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Professional golf requires a lot from many, but rewards only a few.

Becoming a professional golfer has many challenges, but is also rewarding when your hard work pays off. Golf requires a majority of your time spending countless hours trying to perfect every aspect of your game. There are many ups and downs in the journey of becoming a pro golfer. Golf provides you with a lot opportunity outside of the ropes of on the course. It is a sport that can take you all over the world and teach you a lot of life lessons. The downsides of golf are that in a very challenging sport, things may not always go your way. Most golfers experience times throughout their career where certain aspects, or all aspects, just aren’t going well at all.

Practicing golf and preparing your game takes a countless number of hours each day/week. Players spend a majority of their time honing in on their craft. Many golfers have a routine, though not always in a particular order. A majority of the time, players will arrive to their home course and head towards the putting green or chipping green. They will typically spend about an hour at each as they try to reach another level with their short game. Putting is the most important part of golf and often times what a player lacks to further their career past the mini tours.

“You’re always trying to hit the perfect golf shot, but you don’t,” said aspiring pro golfer Steven Thomas, 31. “No one goes out and makes 18 birdies, but you keep trying and working. It’s the fun of getting out here and working on every part of your game so you can get higher up in the golf world.”

After spending time at the short game areas, players will resume their practicing as they head over to the driving range. Golfers are typically picky so they’ll find a good clean spot of grass that hasn’t already been hit out of. From their, they will begin hitting some shorter shots with wedges; then on to their short irons, long irons, woods and driver. After a couple of hours on the driving range, hitting the same shots over and over, golfer will play a round before ending their day.

In a sport that is incredibly competitive in the sense that millions all over the world are out doing the same thing each day all vying for something that very few reach; golf doesn’t always go your way. There are many times where your game will fail you. During these times, you’ll have a lot of missed cuts due to your lack of being able to get off the tee; hit a fairway or green; or chip and putt. Even when your game is going really well, things still may not be in your favor. The top of the golf world, which players are striving for, is the PGA Tour. Making it to the PGA tour requires your game to be at its best and clicking on all cylinders. If you think about the millions of players across the world trying to go pro, a typical number of players in a PGA tour event are 156.

Aside from making it to the PGA Tour, trying professional golf for a living is solely dependent on your own game. Aspiring golfers, especially here in America, don’t get jobs after graduating college. Golf requires so much of your time to practice, that holding a job would be even more difficult. In some cases, players could get a job working in the evening or at night. Also, getting the privileges of free practicing and playing, golfers could work in the pro shop of their home course or wherever shop help is needed at any particular course.

Golf, like most sports, can teach you many other things than just how to play the game. It can provide you with many life lessons. Controlling your emotions is a huge part of the game of golf. There’s a physical side to the sport, but a mental side to the sport as well. In a round of golf, especially in a tournament, keeping control of yourself is key. You don’t want to let yourself get too high, and you certainly don’t want to get to low. When things go bad during a round of golf, a bad mental state due to anger can throw you completely off your game and you can see your round go downhill in a hurry. Aside from game management, golf can teach you how to be a better person in other aspects of your life.

“Golf does teach you how to treat people very well,” said Jessica Roberts, 21, assistant shop help at Golfcrest Country Club, “and teaches you life lessons as well as patience and judgement.”

Throughout a career in golf, playing in various tournaments and the different tours, it can take you many places across the world. There are many different tours such as the PGA Tour, the European Tour, the Canadian Tour, the Latin America Tour, and many other tours which are located in the western hemisphere. “Golf is a way to see the world unlike most tourists see it,” said Landon Childers, 26, “I went to Spain and I might as well have been on another planet.” Professional golf can take you to several continents such as North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia.

“I went to China and they stopped the tournament because of acid rain coming in from the jungle because it had another polluted city on the other side of it,” said Childers, “I felt like I was in a Star Wars movie.”

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