I'll never forget the time period in my life when I fell in love with golf.
I was 13 years old in a brand new school district as our family had just moved back to Jasper County. Golf had always been present in my life until that point, but it was never my favorite sport. Tagging along with dad or an occasional junior clinic in the summer didn't compare to the enjoyment I had with baseball, basketball, or football. That all changed however when our family moved and I no longer had all my childhood friends to play a pickup game of basketball or football with.
One day in the spring I joined my Dad, Grandpa, and Uncle in a 9-hole round at our little golf course (Gateway National to those who know it best). I played great that day and after it was over my score added up to a 42. "Wow kid that's pretty good" they said. "You have a nice swing" they said. In the matter of one round I was hooked. The preverbial "tuna fork" had rung in my loins as the great Tin Cup would say.
Fast forward to one year later and a transformation was taking place. I literally couldn't get enough of the game. A typical routine to my summer days would be to wake up at 5:30am - 6:00 am and get a ride to the course with my grandpa (course superintendent). Walking 27-36 holes every day was a common thing, combined with practice, studying the pros on tv, and having matches with my new found friends at the golf course as often as possible. If I was forced to be at home you could find me hitting flop shots over pine trees or hitting shag balls into the cornfield next to our house. Rainy day? Not a problem! Study old Tiger Woods film and hit balls into a net located in the garage.
Sun up to sun down.
Every Day.
During that time there wasn't a thing I could find about the game that I didn't like. The challenge of having no backups to cover you, the feeling of a well struck shot, the quiet hours spent practicing alone. The game felt like it fit so perfectly into my life.
Fast forward to high school and now I had been starting to add some accolades to my new found passion. Tournament golf only grew my love for the game. Now I had something to prepare for and combine my love for the game with my competitive drive. Add those two things together and I started to improve quickly, a few trophies even wound up on the shelf. Naturally, as dreamers do, I started to wonder how I could play this game for the rest of my life. I admired and looked up to most of the professionals I watched on t.v. I started to dream and wonder if I could one day make it there. Having a good sense of where I was and how far it would take to get there, I knew that the journey would be long and hard. Strangely though I found that exciting.
When I look back on that time period I sometimes wonder if my family had decided not to move, would I have found the game in the way I did? It almost seemed as if life could have gone in a million different directions but only one door opened up.
Coincidence?
Sophomore year at Prairie City - Monroe
"Hey man check out this article". One morning before school, getting a couple extra hours of practice in my teammate brought to my attention an article written by a European Tour player about his journey to the top of the golf world. I'll never forget the feeling I had reading that article. He described the travel and endless hours of practicing as grueling. Callused hands and thousands of traveled miles is what he described as normal. The tone of the article was trying to show people how hard it is to make it as a playing professional. All I could help but feel is how that was exactly what I wanted. I didn't know where, when, or how but I specifically remember feeling in my gut I would try something similar.
College golf started to come into the conversation and I began the process of trying to sell myself to golf coaches. I remember building a resume and sending it to over 100 different schools south of the state of Iowa. My only requirements were that the weather was better than Iowa's and that I could afford to go to school there. Out of 100-ish schools, I may have received 10 response emails. Out of those 10 response emails only one was able to offer a big enough scholarship to make it worthwhile.
1 out of 100.
Coincidence?
Senior year at Henderson State
After graduation the time had come to make a decision the world would classify as "insane". I spent my summer after graduation raking bunkers and mowing greens at a local golf course while trying to maintain a competitive playing schedule. As the end of the summer was rolling around I desperately wanted to find a job at a golf course in the south (preferably Arizona or Florida) where I could continue practicing and playing. I started to exercise this with any connections I had to people in the those areas.
Only one job offer came up.
Coincidence?
Team McArthur 2015 Battle for the bell
My time spent as a caddy at McArthur golf club thus far has been nothing short of an awesome experience. Despite the sometimes long hours of being at work, I have been able to maintain a competitive playing schedule, be surrounded by other great players, make incredible connections and meet many new people all while saving a little money doing it. Knowing what I know now, there are not many spots in the country I would be able to accomplish all this... I'm amazed how I wound up there..
As I sit here typing in Madrid Barajas International Airport waiting for my connection to Johannesburg its hard not to wonder how I wound up on this flight in the first place.
After a failed attempt at Web.Com Qualifying School last fall I had to re-evaluate my plans for the upcoming season. The main idea was to play somewhere other than standard min-tour events across the midwest. While those tournaments are great, playing well in them only benefits you financially. I found it would be a bonus to play somewhere that would reward good play not just financially but with incentives to move up a higher level. In my search I had a couple requirements. Firstly I had to be able afford it and secondly I wanted to have some sort of home base wherever I found myself. Being in a foreign country it would be a huge benefit to have someone around to be able to answer questions and give advice about traveling in the area.
The list of tours and information I came up with was interesting. There were nine different options I had laid out and the one that kept sticking in my mind was a tour called the Sunshine Tour located in South Africa.
Affordable? Comparative to the others yes.
Incentive to move up another level? Yes.
Home base? The one thing I was missing.
About one week after I had been contemplating over where I would give the upcoming season a shot I walked into work and was in for a surprise. I began having a conversation with a few of my co-workers. The topic was over how Danny (fellow caddy) was going to move back to South Africa in a few weeks. Where was he moving? Johannesburg. Where is the Sunshine Tour qualifying tournament located? Johannesburg.
Coincidence? I'll leave that up to you.
Personally I don't believe in coincidences. Looking through the rear-view mirror of my life and others lives it's easy to see some of the paths, roadblocks, and detours God can send a person down.
As I span over the journey I've been on since I was 13 years old it's hard not to notice some things. God planted a desire in my heart for competitive golf so strongly that I had no choice but to follow it. Every time I've come to a crossroads in where my journey could go, there has always been one clear door open. As I go about stepping into this new open door, I can't wait to see what He has in store. He is true security. Proverbs 16:9.
The Journey continues,
Thank you for following! God bless!
