Golf is known as a “gentleman’s game” (ladies too, of course). That doesn’t mean that competition can’t get a little heated at times. I believe in sportsmanship and try my best to be a good, fair competitor. I’ve never cheated and never will. But my highly competitive nature forces me to employ a little gamesmanship at times. This is one of the great aspects of match play. I try to keep it subtle if I’m playing someone I don’t know well. I might overshoot a green with a 7 iron and exclaim that I can’t believe a 9 iron flew that far. I might concede a putt that’s a little long or make my opponent putt a gimme. These aren’t techniques that I invented but believe me, I file away every one that I hear.

When I play against my brother or one of my close friends, it goes beyond sportsmanlike. A lot of it could be considered breaches in etiquette. When we escalate a match beyond “just for fun” it can get ugly.

Recently, my brother and I were teeing off on a par five over a pond. I’ve been making a comeback to the game after a couple of years of sporadic play, so I’ve been inconsistent. Just as I was about to start my pre-shot routine he looked at me and calmly said, “Don’t hit it in the water.” Caddies have been fired for that. It was a routine shot and I wasn’t concerned. Where did I hit it? You guessed it. All I could do was turn around and retaliate with a few f-words. Could it have been a coincidence? Maybe. Was I thinking about it when I was preparing for my shot? You bet. That’s something I need to temper my mental game against.

I once robbed my good friend Keith of an eagle. At the course we worked years back, there’s a really short par four that’s a dogleg left with huge trees guarding the green and a little pond just in front. If you can control a big hook or hit it really high and don’t mind a huge gamble, the green is in play. He got on the green in one and was about to putt and I said, “you’ll bogey it”. So he missed. And missed again. And again. He got his next one though. For bogey. He still brings that up occasionally. Sorry, man. Well…not really.

I’d never take it that far during real competition. But among friends, that stuff goes.

What are your thoughts on gamesmanship? Legitimate psychological tactics or poor sportsmanship? How far would you go? How far have you gone?

With all the talk about goals, let’s not forget the most important factor: how does one become a pro? Assuming your game is tight as a drum, then how do you become a golf pro? It depends on your definition of what a “pro” is. There are many different paths that can be taken in golf. The PGA of America defines several career paths. They range from course/pro shop management, teaching, and everything in between. Then of course there’s the touring pros. Let’s look at those three, because they’re the ones that align with my own goals, and we’ll see what it takes to get a foot in the door.

Club Pro

These guys and gals run the clubs. They help to make our golf lives fun. They manage the club, give instruction, organize outings and all the other stuff associated with keeping a course running. The PGA of America has a good deal of information about becoming a PGA professional.

One of the first steps to becoming a PGA professional is taking the Playing Ability Test. This is a playing test that ensures that you have the minimum amount of required golf ability and aptitude. It’s a 36-hole test where the target score is double the course rating, plus 15. So, if the course rating is 70, then your 36-hole target score is 70 * 2 + 15 = 155, or about 77 on each round (for a course rating of 70). Obviously, this will vary across different courses.

So, now that the PAT is out of the way, then what? The next step is a registered apprenticeship and the PGA Professional Golf Management(PGM) program. This is a 4 1/2 year program that teaches the skills required to be a PGA professional. There are many golf programs offered in colleges and specialized academies that offer the PGM program as a curriculum, so it’s possible to satisfy that requirement while at college, as opposed to while on the job as an apprentice. Once you become an apprentice, you have 8 years in which to pass a series of checkpoints, graduate from the PGM program and be elected to membership.

Teaching Pro

There’s not much of a difference between a club pro (or a head/assistant golf professional, in PGA terminology). Mainly, it’s an issue of which way you steer your career. The requirements to achieve that status are primarily the same. Your avenues of opportunity kind of open up a bit thought because many times, instruction occurs at golf schools, retail outlets, and other places away from the traditional golf club.

Touring Pro

That leaves my favorite. These are the people who make careers out of tournament play. To me, this is the top rung on the ladder that is my quest. To many people, when they hear “tour pro”, it means the men and women they see on TV every weekend. While they are certainly tour pros, the PGA Tour isn’t the only outlet for tournament golf.  There are literally dozens of professional golf tours across the U.S. and world. You’ve probably never heard of most of them, but they’re out there.

There are usually two ways to join most of the tours. Many, especially the smaller ones, allow you to simply buy your way in. If I get my foot in the door as a teaching pro or club pro, and feel like I have enough game to pursue tournament play, then these small, regional tours will be a good way to test the waters. The schedules are shorter, the events are spaced a little further apart, and it would allow me to keep my primary job (assuming my employer is ok with me taking time off to play competitively).

The other method of getting on tour is to play your way in. This is more prevalent on the larger tours like the PGA Tour or the Nationwide Tour. We’ve all heard of the dreaded Q-School, where players either get a chance to realize their dreams or have them crushed. The top 30 finishers at Q-School get PGA Tour cards, and next 50 players qualify to play on the Nationwide Tour.

North of the border and kind of along the lines of the Nationwide Tour, there’s the Canadian Tour which has produced several PGA Tour stars like Mike Weir and Chris DiMarco, among others. The Canadian Tour also employs a Q-School qualifying tournament for membership.

After that there are literally dozens of regional tours like the Gateway Tour, the NGA Hooters Tour, The Adams Golf Pro Tour Series, and the U.S. Pro Golf Tour.

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So that pretty much covers it. These three paths are the ones that I’m targeting as my goal. Right now, all the things I’m doing to achieve my goal align well with all three of these paths. Once I get further along, I’ll need to refine my strategy to help me move in the direction I want to go. But that’s a ways off. I still have a lot of work to do. See you at the range.

Yesterday we talked about working toward goals, and I said that I wanted to talk about mine a little more. As I said, I get the feeling that people are a little unsure of what I’m really trying to accomplish so I’ll clarify a bit.

My tag line says it all: “My quest to become a golf pro”. But what does that mean? I said yesterday that goals should be specific and that’s about as broad as it gets. Have no fear. My goals are very specific, but I just haven’t done a good job relating them to all of you.

Some people have probably misconstrued that to mean that I believe that I’m headed to the PGA Tour after a little practice and a couple of competitive rounds. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I look at my ultimate goal like a ladder. I’ll begin climbing and will keep climbing until I determine that I can’t climb any further. For me, the bottom rung of that ladder is to become a teaching pro or a club pro. That is the minimum achievement that I will accept as a successful realization of my goal. I think teaching golf will be lots of fun. And it will open the opportunity for me to spend more time immersed in the game. I’ll be able to play in competitions locally or regionally. I’ll be able to do the things necessary to try to climb more rungs on the ladder. I’m aware of what I need to do to reach that level (that will make a good post for tomorrow), and I have complete confidence that I can meet that part of my goal.

But I won’t stop there. After that, I’d like to consider playing competitively. That brings up the possibility of being a tour pro. Does that mean PGA Tour? Not necessarily. There are tons of tours across the U.S. and in the world. Some just require a financial buy-in and some require players to play their way in. But there are many outlets for competitive golfers to play.

If I ever get to that point, I’ll evaluate the situation and make a decision on the next step at that time. Since I’m on a ladder here, I only want to climb one rung at a time.

I’m getting the feeling that there are those who look at me and think that I’m just naive and don’t know what it takes. Believe me, I do. I may not have the physical skill (I think I do…but weight loss is key). And even if I do, I’m flirting with the possibility of financial hardship or even ruin if I get my foot in the door and find that I’m not good enough to make any money.

But I won’t go to my grave wondering if I had what it takes.

That brings up the question: what does it take? It seems like such a huge leap between a run of the mill scratch golfer and a player on the PGA Tour. I submit to you that the difference between a scratch player and a tour player is mainly mental and also a matter of dedication. A scratch player has the physical ability and consistency to play every shot in the book. From there, it’s a matter of further refining skills through serious dedication. Not a couple of range sessions each week. I mean serious dedication. A willingness to spend hour upon hour exercising, reading, learning, practicing, refining, playing and then doing it all over again the next day. That’s dedication.

The other component is mental. There has to be a mental toughness, an ability to handle pressure, a drive to compete. You have to be able to take the plunge with confidence in your ability. You can’t succumb to the fear of failure. You can’t crack under pressure. You can’t let your focus or determination waiver for even a moment.

You could point out thousands upon thousands of people who have tried and failed over the years. And I don’t mean to trivialize their own stories. I’m not saying that they failed because they weren’t dedicated or skilled. Sometimes luck is a factor. Sometimes you need a lucky break to get over the hump and a lot of people just never get one.

Do I have what it takes? I don’t know. I’m a long, long way from even being a scratch player. But I promise you: I’m going to find out.

This isn’t a golf-related post so much. But it might have occurred to you that I’ve undertaken a pretty big task here. My goals are clearly defined, but what am I doing to reach them?

Do a little self-reflecting with me here. Do you have goals of your own? If not, why? Is there nothing in life you want to achieve? Ok, so let’s say you do. And let’s say that maybe you aim high with your goals and dreams, so it’s going to take work (maybe a lot) to achieve them. Well, what are you doing to achieve them?

These questions aren’t necessarily easy to answer. But once you set goals, you have no hope of reaching them without a clear understanding of what they are, and a clear plan of how you’re going to reach them.

The goal-setting part is a little easier. Figure out something you want to achieve. Don’t just make it nebulous. Like, “I want to lose weight.” That leaves too many questions. How much weight? In what time frame? Make your goals as specific as you can.

Next comes the harder part: figuring out what we need to do to achieve our goals. Unfortunately, this is obviously specific to the individual goal, so I can’t give you a magic pill answer. What I can tell you is, learn as much as you can about whatever you’re trying to achieve. Read books, search the internet, talk to people who have done what you’re trying to do. Often times, we even have to blaze our own trails.

That only leaves us with the execution of the plan. You might think that this is the hardest part. But if you have well-defined goals and a well-defined, realistic plan, execution is easy. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be hard work and set backs. But you’ll be marching toward your goals full steam ahead. Don’t be afraid to periodically review your goals and plan and refine as necessary.

I recently had a conversation with someone about goals that resulted in both of us agreeing that each day, if we consciously take at least one action toward reaching our goals, then we’re doing ok. I would like to further refine that to say that if each day is a net positive, we’re doing even better. Depending on your individual goals, maybe you take a small step back in one area, but make up for it with big positive movement in another area. I call that a positive day.

That brings us to my specific goals. The encouragement I’ve gotten from family, friends, co-workers, and strangers has been very positive. At the same time, I can feel people’s unspoken (maybe even subconscious) reactions ranging from genuine support to “who does he think he is?” to “is he nuts?” I’ve kind of laid out what I’m trying to accomplish on the About Me page, but I think it needs some more clarification and I think I’ll do that in a post tomorrow.

Does that mean that I feel the need to justify my journey to anyone else? No, not really. The mere act of talking/writing about it does nothing but make my plan and my path more clear, though.

What have you done today to reach your own goals?

Even tour pros miss greens every round. Check the latest stats and you’ll see that they miss greens roughly between 30% and 50% of the time. That means that they need a solid short game to have a chance at getting up and down for par. That also means that most of us may miss even more greens each round. Depending on how much we miss greens by, we’re likely to find ourselves in chipping situations a few times every round. Those few strokes can mean the difference between an up and down for par and a bogey or worse.

My chipping has improved a lot this year after I made two improvements that were causing me trouble. First, I was standing too far from the ball. This kept me from being able to just let my arms move freely back and through. I was having to guide the club head at the ball which caused inconsistency. The second thing I did was narrow my stance considerably. I now play chips with my feet almost together (but not all the way), where before I was playing them with my feet several inches apart. With the ball played off the back foot it was difficult to make a nice, crisp, descending blow and I was catching them fat a lot.

My basic chipping technique comes from Dave Pelz’s Short Game Bible. I play the shot standing relatively tall (not hunched over) with my feet almost together and my toes flared about 20 degrees toward the target. Pelz says that about 65% of my weight should be on my left foot, but I think I prefer just a little more. I choke down on the grip and employ the “dead hands grip”. Essentially, I’m using just enough grip pressure to hold on to the club. The ball is fairly close to my feet and about even with my right ankle (it helps to line up the ball before flaring the toes toward the target for a more accurate ball position). My hands start ahead of the ball. From there, I just swing the club back and through using a nice, even tempo, making sure to accelerate through the ball and strike it with a slightly descending blow. My wrists are quiet and firm but not tense.

I typically use a 54 degree sand wedge around the greens in most chipping situations because I feel more comfortable with it. It’s more common, and frankly better practice, to get the ball on the green and rolling as soon as possible, so it’s normal to chip with anything from a wedge up to a 5-iron, depending on how far the ball needs to carry and then how far it needs to roll. With a wedge, there will be more carry and less roll, and the opposite will be true for longer clubs.

If you have trouble with chipping, give this technique a try and I think you’ll see some improvement. Practice with different clubs in different situations to see how the ball reacts and you’ll get a better feel for how to play the shot when the pressure is on.