Menu
74 – 74–148. Miss cut. While a lot of interesting things happened at that year’s Kemper Open, that’s the bottom line: 148, six over par, miss cut. I may have been the low PGA Club Professional, but I got beat by about 120 guys. “So, I guess you’re disappointed with your play”, friends, students, and members say. And while in years past that statement would have been very true, I now have a much clearer understanding of what it takes to be good enough to compete successfully at golf’s highest level, the PGA Tour. And having arrived at that understanding, I can say honestly that my play was respectable given what I do on a daily basis. It would almost be insulting to the guys struggling week in and week out to make cuts for me to show up once a year and expect myself to perform to that high a standard.
That attitude would be proof that I had yet to figure out just how difficult the game really is, and that I would have a hard time ever being happy with myself given such unrealistic expectations. Anyone who watched me play could see that I am still as intense as ever. When I’m on the course I know I am capable of hitting any and every shot required to shoot under par, and anything less than good is aggravating to say the least. And since I’m half Italian, I’ve never been able to hide my displeasure with mediocrity. But I don’t beat myself up anymore wondering why I have never made a big splash in a Tour event.
You see, golf is a game of execution, not theory. It’s an advantage to have the proper concepts and techniques, but the bottom line is that whatever your technique is, if it is able to hit a 2 iron from 210 yards high enough and straight enough to land on the green and stay there, it’s good enough and it better be able to do that when there are lots of people watching and lots of money is on the line. And it better do that a large majority of the time, not just every now and then.
When I went out to prepare for the Kemper, the course presented the same questions every year. Can you hit a 7 iron to the back right pin on # 9? Can you drive it in the fairway on # 4 every day? Can you play #’s 7, 8, 12, 15, and 18, five brutal par 4’s, in solid pars? Can you hit the hard nine over the creek to the up pin on # 10? Can you hit a lob shot from a tight lie up a hill to a tight pin? Can you average under 30 putts a round? The answer is yes, I am capable of doing all these things, but not on command and not consistently enough to beat the best players in the world.
In the club pro world I am one of the best because we play on what is generally speaking a level playing field, in the sense that we all have work obligations that keep us from devoting all of our time to playing the game. I have been able to perform reasonably well without a lot of practice time, at least well enough to be the best player in the section for various years. As I get busier (I’m not complaining, mind you) and it becomes more difficult to spend even the minimum amount of time on my game I find myself struggling to keep up my own standards, and as I compare myself to “those guys” on the tour I find that the great divider is simply the amount of repetitive execution the tour players are afforded. The game is simply too hard to get a firm handle on, to execute and perform under pressure the way a successful tour player must, without unlimited time to practice.
It used to be that there was a lot of wasted talent on the Tour. Guys had all sorts of bad habits that kept them from reaching their potential, general laziness being one of the most prevalent. And other than Gary Player, there wasn’t too much emphasis on physical fitness. Today’s Tour is another story entirely. Everybody practices, swing mechanics are better understood and coached than ever, the mental side is being explored in depth, almost everyone has a workout routine, most try to pay attention to what they eat, and spotting a player out late at a local bar is about as likely as you waking up with Ben Crenshaw’s putting stroke. There are millions to play for every week, and no one is fooling around any more.
Most Tour players have been champions all through their careers, in junior golf, high school, college, and whatever foreign or mini-tours played after college. In other words, you see gobs of talent out on the range at a Tour event. The players may have teachers or coaches, but for the most part there are no “made” players out there. Nick Faldo won five European Tour events before ever consulting David Leadbetter, and Mark O’Meara won the U.S. Amateur long before running into Hank Haney. It’s simply the cream of the crop, the level of play so high that almost no players make it to the Tour straight out of college anymore without a few years of seasoning on smaller tours.
Almost every tour player who lasts has dominated at some level as they were working their way out onto the tour, just an intangible away from the “can’t miss” stars who never make it at all. To win any tour event is so difficult that doing so is almost a career in itself. Two years later, however, the winner can be out on his keister, back in the minor leagues with no exemption and bittersweet memories of golfing life when it was good.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about hanging around with the tour guys is seeing the great players who are struggling mightily along with most everyone else, almost at wit’s end, the game beating up on them with relentless cruelty. Want to talk to an unhappy person? Just say hey to a guy who’s missed five straight cuts and hasn’t seen his family in a month and a half. Golf is great fun when you’re playing well, but it’s brutal when you’re not.
And that’s where I have a big advantage, the way I see it. I no longer have to play great golf to make a living. I can afford to hit those shots I mentioned earlier less often, because I’m going to get paid next week regardless. And if anyone thinks that traveling the way tour players travel is a bundle of fun, think again. Sure, it’s red carpet all the way once you’re there at the tournament site, but getting there is a royal pain, and being away from the wife and kids for extended periods wears on everyone out there.
To put it simply, it’s tough out on Tour, and I have nothing but admiration for “those guys” who have the talent, commitment, and determination to make a living playing such a maddening, fascinating game. I root for each and every one of them, for every two-footer to go in, for every break to go their way. And I feel pain for every shot thrown away, every lead lost. Every time I stand on the first tee of a major event, I wonder why I subject myself to such intense, nerve-wracking situations. But as soon as I strike one and get out there onto the playing field I know that I’ll never lose the taste for the fray, the competition, the intense focus of an all-out effort to win. Hogan said, “the secret’s in the dirt”, and the relentless search through the dirt is what binds all of us who play and compete.
Join the forum discussion on this post