playing professionally

[jonanthans]

After consulting with my financial adviser (brother-in-law) here's our 4 year plan for you:

You are currently 19, we assume you are still living at home:

1)Get a part time job at a golf course in exchange for free range time/rounds.

2) Open a high-yield Mutual Fund account designated exclusively for earmarked Golf money. This is a DO-NOT-TOUCH account!

3) Put together a proposed plan outlining your strategy to reaching the PGA. This will be used to solicit possible sponsorship/donations to your cause. Every dollar aquired is to be deposited into the MF account.

4) Organize Softball Tournaments, Poker Tournaments, Raffles, Bake Sales, Bingo nights, etc. etc. every weekend. All money realized from these fundraisers is to be deposited into the MF account. (note: I played competetive travel ball for 12 years, we easily raised $30-$40k every year with these fundraisers!)

5) Practice, Practice, Practice!

Now, assuming you will raise $40k a year from the fundraisers, and $10K a year from small but numerous sponsorships, you are depositing $50k a year into the Mutual Fund. You will continue to practice and play until you are a scratch golfer, which we assume will take you 3 years. At that time you will schedule to play 5 tournaments on the NGA Hooters Tour,to gauge your progress and how you stack up to tournament golf. You will continue to keep your fundraising efforts going. If you consistently shoot under par, you will then schedule to play 5 rounds at each site of the next years Q School qualifing courses. You will continue to practice and play rounds in preparation for Q school. You will also have continued to keep your fundraisers going, as well as your sponsorship drives.

By this time, you should be in your 4th year, 23 years old, and have amassed $200k (+12% interest) in your Mutual Fund, as well as transformed yourself into a scratch golfer, with some experience in tournament golf, as well as having paid for your spot in Q school. It is then up to you to perform to get through QS. I you don't qualify for the PGA or The Nationwide Tour, you still have 200K(+interest) to start your career on the NGA Hooters tour. That gives you 5-6 years to make it.

There's your plan of action, laid out and do-able. The rest is up to you.

I only ask that you provide us with weekly updates on your progress!

Good Luck!

[st0wgolf08]

After consulting with my financial adviser (brother-in-law) here's our 4 year plan for you:

Wow. Nice plan. Seriously. that sounds like it would work.

[jonanthans]

The fundraising part is actually the easiest part of it. There is a kids traveling baseball team here locally that raises 100k+ every year through these fundraisers. You'd be surprised how easy it is to raise money. The golf is definetly the hard part. And, having the restraint to not spend any of that money!

[Canuck]

Heres my advice...... Alot of the mini tours you just need to be a 3handicap or less to compete. If I were you I would continue to push like hell and practice as much as you can. Start working with an instructor to fine tune and help with course managment. I would play as much tourny golf as possible and play a few mini tour events as an amature and get the feel for the presure. If you can compete then continue at it and get your confidence up. Golf and Tourny golf are diffrent games. Your goals is definatly reachable especially at your age, you just have to work for it. Im 24 and giving it ago aswell, so its possible and working so far.

[TheNatural]

My .02

FIRST sure like stated before you would probably find a way to get a tourn entry with fee...,but do some local tourn.s first to get used to pressure...

Next what is your strength(s)? I am not a decent golfer by any means but in my line of work I have come to deal w one who is a top 100,,or his accountant mostly. His opinion is that a golfer who can control the Driver and woods with 280+ accuracy,,,(accuracy being as important) has a greater chance of doing well...

Take your best tour players and tell me who can drive a par 4 green? those who can ,,consistently seem to be the studs on the tour...hell even landing in a green side bunker improves your odds over someone who cant carry a dogleg hazrd 280-90. Tiger carries 300 at times..not impossible but he does it with control. Its freaky.

This is not a end all be all, since the short game is the most important...but having this ability gives you tremendous advantage IMO. BJ Holmes is 2nd on tour or so in drv distance but lacks the irons play and short game of the others, but still makes $$$ plenty...LASTLY find a GREAT caddy who is retired or on a pension....someone who will forecaddy and measure your carries etc....this all has to be memorized and written down on a weekly basis...every club ..u probbly know that tho..

[TheNatural]

Heres my advice...... Alot of the mini tours you just need to be a 3handicap or less to compete. If I were you I would continue to push like hell and practice as much as you can. Start working with an instructor to fine tune and help with course managment. I would play as much tourny golf as possible and play a few mini tour events as an amature and get the feel for the presure. If you can compete then continue at it and get your confidence up. Golf and Tourny golf are diffrent games. Your goals is definatly reachable especially at your age, you just have to work for it. Im 24 and giving it ago aswell, so its possible and working so far.

how do u play in the winter? do u go south?

[flanagan]

It's one thing for teams, especially little kids, to go out and put on fundraisers and have the built in manpower and kidpower to do the things necessary for fundraisers, it's quite another for you to have "bake sales", etc. and even dream about making $40,000 a year trying to get the general public to buy into supporting you on a professional golf tour, not realistic advice at all.

Obviously the odds are astronomical, and I would think you know that, and as encouraging as people want to be and should be on the internet, the odds are still astronomical. There are thousands of golfers at +5 or better, (make sure you have a good handle on your real handicap) and thousands of golfers at scratch or better. Just look in some of the publications or online sometime at what some of the guys are shooting just to make a little money in some of the third or fourth tier tours -- they are shooting in the 60s. There's a big difference between playing professionally and being able to support yourself just from playing professionally.

My suggestion is twofold: (1) Somewhere near you (and you're in Texas, so let's say within 500 miles, because "near" is a relative term), is/are some golf professionals/experts whom you could arrrange to visit with to get some real input into your game and what you are really facing in terms of competition, and (2) Somewhere near you this summer or fall take the time to seek out and go to a couple of professional events, maybe on a couple of different levels, and go watch the guys hit the ball in practice and on the course. You'll know pretty quick where you are relative to them and what your game needs to become to be competitive with them. Neither will be a significant investment of your time or money if you are serious about this, and will be invaluable.

Having done all that you can assess your situation realistically, and who knows, you may find you have the potential to beat the odds.

[sosinsurr]

Start playin in some tournaments for sure! Look into your state's tournament like their amateur and amateur public links, which you usually need a handicap of 16 or less to compete in. Look for club tournaments as well! And just start playing.

[Giospro]

Start playing in AM Tours, then when you feel confident and play in competition then go for your dream, try out for the mini tours so you can get an idea what an pro tour feels like, then you'll see what it's like traveling (on the road) the money$ situation, motels, if this is your goal/dream in life, you well find way to make it happen, try what Jonathan said, it might work or not work for you. everybody has different incomes, life styles. I play on the National Professional Golf Tours and found way to make it$. I'm from Utah so i have to travel there to play the mini tours.

and have fun playing and good luck.

never stop trying.

[Sing Golfer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RobotDoctor

None

Even Tiger has a handicap. This is the only measure that I could play Tiger in a non-sanctioned match. I believe Tiger is a +7 or so. If this is the case, he would have to give me pretty much a stroke a hole and yet he would still kick my butt.

Some guys at the USGA who rank courses and handicaps calculated Tiger as +10 during his 2000 year.

I think other threads have come to the conclusion that +2, 3 or 4 is where you need to get to in order to have a genuine chance, so there is your initial goal.

I'd also take the advice of others here and play as many tournaments as possible, it is where you figure out how to score when you are not hitting it well and how your swing holds up under pressure.

[Fourputt]

Originally Posted by Giospro

Start playing in AM Tours, then when you feel confident  and   play in competition then go for your dream, try out for the mini tours so you can get an idea what an pro tour feels like, then you'll see what it's like traveling (on the road) the money$ situation, motels, if this is your goal/dream in life, you well find way to make it happen, try what Jonathan said, it might work or not work for you. everybody has different incomes, life styles. I play on the National Professional Golf Tours and found way to make it$. I'm from Utah so i have to travel there to play the mini tours.

and have fun playing and good luck.

never stop trying.

You do realize that the post you are responding to is more than 2 years old?

[AzGolfGeek]

Here's a little perspective. Monday qualifying for a PGA Tour event, this starts with a Thursday pre-qualifier. In Phoenix there were 3 pre-qualifiers, 99 players in each, only 9 from each advanced to Monday. I played in the qualifier at Aguila GC, par 72, about 7100 yards. 69 (-3) did not advance, meaning that there were 9 players -4 or better. The other 2 courses were very similar, and I noticed someone shot a 62. This only got them to Monday, where only 3 advanced from a field of about 99. And again 69's and more went home. What does this all mean, you need to be able to routinely go out, and shoot 68 or better in competition from the tips of the course. A zero hdcp (scratch) doesn't cut it. Figuring out what a hdcp is for any given pro is that hard, pgatour.com has the stats and scores. They are normally playing on courses with ratings in the 74, 75 area and slopes higher than 140. Rarely do they ever play courses shorter than 7100 yards, and they are still scoring below par week in, week out. One other thing, 99% of the current pro's, have won multiple titles at every level they have played. Whether they were junior golfers, high school teams, college teams and then amateur and open events, they have won...before getting to the pro level.

[Bigtank]

I understand this post is several years old...That being said this question comes up every couple of months.

Depends on what you define a "professional" as...you can file your paperwork with your local PGA region and now you are offically a pro.  However, there are varying levels of pro's..mini tours, Nationwide, PGA Tour, teaching...you get the point!

if its PGA, there are 6 billion people on the planet and about 200-225 with some kind of conditional status on the PGA tour.  You do the math!

I'm somewhere around a +2, in tournaments and I have played with numerous guys on tour some of which are in the top 25 in the world.  I am no where close to being ready for any tour!  I can WAX 99.9% the people I meet on the course and the Nationwide and PGA guys are in a different world