Want to try to turn pro

[CarlSpackler]

Why, is definitely the ultimate question for anything!

Yeah. I just want to help this young man. When my daughter said she wanted to go into pre-med, which made me happy, I asked her why. She was able to quickly rattle off a bunch of logical reasons. I hate to see this kid flipping burgers or robbing banks.

[Flynavy]

If the pro tour doesn't work out and there's no college and poor grades, what's your backup plan?

Exactly:  I understand college isn't for every HS grad.  Have you considered the military options?  Enlist, learn a trade or job skill, grow up some, see the world and earn your college money via the GI Bill.  Guess what, a majority of military bases have golf courses w/ super cheap greens fee's and/or memberships, so you can continue to play and practice, and in some amazing locations.  Reference Billy Hurley III; served his country in the Navy and is now a professional golfer.

I would be interested in your opinion of this and also interested to hear in what your golf game is currently like.  Are you on the HS team, do you have a coach or instructor, are you playing and winning in local tournaments?  Are you living in a part of the country that you can play year around?  That would also play into working at a golf course, you want to maximize your play/practice time if you want a career in golf...no matter which route you choose to get there.

[ev780]

Arnold Schwarzenegger's 6 Rules of Success.

1. Trust yourself

2. Break the rules

3. Don't be afraid to fail

4. Don't listen to the naysayers

5. Work your butt off

6. Give something back to your community

I gave up reading this thread at this point.

Just like life the posters on this site project their shattered dreams on everyone else.  The negativity here is astounding!!! Sure the odds are long and judging by the way he writes his education needs a little jumpstart.  But good grief if I gave up every time someone said I couldn't do something I would be living in the Vegas drain tunnels.  Go for broke in your teens and 20's.  Because after about 25 life starts to happen quickly and going bust is not an option.

Tell all these people to piss off and chase the dream!! You will have accomplished more in golf by just doing that than most of the negative nellies on a random internet forum.

[14ledo81]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 21degreeloft

Arnold Schwarzenegger's 6 Rules of Success.

1. Trust yourself

2. Break the rules

3. Don't be afraid to fail

4. Don't listen to the naysayers

5. Work your butt off

6. Give something back to your community

I gave up reading this thread at this point.

Just like life the posters on this site project their shattered dreams on everyone else.  The negativity here is astounding!!! Sure the odds are long and judging by the way he writes his education needs a little jumpstart.  But good grief if I gave up every time someone said I couldn't do something I would be living in the Vegas drain tunnels.  Go for broke in your teens and 20's.  Because after about 25 life starts to happen quickly and going bust is not an option.

Tell all these people to piss off and chase the dream!! You will have accomplished more in golf by just doing that than most of the negative nellies on a random internet forum.

@ev780 , I am thinking about selling all I own and buying lottery tickets.  Do you think this is a good idea?  If you cared about me, would you advise me otherwise?

[Abu3baid]

@ev780 , I am thinking about selling all I own and buying lottery tickets.  Do you think this is a good idea?  If you cared about me, would you advise me otherwise?

Is this your dream? Well go for it damn it!

[14ledo81]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 14ledo81

@ev780

, I am thinking about selling all I own and buying lottery tickets.  Do you think this is a good idea?  If you cared about me, would you advise me otherwise?

Is this your dream? Well go for it damn it!

Awww...  and I thought you cared about me...

[Abu3baid]

Awww...  and I thought you cared about me...   :cry:

Just didn't want you to think I'm a hater that's all.. Isn't that how you show you care? By feeding into someone's delusions?

[CarlSpackler]

I gave up reading this thread at this point.

Just like life the posters on this site project their shattered dreams on everyone else.  The negativity here is astounding!!! Sure the odds are long and judging by the way he writes his education needs a little jumpstart.  But good grief if I gave up every time someone said I couldn't do something I would be living in the Vegas drain tunnels.  Go for broke in your teens and 20's.  Because after about 25 life starts to happen quickly and going bust is not an option.

Tell all these people to piss off and chase the dream!! You will have accomplished more in golf by just doing that than most of the negative nellies on a random internet forum.

Negativity would be us crushing someones dreams to be spiteful. Most people here are trying to help out by being realistic. You must go into all endeavors with realistic expectations. There are very slim chances for even a great ball striker to make it to a mini-tour. That's just reality.

You calling everyone names is quite insulting and negative however.

[DrvFrShow]

@ev780 , I am thinking about selling all I own and buying lottery tickets.  Do you think this is a good idea?  If you cared about me, would you advise me otherwise?

At the age of 14 or 20 you don't own anything but your dreams. At the age of 23 all you have is debt unless you hit the lottery. Sorry, that's the fact.

Because....

[ev780]

@ev780 , I am thinking about selling all I own and buying lottery tickets.  Do you think this is a good idea?  If you cared about me, would you advise me otherwise?

Not at all the same thing.  This kid is trying to make a career decision and has nothing to lose and everything to gain.  Enough of our dreams will be crushed by reality why would you start out by saying, "Give up you don't have a chance!"  Let life happen.  If he swings and misses he made it farther in professional golf that I ever did.

I don't know what you do for a living but if you want an analogous question to pose, it is this.  I am 16 years old and I want to be in the top 1% of widget makers in 5 years or so.  So for all of the widget makers out there in internet land who make widgets for a hobby (not for a living mind you) do you have any advice?  And the answer always seems to be, Give up!  I couldn't possibly be in the top 1% of widget makers so therefore neither can you.

[turtleback]

If a little taste of reality is going to derail the OP from pursuing his dream, then he never had the burn to succeed against the odds he is facing in the first place.  Every "unlikely" success story comes complete with the stories about how "everyone said I couldn't do it but I persisted and worked hard and in the end did it."

The problem is that no one ever hears from the other 100,000 people whose story is "everyone said I couldn't do it but I persisted and worked hard but damn, it turned out everyone was correct.  What the hell was I thinking of to pin all my hopes on a 1,000,000 to one shot."

Not at all the same thing.  This kid is trying to make a career decision and has nothing to lose and everything to gain.  Enough of our dreams will be crushed by reality why would you start out by saying, "Give up you don't have a chance!"  Let life happen.  If he swings and misses he made it farther in professional golf that I ever did.

I don't know what you do for a living but if you want an analogous question to pose, it is this.  I am 16 years old and I want to be in the top 1% of widget makers in 5 years or so.  So for all of the widget makers out there in internet land who make widgets for a hobby (not for a living mind you) do you have any advice?  And the answer always seems to be, Give up!  I couldn't possibly be in the top 1% of widget makers so therefore neither can you.

No that is not analogous.  Try changing that 1% to something more like .00000001%.

As to what he has to lose, not much, just his future, if he puts all of his eggs in the golf basket while putting no priority or importance on preparing himself for life with an education, which is pretty much the attitude he has shown.

And no one told him to give up, they (including me) are saying that it is a profoundly bad decision to put all of your eggs in a basket that is going to be dropped from 100 feet.   We just want him to put some of those eggs in his pocket before he drops the basket.  Because the overwhelmingly likely result is that all the eggs in the basket will break.  Which will leave him pretty hungry if he didn't.

A 15 year old is not making a carer decision when he says his goal is to be a touring pro.  He is just being a 15 year old.  He is making a career decision when he says his grades are bad in school and won't even put in the effort to lift them to a point that would qualify him, if he gets the golf act together, for a college scholarship - which would give him the level of coaching and competition that is almost de rigeur in today's climate for one who hopes t be a paying pro.

Even if someone did not care one whit about their education, the fact remains that you rarely find a touring pro who didn't go to college.  And they didn't even necessarily go there for the education  They went there for the coaching, support, and competition, to further their development into, hopefully, touring pros.

So what do we really have here:  a 15 year old who is a relatively mediocre golfer (I'd have loved to be an 8 at age 15  - or now, but an 8 at age 15 is very mediocre relative to the universe of 15 year olds with touring pro aspirations) who embarks on a goal that has very little probability of success.  But not only that, he a priori rules out the very path that the people who have actually been successful used to achieve that success, thereby taking a miniscule probability of success and reducing it even further by ruling out the almost universal path that people follow to achieve that goal.

A 15 year old being a 15 year old.  We do not expect wisdom from them.  That is why we share ours.

[CarlSpackler]

Not at all the same thing.  This kid is trying to make a career decision and has nothing to lose and everything to gain.  Enough of our dreams will be crushed by reality why would you start out by saying, "Give up you don't have a chance!"  Let life happen.  If he swings and misses he made it farther in professional golf that I ever did.

I don't know what you do for a living but if you want an analogous question to pose, it is this.  I am 16 years old and I want to be in the top 1% of widget makers in 5 years or so.  So for all of the widget makers out there in internet land who make widgets for a hobby (not for a living mind you) do you have any advice?  And the answer always seems to be, Give up!  I couldn't possibly be in the top 1% of widget makers so therefore neither can you.

Nobody is telling him not to move forward. They are simply saying it is a very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very long shot. They are also saying that playing college golf will better prepare him for the rigors of the tour. College will also prepare him for other avenues in life if he should he not make this very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very long shot.

[ev780]

Negativity would be us crushing someones dreams to be spiteful. Most people here are trying to help out by being realistic. You must go into all endeavors with realistic expectations. There are very slim chances for even a great ball striker to make it to a mini-tour. That's just reality.

You calling everyone names is quite insulting and negative however.

I didn't call anyone names specifically.  Just grouping (stereotyping I guess) the naysayers.  I apologize if you felt insulted.  Not my intent.

[CarlSpackler]

I didn't call anyone names specifically.  Just grouping (stereotyping I guess) the naysayers.  I apologize if you felt insulted.  Not my intent.

I don't take it personally. I just want to point out your negativity towards those who really are trying to help. We are not being negative. We are being realistic.

[ev780]

Nobody is telling him not to move forward. They are simply saying it is a very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very long shot. They are also saying that playing college golf will better prepare him for the rigors of the tour. College will also prepare him for other avenues in life if he should he not make this very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very long shot.

There were several that said "give up."  I was also not saying the odds are long and a smart kid would exercise Plan B at some point.  We all did.  Notice I am not an astronaut and I am not married to Meg Ryan. (Uh did I just age myself there?)

The odds are long but someone has to be in the 1% just for there to be a 1%.

[Abu3baid]

Not at all the same thing.  This kid is trying to make a career decision and has nothing to lose and everything to gain.  Enough of our dreams will be crushed by reality why would you start out by saying, "Give up you don't have a chance!"  Let life happen.  If he swings and misses he made it farther in professional golf that I ever did. I don't know what you do for a living but if you want an analogous question to pose, it is this.  I am 16 years old and I want to be in the top 1% of widget makers in 5 years or so.  So for all of the widget makers out there in internet land who make widgets for a hobby (not for a living mind you) do you have any advice?  And the answer always seems to be, Give up!  I couldn't possibly be in the top 1% of widget makers so therefore neither can you.

Well, I don't really agree with you.. How about this.. I want to be one of the top 1% of artists (ie that draw paintings) in the world. I'm not going to go to school, but rather sit in my parents basement and draw all day and night hoping to get the epiphany that will propell me through the ranks of artists in the world and my name will be written in history books and will be very rich.. Before you answe here would be my advice.. Perdue your dreams young Eyad, but make sure you go to school or get good at something else because 99 percent of wana be artist end up living in poverty chasing their dreams, so go to school and study hard and maybe you can be in the art business instead id you don't get that epiphany. Then I answer, na I just will work really hard.. My final rebuttal, ok, the world does need grave diggers so good luck.. This is pretty much what happened and you are calling us haters instead of realist who have been through what he has been through (me wanting to be a professional soccer player, but instead I'm in corporate finance). He needs more realist talking to him and less people feeding him delusions in my opinion.

[ev780]

That's fair.  There was some reasonable advice in this thread just a ton of fuggetabout it people, and those are the ones who make me crazy.

I have a little blind spot for people who call themselves realists.  I know 99% of their intentions are good but it always comes across to me as haters.  Don't know why but that is my problem and nothing personal to all of you realists out there.  I am not an "every kid gets a ribbon" person either.  It's just that when someone tells me I can't, I get fired up.

I proactively apologize to anyone I pissed off today but I must get back to my job so more dreams get shattered.

By the way for the OP.  Go for it kid you only live once and please come back in 5 years and let us know how it went.

[Moppy]

By the way for the OP.  Go for it kid you only live once and please come back in 5 years and let us know how it went.

Exactly.