SAN DIEGO – Danny List estimates there are fewer than 10 golf courses in Ghana.

And the playing conditions?

“Pretty shocking for the most part,” he said.

List, this year’s recipient of the Charlie Sifford Memorial Exemption, awarded annually since 2009 to advance diversity in golf, has an unusual origin story.

But that’s probably an understatement.

Most players in this week’s field got here via finishing last season in the top 50 of the FedExCup, and those who didn’t qualify that way are perhaps here via the Aon Next 10 or Aon Swing 5.

And then there’s List, 26, who lives in San Diego but grew up playing on greens that were “probably a 2 on the Stimpmeter” in Accra, Ghana. His uncle, a caddie, got him started, and he “would get waxed” any time he went overseas to compete on faster surfaces. Still, at around age 13 he won a trail and was awarded a scholarship at a boarding school in England, and the family decided he should go and see where the game took him.

It was a good decision.

From England, where List rose through the junior ranks, he got the attention of the coach at the University of Washington, where he spent one year (2016-17). He turned professional, playing various developmental tours. Although a stress fracture to his lower back left him unable to swing a club in 2023, he bounced back. He set a tournament scoring record at 21-under par while winning last year’s California State Open, and in November earned his 2025 DP World Tour card, finishing as one of the top 21 players at Q-School.

And now he’s at Torrey Pines, preparing to tee it up against many players he’s seen only on TV.

“Danny has shown resiliency and determination on the course by earning his DP World Tour card after returning from an injury,” said Tiger Woods, the host of The Genesis Invitational. “He’s earned this opportunity, and I look forward to seeing Danny tee it up at Torrey.”

Like Woods, List is a melting pot; his father is from Australia, his mother from Ghana. And like countless other players his age, List says Woods was a formative influence.

“I've spent probably 1,000 hours watching Tiger Woods hit a golf ball back in Ghana,” List said. “We were about eight hours ahead most of the time of the U.S., so it was a good time in the mornings when the PGA TOUR was on, I was done with school and able to turn it on.”

They’ve never met, but List is hopeful that they will, perhaps even this week.

He is quick to laugh at his unlikely journey as he preps to make his first-ever PGA TOUR start. And he is determined to make the most of it, insisting that anything that happens on the course this week is “gravy.” He’s already gotten to meet Rory McIlroy, who like List is a former junior phenom in the U.K. and is one of List’s two biggest golf idols.

“I might have stuttered once or twice,” List said of their meeting earlier this week.

There are plenty of children for whom List himself is an idol. He started the Danny List Foundation in 2021 to help junior golfers in Ghana realize their potential.

“In the local village there would be a 3-foot kid playing with a 4-foot golf club,” List said. “So, I can see the love and the desire for the game is there, and it just started off, OK, I can help with some equipment, I could throw some clinics and teach the basics to these kids.

“That's kind of how it started,” he added, “and it's just grown very organically where we've got some support from various entities around the country that they've seen the traction that it's bringing and the way that the love of the game is growing over there.”

Eventually, List said, he would like to be a global player; he’d like to play on the PGA TOUR as well as the DP World Tour. It would be good for his foundation, too, for even as he takes his first steps on golf’s biggest stage, he knows it’s not all about him. Somewhere in Ghana that 3-foot kid with the 4-foot golf club is watching.