializing primarily in convoy maneuvers, either moving personnel or cargo. His golf clubs stayed home.<\/p>\n But one day after he returned to Fort Carson in Colorado, he decided to play golf with his dad.<\/p>\n \u201cI shot 69 and thought I was the best golfer in the world,\u201d Plunkett said. \u201cAnd I played the next day and probably shot 95. But I stuck with it. My last few months in the Army, COVID was a thing and the DOD (Department of Defense) took it seriously. We had a lot of limited personnel office hours. I had a lot more free time on my hands and played a lot of golf.\u201d<\/p>\n A career as an Army officer was on his mind until he fell back in love with golf.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was either time to re-up or go a different way,\u201d Plunkett said. \u201cI was enjoying golf so much that I decided I wanted to give it a go.\u201d<\/p>\n And so he went. Plunkett qualified for a Korn Ferry Tour event each of the next two years after getting out of the Army in 2021, and at the end of 2024, he did well enough in Q-school to earn a Korn Ferry Tour card that guaranteed him eight tournaments. He didn\u2019t come close to keeping his card, and then tried his hand in Asia. The next step might be European tour Q-school.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a big world in golf, and Plunkett realized it can also be a small world.<\/p>\n He played a practice round Tuesday with Sahith Theegala, who has played on a Presidents Cup team and reached as high as No. 11 in the world ranking.<\/p>\n They were making small talk when Theegala realized one his high school teammates in California, Dean Sakata, also went to West Point and played with Plunkett.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t realize that until I asked him on the second hole,\u201d Theegala said. \u201cDean was a super nice guy. Everyone loved him. And they were pretty close at West Point, so that shows me a lot about Marcus\u2019 character.\u201d<\/p>\n It was a good day for Plunkett, who could see how a player of Theegala\u2019s pedigree approached a practice round at a major. And there was no small appreciation from Theegala.<\/p>\n Military veterans in golf are not new. Billy Hurley, a Naval Academy graduate, spent a decade on the PGA Tour and won once. Kyle Westmoreland became the first Air Force Academy graduate to make the cut in the U.S. Open in 2021. He currently is on the Korn Ferry Tour.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/TAP-Subscribe-ad.jpg\")
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