Hooters tour

[ironplayer]

if you ever thought of playing golf for living

So, this past week i met a guy, a buddy of my friend, who's thinking of golf for living. I played with him couple times, and he's good single digit(around ~6). He's a actually a sushi chef and works 6 days a week. So he can only practice/play some limited time i guess. and when we met this time, he was seriously thinking about changing his career path. that reminded of a guy i met a year so ago at pebble beach.

I have nice hookup with a person who's been working for the pebble beach resort for last 27 years, and i get some free rounding occasionally, like last week i played spanish bay for free :cheesy: . Anyways, when i was there last year, i joined a group with 2 some and another single. this single guy was amazing; the best player i've ever played with. he hits his driver at least 280+ consistently while working his ball left and right low and high.(you gotta be able to hit it low when you play spanish bay). I think he missed the fairways only a couple times. But what amazed me was his short game. anywhere around 30 yards or so from the edge of the green, he hit the ball to easy one putt distance. He shot 2 under that day, and he said his putting wasn't that good today :) And he was a hooters tour player. He's been on that tour for 3 years, and trying hard but just can't make it upto Nationwide tour. He's tall, black, young, athletic, and has a very nice game attitude.

If a guy with that much of game, is struggling getting out of the Hooters tour, How good do you have to be to get on Nationwide tour, not to mention the PGA tour.

I told the guy this story, and he was little down which i felt sorry for b/c i didn't mean to discourage him at all. But compared to the hooters guy, any weekend golfer that are good that i've met for last few years is almost a joke.

It was also that time(last year) that i decided to play golf just for fun. :wave:

[onemomentintime]

great points ironplayer. you never have any idea how good those guys really are until you step in the ropes and make those type of comparisons.

[maguy1970]

In a golf digest or golf, they had a whole section that was devoted to a survey of tour caddies. I remember one thing that stood out was one caddie's statement that guys who can shoot 69 everyday at their own course have no understanding of how hard it is to do that on tour.

[lars]

we have a couple players at our course that have been on the PGA tour. Their slogan is right, "These Guys are Good". They played a 4 some w/ our pro last week and ran through and made 17 birdies among the 4. There were 2 66's and 71, 73.

 

To realisically consider competing on any of the tours, you should be consistently shooting 4-5 under on a typical home course setup. The course setups on tour are very severe. One of the guys was talking about a Pro Am he played in w/ a 4-5 handicap (legit, he knew the guy prior to Pro AM) and he shot 90.

 

I would suggest he look into competing in some stroke play amatuer events at the local/state/USGA level to see how he stacks up.

 

L

[GRT]

IMHO, if you get to the point in life where schooling is done and its time to work or try tour golf....Unless you have a surplus of cash, a sponsor, or rich parents to help you get through learning the courses, travel life and steady competition, forget it.

Once you have to work full time to make end meet, your golf career is over for most. Too much time taken up by being stuck workin and payin tax. :cheesy:

 

I am a 3 and I was amazed at this years' Nationwide players on the practice range. Not that they hit shots I couldnt hit. Just that every shot was literaly, exactly the same. Within a few feet of each other were these smoked drives all in the exact same area after having had exactly the same shot shape and trajectory. One after another, shot after shot .... everything the same. It was really really impressive and thats coming from a legit 3 handicap player that plays mini-tour golf.

 

But, having said that .... if your young enough that mom and dad dont mind footing the bill for a while.....GIVE ER A GO! I was better than this when I was 18 but assumed I wasnt good enough for college golf so I never went to try out or see a coach at all. THAT has become my biggest life regret. Dont sit back wondering ...... go find out if you are good enough. :) :wave:

[tpariff]

No offense to your friend, the sushi chef, but a 6 handicap won't even sniff the top spots at most state amateur tourneys, much less a professional golf event. The top guys I play against in the Florida State Golf Association routinely shoot even par +/- a stroke or two in tournament action.

 

I would recommend he try competing at the local (state golf association) and national (USGA) levels before spending big bucks trying to make it on a tour. If he has success (wins) in major amateur tourneys, then he probably has the game to take to the professional level.

 

Just my .02.

[maguy1970]

Good point. There are many people who can not handle the tournament atmosphere of local events, so imagine how that atmosphere would feel during the last few, hell ANY days of Q-School finals?

 

Take O'Hair. Look how talented he is and what he had to go through to get to where he is. To be successful, you can not just decide to try it out, you have to have a true love and passion that will not allow you to fail.

 

Adding my .02, this thread is now up to at least .04...

[utopiapga]

Yes your right "these guys are good" I have played some of the mini-tours the last few years and am looking for a sponsor for next year and I tell all my buddies that if you can't shoot 65 at your home course at any given time you may as well forget about shooting 72 on the courses that we play the way they set them up.

Not only do they tip them out but they double cut the greens and tuck the pins away. But it never fails no matter how tough the course is playing there is always someone out there coming in with a 65 or 66.

I am a +4.1 and I do not play at just one course because you need to base your handicap by playing all sorts of tracks not just your home course that you play day in and day out.

I will never give up and will always enjoy playing but it is truely amazing the talent out there today..........

[tpariff]

I think it was Lee Trevino who said it best (pardon my paraphrase):

 

If you think you're ready to play on the PGA Tour, go to 10 championship courses you've never played before. Tee it up from the tips on each one. And if you can shoot par or better on each of them, you're probably ready.

 

IMO that would be a good starting point to determine if someone was ready to play professionally.

[rodto3rd]

I have had the opportunity to tee it up with hooters tour player and I was not impressed at all as far as his driving or mid irons were concerned, but his short game was impressive. He was definitely not Nationwide material. I worked at Kinloch Country Club (here in VA), and have saw some what I consider great players (U of R; A-10 freshman of the year & not to mention Vinny Giles) and to see that caliber of play really puts it in perspective of what it takes to play!!!