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not easy, making it as a pro

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  • #1

    not easy, making it as a pro

    I watched the Nationwide Tour Championships this past weekend, as I do most years, because it has more drama and meaning than many of the "reality" shows on TV.

    The top 25 make it into the PGA tour. The players are a mix of young and old, with varied backgrounds. You have players who have been in the PGA several times, but were not able to stay there (not having won or not making the top 125 money earnings). Every year there are gut check situations and heartaches. It's like the infamous Q-school.

    I remember a few years ago, a player needed only to hole a 3 foot uphill putt to qualify. I never saw this before or since. He made a beautiful stroke, the ball fell into the cup, hit the bottom and jumped out. I saw him try again in later years, but I do not believe he ever made it. There was another player, who just needed a bogey, and he hit into the water on the last hole, and missed by a stroke.

    Anyways, here's a human interest article which relates to the struggle. I believe V J struggled in the Asian tour or mini-tour even for many years.

    http://www.thegolfchannel.com/tour-i...gay-hes-33520/

    Ted
    Tags: making it as a pro
  • #2
    Re: not easy, making it as a pro

    Ah sad story about the guy with the cup incident. Tour life is so tough even when you do make it, its all travelling without seeing anywhere. Living on a plane and then not enjoying the golf you do play because it is so pressurised. The pressure never stops. I think tour school is the hardest mentally, but it never really lets up unless ur a top guy. I dont envy them (apart from their nice houses and cars and set up lives)

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    • #3
      Re: not easy, making it as a pro

      This very thing has happened to me once......

      I had a 10-12 footer for par on our par 4 12th hole and having hit one of my better putts, the ball was tracking beautifully toward the hole and seemingly was dropping in.

      My playing partners were starting with the "good putt" comments when, much to my horror, no sooner had the ball began dropping into the centre of the cup and had almost disappeared from view, bang, out it came again...

      We reasoned that the ball had hit the rim of the cup liner insert or whatever they call it and rebounded back out of the hole...

      With steam coming from my ears, I tapped the bogey putt in and trudged off to the next tee box struggling to keep my composure in the face of such misfortune......

      It is fair to say that this event has taught me much about the phenomenon we golfers have come to call "the rub of the green"...

      How, one one hole, you can pull hook a tee shot into trees only to get a fortunate bounce and wind up in the centre of the fairway and on the next tee smash one gloriously rifle straight down the guts only to see your ball take a Shane Warne wrongun inspired bounce to finish in the 3rd cut of rough......

      It is also fair to say that the ball bouncing out of the hole has not happened to me again in the 2 yrs since it occurred...

      I love this game......

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      • #4
        Re: not easy, making it as a pro

        Originally posted by rogue View Post
        Ah sad story about the guy with the cup incident. Tour life is so tough even when you do make it, its all travelling without seeing anywhere. Living on a plane and then not enjoying the golf you do play because it is so pressurised. The pressure never stops. I think tour school is the hardest mentally, but it never really lets up unless ur a top guy. I dont envy them (apart from their nice houses and cars and set up lives)


        Hi rogue
        i think it was harder back in the 60s when you had the likes of L Trevino and G Player living out a car for months at a time and sleeping in the car as they had no money for a room and had to get in the top 50 so they had money to eat that next week and get petrol money to take them to the next match and both spent time strugling just to feed themselfs.
        Just to add that G Payer at 73 still hits the ball longer than me and he was hitting 285 yards just the other month!

        i think there are now so many good golfers comming out of golf college that the fight to get a ticket is so hard as there are so many player with the same high skill now. that do not have the same problems of having to wine to get feed the next week and maybe that why so many seem happy to live in the top 300 to 500 as a pro $250.000 a year is not to bad a life.
        maybe there is not the same need to win as back in the 60s.
        cheers
        Bill
        Last edited by bill reed; 10-29-2009, 07:29 PM.

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        • #5
          Re: not easy, making it as a pro

          I keep waiting for our very own GregJWillis to chime in...

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          • #6
            Re: not easy, making it as a pro

            Hi Scraggers,

            Actually, this particular incident is literally folklore now. The commentators had tapes replayed over and over, and in slow and stop action. The ball dropped below the level of the green, completely out of sight, and there was a "tink" and it jumped into the air and rolled away. They, of course had never seen it happen before, not to say it has not. The commentators speculated that the only way it could happen is the top of the liner was installed too deep, and the ball hit the rim and bounced out, so the person who set up the hole did a sloppy job.

            Ted

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