It wasn’t an immediate thought, but it didn’t take long for Joel Dahmen to realize a trip to Maui was on his calendar after he won the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship in March.

Although the 33-year-old from Washington state has had 38 top-25 and 14 top-10 finishes, it was his lone PGA Tour win in 123 starts.

“That night was a bit of a blur, hanging out with the wife and some friends, but I think that next morning we kind of settled in and the wife and I started talking about all the cool things we can do and the perks of winning — and Maui was definitely one of them,” Dahmen said. “We’ve only spent a couple days in Maui and so we’re really looking forward to it. We’re going to go out there a week early and hang out and try to take everything in.”

He can’t wait to get here.

“Yeah, I’m crazy excited. It’s definitely one of the high perks of winning, is getting to go to Maui and the Sentry Tournament of Champions,” Dahmen said. “My coach is going to come out, some of my family is going to come out and some other friends. We’re going to have a big crew. It’s going to be definitely a celebration of just kind of … I mean, it’s hard to win out here.

“It’s very hard. It took me five years and hopefully the next one doesn’t take five years, but I think we’re just going to enjoy the week.”

He and his wife Lona will be coming to the Sentry TOC — set for Jan. 6-9 at the Kapalua Plantation Course — with a mission in mind.

Dahmen is a cancer survivor, as is his brother Zach. The pair lost their mother, Jolyn, to pancreatic cancer when Joel was a junior in high school in 2005. Zach was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2009 and recovered. In 2011, Joel was also diagnosed with testicular cancer; he was lucky and caught it in the early stages.

His mother remains his inspiration.

“I think about her every day,” Dahmen said. “You are living for someone other than yourself.”

His bucket hat is his signature fashion statement, but it comes with a serious message — protect yourself from skin cancer. He sells bucket hats online at JoelDahmen.com and the proceeds go to the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

“The bucket hat fits in very well with Hawaii, the entire thing, whether you’re laying on the beach or you’re on the golf course or wherever — the sun is mostly shining in Hawaii,” he said. “So to wear a bucket hat — first off let’s hope it’s not too windy, so it stays on. That could be a problem there as well, but, yeah, it’s something that I’m very proud of to partner with MD Anderson, to be an ambassador for them, to reach people.

“You know, to fight cancer as a whole and mainly skin cancer, so it’s just an easy way to protect yourself. For me, it’s just a great way to spread a message and also take care of myself.”

The mission drives Dahmen day to day.

“It has helped me put golf in perspective,” he said. “I’m very lucky to get to play golf for a living, very lucky to get to play on the PGA Tour and it’s not lost on me that tomorrow is not promised. Having a very personal battle with it through the last 16 or 17 years since my mom passed — I think it’s just something that for me … hopefully people can look at me and get some hope.”

After surgery and successful chemotherapy, Dahmen was back to chasing his dream of playing professional golf, although there were still several challenges.

He didn’t golf for a month and a half in 2014, and his now-wife gave him $200 to go get a lesson.

“I had missed the Q-school again to move up to the now-Korn Ferry Tour, I was playing up in PGA Tour Canada and I had missed again, a couple of my close friends had gotten through,” Dahmen said. “I was devastated, I was playing good enough, I thought I was good enough and so it was kind of my crossroads. I was four or five years into being a pro, didn’t feel like I had made any progress really.

“So I was probably — being depressed is probably too strong of a word — I was maybe ‘golf depressed.’ I just kind of sat around, didn’t do anything. My wife was working two jobs at the time, she was paying the rent.”

Lona had a simple message for her soon-to-be husband.

“She didn’t want me to be a bump on the log, she didn’t care if I played golf or not,” he said. “I just wasn’t allowed to specifically sit on the couch all day. I decided I didn’t want a real job. … I’m like, ‘I’ve got to give golf another chance and so I asked for 200 bucks, she gave it to me, I had a lesson and a week later I won a mini-tour event in Arizona and three weeks after that I won again. … A couple years later I’m on the PGA Tour.”

There are still moments where that fact seems like a dream.

“There’s definitely times throughout the year when you have some pinch-me moments,” he said. “Sometimes at big events when you’re just kind of hanging out next to Rory (McIlroy) or I got to partner with Phil Mickelson a couple years ago and I got to play with Tiger Woods. Those are moments that I dreamed about when I was a kid. Golf isn’t always easy, there’s always ups and downs, it’s a roller coaster. During those down times you’ve just got to realize how lucky you are to be playing golf on the PGA Tour.

“I’m starting my sixth year now, which is pretty incredible. Definitely something I dreamed about as a kid and to do it week in and week out is pretty darn special.”

Dahmen has never played on Maui, but has heard plenty from fellow PGA players that the gargantuan, par-73 layout is not easy.

“The first thing that I hear from everybody is that it’s very hilly and it’s a tough walk,” he said. “I hear, obviously, a lot depends on the wind, it can really be blowing out there. Whether you get the Kona winds or the trade winds, so I don’t know much. I know it’s a big golf course, there’s a lot of hills, but I’ve probably watched it for 20 years in a row, if not longer, so I know most of the holes out there, at least from the TV perspective.”

Dahmen is honored to be on the Sentry TOC list of qualifiers, all of the winners in the 2021 calendar year.

“When you look at the field list, it’s a pretty impressive list of names,” he said. “And the list of winners is even more impressive. So, I know that everyone is out there to have fun and it’s kind of the first tournament back, first tournament of the new year, so I think that maybe there’ll be some rust, but I think just also being around all of the top players in the game, there’s certainly going to be a big-time feel.

“The best part is that I earned my way there, I earned my spot. So, I’m going to enjoy it but also try to just take it all in.”

* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com.