There’s nothing cookie-cutter about Isaiah Salinda, the pride of South San Francisco, who is beginning to make a name for himself on the PGA Tour
By Adam Schupak
All gas, no brakes is how Stanford men’s golf coach Conrad Ray describes what makes his former star Isaiah Salinda, who helped bring home a team national title in 2019 for the Cardinal, so special.
That fearlessness, the way Salinda oozes confidence is why he’s emerging as one to watch on the PGA Tour. And Salinda is attempting to do it his way – from his funky socks to his provocative outfits and non-stop chatter –and none of it is by accident.
“Too many guys out here are just kind of cookie-cutter, vanilla shortbread cookies, you know what I mean?” he told Golf.com at the Players Championship in March. “I’m trying to be different.”
Salinda, 28, has never been one to shy away from attention. With each passing year, he’s proven that he has the chops to achieve greatness at the highest level. Coach Ray still recalls how Salinda first appeared on his radar as a freshman in high school.
“Everyone started talking about this kid from South City,” Ray says.
The kid from South San Francisco is the son of Tony and Debbie, who immigrated from the Philippines to the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1980s, where they married and first settled in a crowded house with several cousins.
Tony and his brothers played golf regularly and so by the tender age of 3, Isaiah started hitting wiffle balls around the house with a plastic club. His father began taking him to the San Bruno Golf Center, a public two-story range, where he’d go every day after school. By 10, he was competing in tournaments. He played public courses growing up, cutting his teeth at TPC Harding Park’s nine-hole Fleming 9 Course before graduating to TPC Harding Park, host of the 2020 PGA Championship, every weekend for $5 through Youth on Course. Crystal Springs, Lincoln Park and Presidio as well as Poplar Creek in San Mateo were among his favorite haunts. In high school, he was given a junior membership at The Olympic Club and later he became a member at the Cal Club, which he calls his favorite course in the world, through its mentorship program.
Salinda attended Junipero Serra High School and became the first student in the school’s history to be named varsity team MVP as a freshman. One year later, he became the first Serra golfer since 1978 to win the Central Coast Section title and was named The Mercury News boys golfer of the year.
Salinda won the 2016 San Jose City, the 2017 NCGA Amateur Championship and in 2018 the Pacific Coast Amateur at The Olympic Club, helped by a course record nine-under 62 in the third round, and reached the semifinals of the U.S. Amateur at Pebble Beach. That’s when he started thinking that a pro career could be in the cards. During his senior year at Stanford he was named team MVP with two wins and six top 10 finishes. He secured four straight match plays wins in the National Championship victory, including erasing a 4-down deficit at the turn by winning six straight holes on the back nine to close out his quarterfinals match.
“The guts the kid had to come back,” Ray recalls, “he just finds a way and when the heat's on it's the gas pedal, it's not the brake. That's going to serve him well as a pro.”
Later, in 2019, he helped the U.S. win the Walker Cup at Royal Liverpool, where he won two out of his three matches. But after turning pro that fall, his journey to the PGA Tour hit some bumps after he cruised to medalist honors at MacKenzie Tour Q-School. COVID-19 wiped out the season and he essentially had nowhere to play, delaying his ascent through the pro ranks.
“You’ve got to push through those tough times if you love it and want it enough,” Salinda says.
Moving to Las Vegas, where he could practice against the likes of Cal’s Collin Morikawa and Stanford alum and fellow NCGA natives Joseph Bramlett and Maverick McNealy proved to be a turning point.
Salinda was in the zone at the 2024 Panama Championship, blitzing the field by eight strokes – shortly after having his appendix removed – the fourth-largest margin of victory in the circuit’s history. He earned his first PGA Tour card via the 2024 Korn Ferry Tour by finishing No. 18 on the season-long standings to earn one of 30 available Tour cards. Salinda finished third in March at the Mexico Open at VidantaWorld in just his fourth start as a Tour member. That got him into signature events such as the Arnold Palmer Invitational and The Players Championship. He and fellow rookie and NorCal native Kevin Velo partnered at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans and held the first-round lead en route to finishing T-8.
“The kid exudes confidence,” Vello says. “I hate to give him props, but he just knows how to talk his way into playing well. And everybody knows he's good and he also knows it and he will tell you sometimes when we're playing practice rounds, so he's just a very confident guy.”
As if further proof is needed, Salinda chimes in and says, “I never doubted I was good enough to get to the PGA Tour.”
And hoping to stay for a long time by stepping on the gas.