Who Is Joel Dahmen's Wife? All About Lona Dahmen
Joel Dahmen first met his wife at a restaurant in 2012
Joel Dahmen and his wife Lona have been married since 2018.
The professional golfer may have won his first PGA Tour title in March 2021 but his wife Lona has been supporting him since 2012, when they met while waiting in line for pizza. Six years after their chance meeting, the pair got married and in 2023, Joel and Lona welcomed their first child.
Since getting together, they’ve launched a foundation and appeared on the Netflix show Full Swing alongside each other. Joel has also opened up about how they have helped each other succeed.
“We are wildly more successful than my wife and I ever thought that our lives would be. We’re doing well financially," he told GQ in February 2023. "We are building a new house. But we still save a ton of money. We always want to save for the future."
So who is Joel Dahmen’s wife? Here’s everything to know about Lona Dahmen and her relationship with the professional golfer.
She studied communication design in college
According to Lona's LinkedIn profile, she studied communication design at California State University and received her bachelor's degree in 2011.
Lona was a member of the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority, and studied overseas at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, for a semester in 2009.
She has had a number of jobs over the years, from working at a golf club as a teenager to being an assistant event coordinator at Citizen Public House for two years while dating Joel.
She met Joel in 2012
On Lona and Joel's wedding website, the couple shared their sweet meet-cute story. In 2012, Joel and Lona met in line at a pizza place in Scottsdale when he offered to buy her a slice if she went up the line faster than him.
Lona gave Joel her number, and he asked her on a date the following week. "The rest is history," they wrote on the site.
She married Joel in 2018
Joel and Lona got married at the Royal Palms in Phoenix on Dec. 15, 2018.
The golfer paid tribute to Lona on their fourth wedding anniversary in 2022, posting a picture on Instagram of the two holding hands on their wedding day.
“4 years of bliss!" Joel wrote in the caption. "You are truly special. I can’t wait to attempt this parenting thing with you! I love you!”
She had a child with Joel in January 2023
Joel and Lona welcomed a son, Riggs William Dahmen, on Jan. 19, 2023. The Gateway Tour winner announced his wife’s pregnancy in July 2022 with an Instagram post in which the couple held up ultrasound scans. “It’s actually happening. Pray for us," he wrote in the caption.
The father-of-one also announced the news of Riggs' birth on the social media platform with a photo of the newborn asleep. “Hello World! Riggs William was born on 1/19 healthy and happy,” Joel wrote in the caption, before sharing that Lona was “unbelievably strong and doing well.”
For Valentine’s Day in 2024, Joel shared a photo on Instagram of Lona and their son smiling together with the caption, “My forever Valentines!”
She appeared on Full Swing with Joel
Joel starred in the Netflix documentary series Full Swing starting in 2023 and Lona came along for the ride. The fourth episode of the first season, which featured a variety of professional golfers taking part in the PGA Tour, focused on him and Lona.
Joel and Lona returned for season 2 in 2024, which showcased their struggles with balancing the pressures of parenthood and the professional sports world.
“There are moments where I was like, ‘OK I don’t think you are doing well ... You are off and now you are dragging everyone else down with you.’ That sounds harsh, but I am not afraid to say something to my husband because it’s our family,” Lona said in the series.
She’s a food and travel blogger
Lona is a food blogger who shares her cooking and her travels on Instagram. Her bio reads, “I travel, find yummy food along the way, and also create some of my own treats when I'm home!”
In her Instagram highlights, she has posted her travel and food experiences from destinations including Japan, Thailand, Mexico and Ireland.
The flexibility of being an entrepreneur works for Joel and Lona — the professional athlete told Golf Digest in a 2019 interview that Lona quit her job to travel with him for the South American part of the Korn Ferry Tour.
One of Joel's friends, Bob Yosaitis, even said it was important for Lona to be there. “You play better when she’s around,” Joel remembered him saying.
She helped encourage Joel back to golf
In the summer of 2014, after some professional difficulties led Joel to take time off from golf, Lona helped encourage him back to the sport. He told GOLF in May 2019, “My now-wife gave me $200 to go get a lesson and it kind of kick-started my ’14 and now the rest of my career.”
Three years earlier, Joel spoke to The Seattle Times about the power of Lona's support.
“She’s been with me at my lowest and my highest," he said. "She is a big reason I am where I am, always supporting me, but also kicking my butt when I need it.”
She started a foundation with Joel
Joel and Lona began The Dahmen Family Foundation in 2022 to raise funds for charities that help children and families affected by cancer.
The cause hits close to home, as Joel is a cancer survivor himself. The golfer launched their foundation through his Instagram page, writing, “Lona and I have been blessed through an amazing game, and we want to give back to the golf and cancer community in a significant way. This foundation will benefit families and communities in ways I couldn’t have dreamed of, and with baby Dahmen around the corner, it’s a legacy that we want to last.”
A year later, Joel and Lona jointly shared a post on Instagram in which they announced that the foundation had donated $10,000 to the Arizona Cancer Foundation for Children.
For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!
Read the original article on People.