How to Launch a Pro Golf Career
From time to time, I'm going to answer questions I get from readers about my life on the PGA Tour. If you have a question, ask me in the comments or use the contact form (under my picture) and I might blog about it. Here's one I received recently:
Dear Scott,
I'm working a full-time job and trying to fit golf and tournaments in where I can. My struggle right now is finding the funding to play full time. How did you make the transition from having a life outside of golf to making golf your life? -- Anonymous
Dear Anonymous,
You're absolutely right that you need to get to a point where you can focus 100 percent on your game. If you have to keep taking breaks to work a full-time job, you'll never be able to make the leap. Golf needs to be your job.
For me, the transition was simple -- I had played well in college, which gave me an opportunity to turn pro right out of school. But, playing well was only part of the equation; there was a whole lot of financial planning involved because I didn't have the money I needed.
I always knew that I wanted to play golf for a living. In college, there were a ton of job fairs that I hated going to. I finally told my adviser, "I'm not going to anymore of these. I want to play golf for a living." She said, "OK, fine. When you write up a business plan that shows how you're going to make that happen, you can stop going to job fairs."
This was a crucial step for me. Up until then, becoming a pro golfer was more or less just a pipe dream. Now I had to prove how I was going to come up with the necessary dollars to live my dream. I had never really thought about the particulars of doing that, much less written it down. Plus, I had always known that it was going to be expensive but until I had to figure out every line item in my budget, I had no idea just how expensive.
My ultimate goal was the PGA Tour, so I outlined all of the possible ways to get there -- mini-tours, playing Monday qualifying events, Q-school, etc. -- with a budget for each step. I went to websites like hooterstour.com to get an estimate for costs. I knew a caddy on the PGA Tour at the time and got him to ask his pro for estimates, too. I needed about $96,000 for my first year on the Nationwide Tour. One thing I learned early on: Always over-budget. Things will not go according to plan and you need to have a cushion.
Once you have a business plan, find someone who can drill you on the particulars. In my case, I did a mock interview with my adviser, who asked me all of the difficult and frustrating questions that a potential investor might ask. That process led to many revisions of the business plan. But at the end of it all, I had a plan that was investor-ready.
My advice to you: Golf is hard enough. The sooner you can sort out the business questions, the more you'll be able to work on your game, which is what will make sure you get where you want to go.
Scott Stallings's business is golf. He's blogging for BNET as he travels about 300 days a year playing on the PGA Tour.
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