At the top of the 2025 Open Championship leaderboard, you’ll find household names such as Scottie Scheffler, Matt Fitzpatrick and Tyrrell Hatton. One name near the top—Sadom Kaewkanjana—isn’t as familiar. That’s because Kaewkanjana has never played in a PGA Tour event and hasn’t appeared in a major since the 2023 PGA Championship. In fact, he took a break from golf completely to become an ordained monk in Thailand in the summer of 2023. The break came just a year after he finished T11 at the Open Championship at St. Andrews. Kaewkanjana decided to study dharma, the teachings of Buddha, to make his parents proud. According to him, the process also helped him play more serene golf. “I was cut off from the rest of the world when I was ordained. That made me feel more calm. I was able to concentrate more, which will help me improve my game,” Kaewkanjana said in 2023, per PGA Tour. Kaewkanjana returned to the golf course in 2023 but failed to qualify for LIV Golf through the league’s Promotions Event. He went
