Wins and losses

I first want to thank everyone for their continued support over the past few months while I have taken the beginning of professional golf head on. There have been very dear friends and family who have opened up their homes and other accommodations to help lower some of the travel costs that you endure when playing professional golf. I also want to thank those individuals and businesses that have helped me monetarily. If you would like to learn more about how to help please refer to the bottom of this post.

Results

A lot has happened the last few weeks including me spending over a month in different hotels. If anyone wants tips on how to travel for cheap- I am learning fast. Guys on mini tours seem to have all the tricks down.

I made my first check as a professional golfer shooting 67-67-74(t-39) in the Columbia Open and got through Pre Qualifying at Brunswick CC with rounds of 71-69-69. I then went on to first stage at Magnolia grove-crossings in Mobile and shot 69-71-72-70(-6) to fall short of advancing to the next round. It took 15 under to advance to the next stage.

Going forward I only have one professional tournament left on this calendar year. I will be prepping with my coaches and those around me for next season and will be writing a newsletter covering everything that I will be doing so stick around for that.

What I learned from coming up short

First, I will be critical of myself and then be more positive after. I learned that the little things really add up when you are playing in Q school. Having to shoot 15 under is an extremely difficult task and is a different mindset than when playing college golf or any other golf I have ever played before now. You constantly have to keep pushing and one hole can put you out of the tournament if you are not careful. The way to prepare for this comes down to making sure all of your basics are perfect. The first three rounds I really struggled with hitting the ball and could not figure out why. Finally, after really working on it, we realized that since I am left eye dominant, when I am under pressure I line my body up left. My body subconsciously knows that I am lined up there and tries to make adjustments causing me to push fade the ball or just straight pull it. The other rather basic thing that I learned was that tension in my upper body causes a whole string of back swing issues. Both of these were the difference in me making it and missing the cut. They are relatively basic and avoidable things but without being in the heat of competition, I was unaware of them. When I play noncompetitive rounds I do not struggle with these issues as I am not under a lot of pressure. To be blunt, I am disappointed in myself that I allowed small things to build up and hinder me from playing my best. The last issue that I faced was my driver cracking during the 3rd round. When this happens the ball is unpredictable coming off the face and caused me to have my worst score of the 4 rounds.

I am very proud of how I handled things the past few weeks including at first stage where I came up short. Not having my best game and having issues out of my control like my driver cracking could have been enough for me to really struggle but I really grinded and gave myself a lot of chances. I did not capitalize on those chances like I would have hoped but knowing that I can keep my head screwed on straight and grind out rounds when struggling under that amount of pressure is very encouraging. I can see how much I am improving and hope to stay on this trajectory going forward. I will continue to work as hard as I can to make sure that I do and use this extreme frustration that I am feeling now as motivation to stay disciplined through the off season.

What playing a sport in college or professionally feels like

The social media algorithms are very well tailored as my social media feeds are primarily athletes talking about their sports and the struggles that come along with playing a sport at a high level. As I have promised, I want to be authentic and I think that that means that we need to talk about the hard side of what professional golf looks like. I want to state that I know how lucky and blessed I am to be playing professional golf and I do not take that for granted, but not every part of playing a sport is glamorous. Lets talk about those parts.

Since all I know is coming from my background and those around me I will be making some generalizations that I think can apply to all high level athletes but coming from the golf perspective. In order to do anything at a high level you have to make a lot of sacrifices, but when you love what you are doing the sacrifices do not even feel like a sacrifice. For me it was a lot of hours by myself on the golf course hammering away at my swing and short game and missing out on parties with friends or vacations that I could’ve taken. As I got more involved with golf, it became my safe haven. If I was having a hard time with anything else in life growing up, I could go to the golf course and all that mattered was getting better at my craft. It truly was therapeutic. Think of that past time that you have done that makes all your worries go away and you can be fully present while doing it, even if the world is crumbling around you. That was me growing up all the way through high school. When I got to college, everything changed. Suddenly, the thing that I would run to when things got hard was the thing that I was running from. My teammates were just as good if not better than me, school got really hard, balancing everything was a lot to handle all at once, and the biggest struggle was understanding that I was getting paid to play my sport. Of course, NIL was not around yet, but, I was playing on scholarship and golf was basically my job. I practiced out of obligation rather than out of curiosity and drive to get better. Freshman year took a toll on me mentally. While I started to play well late fall and early spring, I no longer had the child like curiosity and fun when playing golf and began to dread having to do everything at practice. COVID hit in the middle of my freshman year and was a blessing for my golf game. Suddenly I got to play again every day without it feeling like a job and all my friends were back home playing as well because there was nothing else we could do so I spent hours at the course again and slowly built my love of the game back. Even as I went through my struggles my senior year that I chronicled in my previous post, I still loved golf.

Coming into my pro career I was very self aware about what happened to me my freshman year and went into this knowing that that mindset was possible and I wanted to avoid it. I am lucky that I already went through that shift and came out the other side because while I feel that same awful feeling somedays, I am able to recognize it and move past it now because of the work I have done in the past. You see it a lot with collegiate athletes. They have a hard time adjusting to the thing that they loved becoming something that they are being forced to do and it makes them hate it. If you want to hear some of their stories, go on any social media website and search up collegiate athletes and why they will never play their sport again. There are dozens of posts talking about the stories of coaches, teammates, and many other reasons why people who were all about their sport going into school, never wanting to touch their sport again. It truly is sad and I encourage anyone reading who is bitter about something that they used to love because of a particular reason to give it another shot. Think of what it was like when you were a kid and how that activity gave you more joy than anything else could. Slowly peel back the layers and see if you can enjoy it again, maybe just recreationally. If you are still in high school and are worried about this happening to you, just know that God is there to help and let him coach you through the tough emotions and times that come with anything in life. Someone said to me the other day that praying to God about golf is pointless because in the grand scheme of things it is not important and just a game. I strongly disagree with that statement. Remember, God created everything in this universe, including the individuals who came up with this infuriating sport that so many love. Not to mention, if you love something, God wants to help you with it. If it is important to you that you play well, God is going to cheer you on. He also is not going to punish you because of something through making you play bad. I used to believe the lie that He would and I want those younger than me to know that He does not work that way and not to believe that lie.

Loneliness in Professional Golf

Another difficult thing about professional golf life is how lonely it can be. Most people have an office with coworkers who they see and talk to every day. My office is the golf course and while I have fellow professionals who I practice with sometimes and others at the course that I can play with, my best work is done when I am by myself. That can mean 10-12 hours a day by yourself for days on end. It for sure gives you a lot of time to think about things and I try and yield it in a positive way but I understand how many people struggle with it. The hardest part is the travel by yourself. I am fortunate enough to have friends who are also playing professional golf, and while that lightens the load on loneliness you are still spending a lot of time away from home in unfamiliar places and a lot of time in hotel rooms. These can be very lonely times. Again, I understand how guys develop bad habits when following this lifestyle because if you aren’t in the right mental headspace you can binge on anything to make the loneliness go away. I want to encourage anyone reading this that loneliness is okay. To me, loneliness is our body yearning for God. As my mentors, the Chans, alway remind me when going through something difficult, flood your brain with scripture as the more we understand God’s word, the more we can feel closer to Him and know what He is trying to tell us. Being on your own is not inherently bad either. Jesus always would go off by himself to pray and be alone. Solitude can be used to allow us to become the people God wants us to be if we use it correctly. I encourage those reading this to try turning off any noise or distractions and sit in solitude for a few minutes each day without any agenda.

Am I doing Enough?

The last thing that I have noticed myself struggling with is never feeling like I am doing enough. Because I am now my own boss and all I “have” to do each day is anything pertaining to golf, I can set my own schedule. My problem has been filling every waking second with something to try and be the perfect player. Finding work life balance is something that I am working on every day. If I am not careful, I will workout and practice for 14 hours out of the day and not give myself time to do anything else. This not only is unhealthy but actually counter productive. During these long days, my practice is unfocused and more about getting repetitions in rather than quality practice. I often think too short term when it comes to practice and think that I need to be perfect now rather than looking at the bigger picture and trying to become 1% better every day. Trying to live by the motto of just getting a little bit better is something that I am fighting for every day and most likely will fight for for the rest of my career. Golf is important, but there are plenty of things that are just as important and more important, and I have to keep that constant reminder in the front of my brain. I currently am working on a practice plan that breaks up practice days into days like you find in the gym, with short game days and long game days in order to keep things fresh. If you want an early version of that reach out to me and let me know. I may release it on a future newsletter as well.

Monetary help

Between entry fees costing $1000 dollars per tournament and expenses racking up fast when travelling, playing professional golf is impossible without financial help. I have had very generous people donate to me, and while I have thanked them privately I want to thank them publicly as well. They know who they are and they are the backbone of allowing me to pursue my dream. They truly are unlocking doors I would not otherwise have. Asking for sponsorships and things is the hardest part of my professional job but I know that it is necessary. If you made it this far in the post, thank you for your attention.

I am considering adding sponsors to my newsletter posts, if you are interested please email me at [email protected].

If you want to sponsor me on my clothing, bag etc. as a company advertisement, please email me for pricing.

I have also had people ask where to give if they are just individuals and donate as a gift. If there is enough interest in that I may set up a gofundme. if you are interested in that, even in a very small quantity, please email me so that I know of your interest.

These last few months have been the beginning of my dream and I cannot wait to keep pursuing it. Thank you to everyone reading my newsletter, I cannot wait for where the future takes us. God Bless!