‘This is definitely my home.’ Wellesley’s Michael Thorbjornsen makes his PGA Tour pro debut in his own backyard. - The Boston Globe (2024)

On Thursday, the 22-year-old Thorbjornsen will make his professional debut as a PGA Tour member at the 2024 Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, Conn. It’s the same course where he made his first start in a PGA Tour event as an amateur in 2022 and finished fourth.

Thorbjornsen, who won the 2018 US Junior Amateur and played at Stanford, earned his tour card after finishing the PGA Tour University season ranked No. 1.

“This is definitely my home, I would say, on the PGA Tour,” Thorbjornsen said Wednesday afternoon. “I couldn’t ask for a better start.”

He will tee off at 2 p.m. Thursday and 10:50 a.m. Friday for the first two rounds, and shares these times with last year’s PGA Tour University champion Ludvig Åberg.

Åberg has been one of the top newcomers on the PGA Tour this season, including a second-place finish at the Masters and a 12th-place finish at the US Open, which he led after two rounds.

Thorbjornsen said he spoke with Åberg Tuesday, and the pair text occasionally. He knows a bit about the transition from amateur to professional from both peers and experience with rigorous schedules, so Thorbjornsen isn’t overly worried.

“I’m going to do my best that I possibly can, and, I mean, this is just the start, so hopefully I keep getting better at managing everything,” Thorbjornsen said.

The Travelers Championship, which was elevated to a PGA Tour Signature Event this season, runs Thursday through Sunday. Keegan Bradley, who also played high school golf in Massachusetts at Hopkinton High, is the defending champion.

Thorbjornsen spent his first three years of high school at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., and when he transferred to Wellesley High, he had already committed to Stanford. He graduated from Stanford this spring while finishing the college golf season with a 1334.7862 point average to earn his PGA Tour card.

Thorbjornsen said part of his reason for transferring to Wellesley High in 2019 was needing a break because of the rigor of IMG and what was to come at Stanford.

“It was good to kind of reignite some friendships,” he added. “Playing on the golf team was a lot of fun. Didn’t know golf could be that much fun at times, even if you don’t play too well. Worked on my game a little bit here and there, but also kind of relaxed and prepared for the next four years at college.”

Bateman knew his role as Thorbjornsen’s coach at Wellesley wasn’t to improve his game.

“I just wanted him to have a normal season,” Bateman said. “I wanted him to be with his friends. I wanted him to enjoy the experience, because it was his only year at Wellesley High. That was the thing that kept going through my head.”

Thorbjornsen’s father, Ted, who is also his coach, will be with him in Connecticut, as well as his mother, Sandra, and a couple of high school friends are coming to support his start. It’s a home debut through and through, and Thorbjornsen will have home with him on the green in his caddie and longtime friend Drew Cohen. The pair have been friends since middle school and reunited on the course at Wellesley. Cohen has caddied for Thorbjornsen since 2021, including two US Opens.

While they were in town for the 2022 US Open in Brookline, they stopped in to see their old coach, who’s been following their careers since they left.

“I just love watching it,” Bateman said. “I love watching them both.”

When he saw Thorbjornsen on the Travelers Championship website under ‘notable golfers,’ Bateman’s mind was blown, and he quickly texted Cohen to ask if he’d be on the bag.

“I was thinking it was so awesome to see this kid who was destined for all these great things, to see him be a normal high school kid,” Bateman recalled. “That is the vision that I’m going to remember him just being a kid. But the way Michael’s played in a handful of tournaments over the last few years, the PGA ones, especially, it’s been fantastic to watch.”

Sarah Barber can be reached at sarah.barber@globe.com.