"Greatness courts failure, Romeo"... (Roy 'Tin Cup' McAvoy to Romeo Posar from the movie, "TIN CUP")...
I now fully understand the metaphysical meaning behind the above quote!
My professional golf career actually began a couple of years before my 2004 retirement. In September and October of 2002, I requested and was granted a two month sabattical (my company allowed this if you had over 10 years seniority, which I did) and I decided to head South and see just how competitive I could be while playing against some of the best senior players in the world. After quite a bit of research and asking around, I discovered "The Sunbelt Senior Professional Tour"*, the longest running senior tour in the country. The tour is run by two of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet - Don Barnes and his sweetheart of a wife, Yvonne.
Once again, this is an area in which I could fill many, many pages of information but my main goal is to get to the 'blood and guts' of this web site which is to try and help everyone improve their game's. Here are a few of the observations I made during those first couple of months. With all due respect to some of the finest golfers (and people) I played with and against - I didn't see anything that SO wowed me or caused me to say to myself "what the heck am I doing here - I can't compete with these guys". My good shots were every bit as good as anyone else's good shots. I was longer than some guys, shorter than others. I never felt the nervousness or anxiety that I anticipated would probably affect me (as it sometimes did in the bigger amateur events - if anything, I felt right in my element - assurance to myself that I had made the right move). That having been said, it seemed that my bad days ended up being 78's and 81's (or higher) and the better players bad days ended up being 73's and 74's - quite a difference when compunded over 54 holes (the standard length of a tournament) and coupled with the fact that only the top third of the field would cash a check.
Let me interject a little bit of hard-earned honesty here if I may. Looking back now, 6 years later, some cold, hard facts continually rear their ugly head's. The coldest and hardest of all to face was the fact that I really didn't have the type of golfing pedigree to warrant such a bold undertaking. I was a better than average golfer in a fairly small pond. For well over 30 years, I never had a handicap worse than scratch or a few strokes higher, depending on my amount of play. Additionally, I was convinced that just being in that type of competitive atmosphere, I would soak up the rest of the necessary ingredients required to raise my game a notch or two, become successful at this level and eventually, give the Champion's Tour Q-school a try. Some of the fellows I played with DID have the type of pedigree I am talking about. Tom McKnight, nearly $2,000,000 won on The Champion's Tour, Bertus Smit, one of the best amateur golfers to ever come out of South Africa and winner of the 2008, "Ryder Cup Wales Senior Open" on the European Senior Tour, Gene Jones, winner of more than two million dollars in just 2 years on the Champion's Tour... this is what I was up against.
Despite any second thoughts, I set out to try and do my best and see just how far I could go. The cold hard facts about mini-tours is that they are basically just like a high-stakes poker game. It's goes like this... you decide to play in a tournament. You put up your $500 or $600 entry fee (sometimes more), reserve your housing for 4, 5 or 6 days, get settled in, buy some basic necessities (like fruit, beer and microwavable dinners), go play a practice round or two (sometimes for free, sometimes for the cost of a cart rental) - yep, everyone rides in these types of events, and then play 54 holes of golf (all this after having travelled anywhere from 300 to 1100 miles by car - usually alone). If the field consisted of 50 players at $500 apiece, the top third of the field would divey up the $25,000 - after all of the necessary payments had been taken care of first. I guess It's pro golf at it's most basic level... unlike the PGA Tour where you are playing for tons of money put up by TV, sponsors, ticket sales etc... As Don always told us... "I don't want to see you guys here forever - you are not going to make a living playing on a mini-tour" (I knew that going in)... his goal was to have players from his tour advance to the next level - and to their credit and Don's devotion to his calling, more than a handful of players have done varying lengths of playing time on THE BIG TOUR, The Champion's Tour.
As for your's truly, I managed to cash a check in my very first event - but only a few more after that. That rut that I spoke about earlier on, where I tried everything out there, had now put me into a bad situation. I never knew what swing I was going to bring to the course on a particular day. Over a 5 year span, I spent anywhere from a few weeks to a few months each year traveling up and down the East coast, played in about 30 tournaments - and never notched that maiden win (which I was sure I would get in my first year). When you figure that one tournament is going to cost you a MINIMUM of $1000 and you pursue this for any serious length of time without winning - well, you do the math. I've seriuously curtailed my playing schedule and will not resume until I've got the old groove back and I am convinced that MY bad scores will, at worst, be 73's or 74's.
|
The Mini-tour Years
