Do you really want to be a pro golfer?

[klineka]

I can sort of relate but in a different sport. Baseball. I pitched at a Division II college and had a few pro scouts interested in me. I didn't get drafted but had numerous offers to play independent ball, similar to the mini tours. The pay wasnt great ($100 a week maybe) and I would have been living either in a college dorm or at a host families house, just hoping to do well enough to get signed with a pro team to make 20-40K as a minor league player. I decided that wasn't the route I wanted to go, got a full-time job, and now it leaves me more time to get better at golf. 

Being a pro athlete in any sport is tremendously difficult, I'm fortunate that golf has always been a hobby to me, much like others I think it wouldn't be as fun if my paychecks were based on how well I golfed.. Although being a millionaire like Spieth at 23 sure would be nice!

[kpaulhus]

I had a buddy who made an absolute killing in the real estate boom in the early 2000's. He was also the best golfer I have ever played with. He went to Q School 3 times. Never made it past the final stage. Did some local Florida tours, but life comes and kids happen and now he is an amateur again and won the Florida Mid Am last year.

Its easy to dream when you don't have a lot of "life" responsibilities and have the money to do so, but all good things eventually come to an end and sometimes living your dream isn't exactly financially possible. Even if I won the power ball and made $200M I wouldn't try to do what those guys do. Id simply be happy to be able to do whatever I want and still dabble in the $20 skins game every weekend at a very nice country club.

Edited April 14, 2017 by kpaulhus

[DeadMan]

2 hours ago, DeadMan said:

Beyond what you all have said about this, I wouldn't want to become a pro because it would change golf from my hobby to my job. I know if I were a tour pro, I would feel like I have to practice 4-8 hours a day just to keep up with everybody else. And, as much as I love golf now, I'm pretty sure that would quickly wane when I spent 40+ hours a week at a golf course, trying to shave off a quarter stroke a round.

I want to amend this that I could probably stomach being a tour pro if I had so much natural talent that I didn't need to spend 40+ hours a week on a golf course. So, basically, if I were Louis Oosthuizen, I would do it.

That said, it still takes a ton of work to get to that position in the first place. The margins at the mini-tour/developmental tour level are so tiny that even natural talent like his might not shine through.

[DrvFrShow]

I'll never play on the tour. I'll never win a club championship. But no one, no one will ever beat that magical 50 I scored in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2013 at St. Andrews at the UK Open.

[Gator Hazard]

On 4/14/2017 at 8:11 AM, CarlSpackler said:

Even if I had the game, I wouldn't want to be on tour. I would rather be a member at a nice club and not have my next meal riding on whether a putt goes in the hole. 

Or living out of a suitcase. "Sorry Mary, daddy wanted to be here but he had that Monday qualifier". No thank you, not the life for me. 

[jamo]

I shit my pants from the pressure (of which there is virtually none) of a casual outing with work colleagues. So no thank you to being on Tour. 

[JonMA1]

Don't snap hook a drive into the fans... don't snap hook a drive into the fans... don't snap hook a drive into...

"Dope!"

Of course, yes. I'd love to be so good in high school that I received a D1 scholarship. While in college, both earn an engineering degree and become so good in golf that turning pro was a viable option. Give golf 100% dedication for 3 or so years and worst case scenario, fall back on the engineering career and enjoy the game of golf at a high level for the rest of my life.

[Buckeyebowman]

Deadman's comment about taking a hobby and turning it into a job is well considered. I had a buddy who loved to build high performance 4WD vehicles, so he decided to open a shop. Suddenly what he loved to do turned into what he had to do to make a living! But, he stuck with it, built up the business till he was able to sell it.

If you need something to read, go no further than A Good Walk Spoiled by John Feinstein. An excellent exposition of the trials and tribulation of the Tour and Q School. For something a little more recent here are a few quote from David Feherty's essay in Golf Magazine, August 2003.

   " ....it appears to me that despite bulging purses and giant advances in equipment technology, it's as hard as ever to make a living playing golf.

    Tour cards are scarcer than hen's teeth and if a pro gets one, he has to outwit, outplay, and outlast the rest while the sharks that have managed to perform the task for years are circling the terrified shoal of rookie minnows.

    For the record, most players on the PGA Tour still heave their own sweaty luggage around municipal airports, often accompanied by a long suffering spouse and a couple fo squelching diapers. Yummy. Okay, a courtesy car, free food, and a decent hotel room can help, but very few rookies manage to stay on Tour long enough for that kind of routine to get old."

[Vinsk]

On 4/14/2017 at 9:33 AM, Groucho Valentine said:

You wouldn't have to "feel"like you would have to practice 40+ hours a week - you would. Hundreds of balls and putts every day that you're not playing in a tourney. I know a guy who was a moderately successful touring pro back in the 80's (finished in the top 10 in a couple masters) and he told me the routine of being a touring professional was brutal. Very often for little reward. It might be different now with the larger purses, but you still got to dump nearly all of your time and tens of thousands of dollars into making on tour. 

I'm impressed with their talent (pros). However I'm not impressed with the work they put in. I can easily spend 8 hours practicing/ day and I enjoy every minute of it. I put in all the time I can just to be able to break 80. If I knew my hard work (having their talent) could potentially earn me enough money to live I would practice and play golf from dusk til dawn. Hell if I could make my salary just being on a golf course, teaching or whatever I would quit my job tomorrow.

[Shooting29]

When I first realized I was better than average I thought I wanted to be on tour. It was around the time I won my first tournament when I was 14 or 15. The next year I qualified for our state amateur. It is a 4 day event with a 36 hole cut. I played a practice round at each course, made the cut, and lived out of a suitcase for 5 days. I hated it. No home cooked meals, nothing to do but hang out at the hotel or go back to the course and putt or hit balls. When I made it in later years, the down time was beer thirty.  

It's fun once or twice a year but it's not the life for me.

Not that I envy him, but I couldn't think of a better word, I think Jeff Knox has a more enviable life than Sergio Garcia, Jordan Spieth, Jason Day or insert any name pro golfer. But I wouldn't trade sitting on my front porch having a cup of coffee with my wife for their life.

[Shindig]

As much as I love golf and dearly miss it when I'm away from it, I also really hate travel.  Plus, when I do take the inevitable 2-3 weeks away from my job when I can, and then come back, I'm still pretty good at it.  Golf?  I haven't played since Thanksgiving and I hope I can get back to halfway respectable in time for the So Cal outing in two weeks... 

[David in FL]

To answer the question...

Yes.  Yes, I really do!  

[1badbadger]

On 4/14/2017 at 1:07 AM, freshmanUTA said:

Do you think that any person with enough devoted practice could reach the skill level of a professional golfer? Would be cool to know an average joe who could easily shoot the same score as a pro.

Even with devoted practice and a strong physical game, the mental game is equally if not more important, and I believe this is what separates the guys who are good local players or struggling tour pros from the great players.  Here is an example, and a true story:

A friend of mine had been a pro for many years.  He played everywhere except the PGA Tour.  He played every mini tour you could think of, in countries that are hard to pronounce that have food even harder to pronounce.  By many accounts he had one of the best swings in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, and with the number of good players in this area, that is saying something.  He put that swing to good use too.  To give you an idea of what he was capable of, one day in a practice round he hit his first tee shot O.B. and shot 58.  Yeah, it was at his home course, which isn't very long, but still...it's a 58 with an O.B.

When the heat was on though, he would get a little tight.  He went through Q-School close to 10 times, but just couldn't get it done. Then one magical week everything came together and he played brilliantly for 6 rounds and finished 2nd at Q-School and earned his card.

One particular tournament that he made the cut (I think it was The International in CO that used the modified stableford scoring) he was paired with Ernie Els. They were on a par 3 that was playing tough, and he said Ernie hit a shot that was so solid, and flighted so perfectly he couldn't believe it.  He said it was at that moment he realized he would never be able to hit the ball that well, and it basically took the wind out of his sails.  In a way it killed his confidence. He lost his card after that season.  The point is this is just one example of a guy who did devote his life to practicing and did reach the skill level of a pro and had the physical game to hang with the best, but the mental side might be even tougher to learn.

[Buckeyebowman]

Great points, badger! Your local hotshot who's thinking of trying for the Tour may be a plus HI on his home track. A real Tour pro is a plus HI anywhere he tees it up, and lower echelon players may not have transferable skills, whether physical or mental.

What impresses me most about the top rank players is not how far they hit the ball, but how precisely! It borders on the magical! Case in point from back in the day when Freddy Couples was a mainstay on the Tour. He wound up in a playoff for the title, and I had watched him play one of the playoff holes during regulation play. He hit his drive "there", to a particular spot in the fairway, and then "there" to the back of the green on a backboard where he sucked the ball back to about a foot and a half from the cup for a no stress birdie! In the playoff he played the hole the exact same way, including sucking the ball back to a foot and a half for the birdie that won! To me, that kind of precision is mind boggling!

And Shooting29 and Shindig's comments about living out of a suitcase are well taken. That was a large part of my life for a while and I can tell you flat out, IT SUCKS! And it wasn't like I was going to Loose Gravel, Iowa or West Undershirt, North Dakota. I usually went to pretty nice places, but unless you really don't care who you hang out with, you can wind up feeling really alone! I couldn't wait to get home!

Which also brings to mind (okay, I'm going full stream of consciousness mode) Max Kellerman's totally ignorant comments about the gestures of sportsmanship shown between Justin and Sergio during the final round of the Masters. That's kind of how the Tour used to be back in the day when tournaments were driven to. A bunch of guys would pile into somebody's Buick Roadmaster and they'd all share gas expenses. And if you went to the hotel bar in the evening you'd find the pros hanging out, having a drink or two and chewing the fat!

You'd better have some friends out their, or it can be a pretty lonely existence!

[mvmac]

7 hours ago, 1badbadger said:

Even with devoted practice and a strong physical game, the mental game is equally if not more important, and I believe this is what separates the guys who are good local players or struggling tour pros from the great players.

Going to disagree with you there. Yes at that level mental game or lack of a mental game (some guys out there are brain dead) is important but while everyone on tour hits it very well, some guys just hit it better than others. Ballstriking as we know is what really separates players. Whether that's the top players from rest or the guys who have long careers compared to others than are only out there one or two years. Some players have an "it" factor when it comes to ball striking, the ability to find the sweetspot even when they're off, better trajectory control and better distance control.

As you said...

7 hours ago, 1badbadger said:

Ernie hit a shot that was so solid, and flighted so perfectly he couldn't believe it.  He said it was at that moment he realized he would never be able to hit the ball that well

It wasn't the mental game that hit the shot, it was Ernie's swing. I'm not saying it's something technique wise you can spot on camera if you compared his swing to your friend's, just Ernie's ability to put the club on the ball better than most time and time again. 

We also may be defining the "mental game" differently. I don't think the issue with your friend is his mental game, I think he was too smart for his own good 

[Bucki1968]

I used to play a lot with a guy who made it on tour (and won twice) who now plays on the Senior tour. We played a game with a few other guys who could play pretty well and he used to just destroy us. He would play from the back of every tee (at this particular golf course he was playing at around 7100 years ) while we played the silver tees (6800) and he would kill us. He the best player I have ever played with and he has made a living on the tour. He's never come close in a major. All that being said...he really doesn't enjoy playing anymore. When he's not playing a tournament, he puts the clubs away for as long as he can. At this point, he does it to earn a living. He still practices (not nearly as much) but I'm not sure he will make a ton of money on the senior tour. Not so far anyway.

[Jack Watson]

The more you ascend in level in a sport the more you encounter more talented players.  The closer you get to a professional level the more impressive it is.  

Even within professional ranks there's tiers of ability.

Desire and work ethic can only go so far.  

 

 

 

[GolfLug]

Assuming I have the x factor to sustain a living (maybe half of what I make now), I am not so sure I would exactly hate it.

I work in the automotive manf. industry and am a grunt worker to begin with so don't know if having to grind it out is a turn off. Maybe the only part I do not know is how much family life sacrifice is required at what level. But I am pretty sure that there are plenty of pros even in the mini tours have a balanced personal life. To assume that professional golf will automatically poison family life seems misplaced. But admittedly I have no real reference so..