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“Only by constantly exposing myself to someone better than I have I been able to improve. It is inspiring to know that even the masters have masters, and that we are all learners.” Joe Hyams: Zen in the Martial Arts
I am a golf instructor. Four years ago, on the 18th hole at Bear Lakes Golf Club in Palm Beach, Florida, on the 72nd hole of the second stage of the PGA Tour Qualifying School, I finally gave up my dream of making a living playing on the PGA Tour. All I needed was a par 4, and I was in the final qualifier. I drove the ball straight down the middle on the water-guarded final hole, right smack in the far end of a sand-filled divot. My second shot ballooned up into the wind, into the water, and took with it 15 years of pain, suffering, and struggle.
And it’s just as well. At least now I know what I am. I teach golf to earn a living that provides for my wife and two young daughters. I play golf to learn and improve. As I learn, I become a better teacher. I compete because I have an absolute belief that to understand what works and what does not work in any part of the golf game, to have faith in any idea or theory that might be worthy of being passed on to someone else, that idea must be tried and tested under conditions most likely to cause it to break down. Bobby Jones said, “There is golf, and there is tournament golf. They are in no way the same.” I have but a few chances each year to really put myself under the gun, to measure the state of my game and to further hone the essence of my teaching. One of them is the Kemper.
There is nothing quite like playing in a PGA Tour event. There are probably upwards of 10,000 excellent golfers in this country alone who spend every waking moment trying to figure out how to get good enough to play the Tour for a living. Most of them have never played in even one tour event. All those guys out there on the Hooter’s Tour, the Teardrop Tour, the Golden Bear Tour, or the multitude of other nondescript, grind-it-out tours are all reading the Friday newspaper looking through Thursday’s first round scores of whatever the PGA Tour event is that week. I know. I’ve been there. I always start at the top: Tom Watson-65. Tom Kite-66. Four 67’s. Eight 68’s. Twelve 69’s. It always seems that at least 100 guys shoot under par. Even par is even money to have you down the road on Friday afternoon. In short, the scores are low, and there are a lot of very good players going home with nothing after they miss the cut.
When a guy like me qualifies for one of these events, everybody seems to notice. In Washington, the Kemper is everything. During the rest of the year, competition among local club professionals is afforded about the same in-depth coverage as rodeos or dog shows. But when we hold our qualifier for the Kemper, voila! Press! A whole article about myself and Rick Schuller qualifying for this year’s big event in the Washington Post. The Baltimore Sun and the Washington Times both get into the act, the Times even adding a photo to their story. It’s obvious that this is a Big Deal. Everyone cares about the Kemper. I have never had as many Woodholme members express their congratulations and wish me luck as this year. Perhaps it’s because I’m getting older and they’re more surprised, but I have to believe that the Tiger Woods effect is at work here. Golf is hot, and everyone is more interested and more up on the game than ever before. The fact that I will be playing directly against Tiger causes them to look at me in an entirely different light. I have played in the Kemper 6 times previously, so this is not exactly new. But this one is different. It seems that as I become more recognized for my teaching, people become more amazed that I can still compete at this, the highest level of all. I can’t explain it any other way than to say that they are truly happy for me, and not a little bit amazed, or awestruck, to think that the guy who shows up for work six days a week and spends 10 hours a day out on the lesson tee is going to be teeing it up against Tiger. And when I think about it myself, it really is pretty neat.
I love the Kemper. I love everything about it. Give me one thing to accomplish all year and it would probably be “qualify for the Kemper.” You can have the U.S. Open. I want to play in my hometown, where I can run into people I haven’t seen since high school. I want my students, my wife, my parents, my friends to be able to come out and see me do what I’ve spent all my life trying to do. From the moment I drive up to the front gate, show my Contestant’s badge and get waved through to the Player’s parking lot, I settle into a general sensation of euphoria that doesn’t go away until I drive out at the end of my tournament, usually on Friday afternoon, but, perhaps this week, Sunday evening. I get this goofy smile on my face that transforms me into a young Bill Strausbaugh, not that he has a goofy smile, but in the sense that if Bill is the epitome of a “people person”, smiling, greeting, remembering names, then I am probably on the other end of the spectrum until I begin wandering around the grounds at Avenel. I love everybody. The ladies at registration, the locker room attendants, the volunteers at the range, the waitresses in the dining room. What’s not to smile about?
I do have a bit of an advantage over most of the club pros or non-tour qualifiers in that I know a lot of PGA Tour guys from college, mini-tour, and Asian-tour days, so that when I walk into the locker room I don’t feel like a total outsider. I’m actually pretty comfortable at these things: The guys I know are all around 40 years old, have families, and struggle to play better and make it all work. This year I run into Larry Rinker, who played at Florida when I was at LSU, and have a long discussion about the ins and outs of being a teacher at a private club. Larry recently lost his card, then got it back. When he was off the Tour, he thought about becoming a head golf pro at a club, but the PGA told him that he would have to go through the same 3 year program as beginning apprentices in order to be able to work and compete as a Class-A Member of the PGA. Needless to say, Larry wasn’t too happy with the PGA of America. Larry ends up missing the cut by four strokes.
I play 9 holes with my old friend Donnie Hammond. He’s back on the Tour after losing his card, and is as nice a guy as ever. As it turns out, my caddie, Kevin Marsh, a golf team member at Western Maryland College, had just finished up the $3,000 per year scholarship he won in a golf tournament, all $12,000 donated every year to Frederic County schools by, you guessed it, Donnie Hammond. Donnie even kept the scholarship going when he was off the Tour. Donnie’s playing fairly well and will eventually make the cut and about $5,000.
I see my old college mate Gary Hallberg, who flew in after being informed that he was next in line for a spot in the tournament. Unfortunately, Gary came all that way for nothing, as no one else dropped out and he was left hitting balls on the range Thursday afternoon. “It’s O.K.,” Gary said. “The weather was horrible in Denver anyway.” Gary will head up to New Jersey and successfully qualify for the U.S. Open in a playoff. Gary needs something good to happen: I’m rooting hard for him at Olympic.