Do you have to be really rich to be on the Tour?

[Cicero]

You don't have to be rich. But it's very very difficult to start out poor and end up on tour.

 

Yeah, it's a tough spot to become elite at if you're poor, unlike some other major sports.

[Night train]

Phil did not come from a "very wealthy" family. His father was an airline pilot so he made a nice living but Phil talks about his mother taking a job to earn money so they could travel to Jr. tournaments. Tiger's dad retired as a colonel from the military, combine that with "who knows how much Titleist was paying him and they were comfortable.

[ChillyDipper]

I'd be curious to know what defines "really rich". My Chinese girlfriend thinks that means 100's of M. To me, it means, +250k household income per year.

[Psyber]

I'd be curious to know what defines "really rich". My Chinese girlfriend thinks that means 100's of M. To me, it means, +250k household income per year.

Yeah that's not rich. I know plenty of people making 250-400k a year and want to know what they are? Three paychecks from losing everything. They have a lot of stuff but the bank owns all of it and they more or less live as paycheck to paycheck as the rest of us with nicer things.

[puttingmatt]

The mere thought that Tiger came from meager means is laughable. Stanford is not a community college, and Nike had him signed before he hit a club as a professional.

[Cicero]

The mere thought that Tiger came from meager means is laughable. Stanford is not a community college, and Nike had him signed before he hit a club as a professional.

 

Whether or not he was from a family of means, I'm pretty sure he didn't grow up with titleist or Nike contracts, and I'd be surprised if he wasn't on scholarship at Stanford.

[MadGolfer76]

I think if you are impressively good and have a history of winning, there is usually a donor/investor willing to get behind you.

[golfandfishing]

Isn't Couples a muni kid? Not that that means his family didn't have money.

 

I thought Tiger or his family weren't members of a private club as a kid?

 

I don't think they were, but he had top equipment, swing coaches, sports psychologist and traveled the US playing Jr and Am events. Just the travel and entries alone would have been $15k for him and pops to an AJGA schedule of say 5 events, US AM, US Jr and the other am events he played. More if you factor in Earl's "massages".

 

Conservative estimate here, even factoring 1993 prices and considering they shared a low cost room and TW ate the tournament food: entry $100 flight for 2 $600 5 nights hotel $400 food $150 rental car $150. $1400 a week and he played the US Jr, US am, western am, north and south, Sunnehana and probably 5 AJGA events.

 

No one with little DI is doing that, and Earl was on his 4th kid and 2nd family as well. He obviously had some dough.

[DON SVO]

Yeah that's not rich. I know plenty of people making 250-400k a year and want to know what they are? Three paychecks from losing everything. They have a lot of stuff but the bank owns all of it and they more or less live as paycheck to paycheck as the rest of us with nicer things.

 

That's the truth. Solid post.

 

My parents are both accountants. Mom was a CPA. My favorite story is one of her orthopedic surgeon clients... Guy's in the 800k-1MM a year range. Baller house in a super nice neighborhood in north Dallas (the kind with constant landscapers and cleaners etc), lambo in the garage, takes lots of upper crust Europe/Asia trips with family, dumb kid with no scholarships going to a stupidly prestigious private college, wife has a brand new AMG Mercedes every year, insane gun collection, flies a private plane, et.al.

 

I worked for my mom during the summers at college and did his books. The guy was investing barely 30k a year and legitimately had less than 3 months worth of post-tax salary in savings. He was seriously a single ugly bad malpractice case and being fired away from losing EVERYTHING. The mortgage, employees and utilities on the house alone ate up close to $25,000 a month. He barely invested more than a month's worth of his house expenditures a year.

 

"Wealthy" is very relative. I'd wager a smart family earning $125,000 a year could have more liquid income to put into a solid golf upstart for their kid than this doctor earning 6 times that. You can't be wealthy if you're fighting to piss away every penny every paycheck.

[ConcentricDimples]

Yeah, somewhat, but golf isn't the only sport that fits into that category.

 

Ski racing, Tennis, Bobsledding, Speed Skating, rhythmic gymnastics, and others are the same way.

[Psyber]

Yeah, somewhat, but golf isn't the only sport that fits into that category.

 

Ski racing, Tennis, Bobsledding, Speed Skating, rhythmic gymnastics, and others are the same way.

 

Yup, plenty of expensive activities out there. The only difference between them and golf is that they don't try to delude themselves into believing it's a sport for everyone like golfers seem to do so often these days. Golf is for people with means and there is nothing wrong with that. Means is a very relative term but the simple fact is poor people don't play much golf. A lot of my friends think I'm nuts when I tell them in season I spend around $400 a month playing golf and that is nothing compared to people paying for some expensive country clubs. When you think about it like that it realistically cost as much as the lease on my Audi to play golf during the winter.

[darpar1]

I'd say no in regards to someone like Tiger Woods.

My sister lives just couple blocks from where Tiger grew up in the Holder st./Cerritos Ave area of Cypress,Ca.

It's a pretty modest/middle class area of O.C. and TW played most of his golf on the local muni's.

Like the 9 hole Heartwell course,The Navy course in Los Al and took some of his first lessons from John Anselmo at Meadowlark in Hunt.Bch.

None of those course are remotely upscale/elitist type tracks associated with having to be affluent to get a tee time.

Though I think a number of PGA pro's probably came from well to do means,Tiger wasn't one of them in his youth.

[RichieHunt]

A friend of mine used to teach at a 'junior golf school' and told me that 70% of those kids that enrolled quit the game before they finish college.

 

Money certainly helps, but it's really more about support from your family than money.

 

I have nothing against good sports psychologists, but it doesn't really do you much good if the child has a sports psychologist telling him one thing and the parent tells him another things.

 

But, I doubt you'll see a Tour player these days that worked 30-40 hours a week during the summer in high school. By the same token, tough to find Tour players these days that didn't play in some AJGA and IJGT events.

 

A lot of it leads up to getting a college scholarship. And then being a quality college scholarship player that can draw in some investors and help financially support you on the mini-tours before you hit the Web.com Tour and then hopefully, the PGA Tour. If you don't have those collegiate credentials, finding a sponsor just isn't very likely to happen.

 

But, things don't always go the way you hope or plan and you need a good support system that allows the player to deal with those failures as a person.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RH

[doublehans]

there's a certain level where if you are truly poor, at least in the US, its going to be tough, you're probably an exception to get introduced to the game. but you someone who is middle class, blue collar job sort of salary is probably fine (unless its a high cost area without cheap munis). there are plenty of sports where money helps, even in the bigger sports, expenses can add up for leagues, travel teams, etc. if you are great talent, then missing some events wont keep you from success and you'll get offers to help as well. where money makes the most difference will be in more marginal talents, the difference in talent between the backend end of the tour and the web guys isnt all that much. same with the difference between the guys at the backend of the web and the mini tours. having money to get a coach or trainer or to play more events might be the difference for some of those guys. also, if you dont have money you probably have to hit the ground running to succeed. if you fail/slump, maybe you make a second chance somehow but not a third and probably not a second in any case. if you have money/support, it means you can whether the highs and lows, make swing changes, etc. getting multiple chances and long period to test yourself and improve after college is a massive advantage if you are a more marginal talent. if you're great talent, the ones we see all the time, its not often going to be the difference, but for depth guys in the field, that can be the difference between who made it and how gave up.

[Greenhenry07]

Skill level gets you far but you need the backing ive seen a hundred times

[ea19]

The odds are you have to have significant amount of money to compete and be successful. It is super competitive and not having the funds puts you at major disadvantage. When really young - many, many kids will have access to the best teachers, equipment, tournaments, schools, camps, etc. how does someone with both parents working constantly or poorer or a single parent struggling to get by do this? They won't. Same but more so the older they get. Someone needs to completely financially support the player so the can practice, travel, compete in tournaments. Without some type of significant assistance - it is too hard to do long term. Or long enough so they can learn to be successful.

 

There are always exceptions of course but with something so competitive, with individual coaching being so important, with pricey equipment, with tournament travel being so key, course access not super cheap - being at such a disadvantage from the outset and always is really tough to overcome.

 

I also think the fact that it is not as popular, with kids, as other sports makes it more reliant on money.

[rockinar]

You get there by playing well, not by being rich. The people who need the backing are the ones who are not collecting checks because they don't have the game and are wasting their time.

 

Every high school in the US has a free golf team. Every decent college has a golf team and scholarships available.

 

You could play competitive golf for little cost until you are 20. Golf is only as expensive as you want to make it.

 

 

If you can't get a golf scholarship, it was never meant to be. If you are not making waves somewhere with a year of college, I was not meant to be.

[Llortamaisey]

You don't have to be rich, but you need to have rich backers/sponsors. There are no exceptions.

[rockinar]

The odds are you have to have significant amount of money to compete and be successful. It is super competitive and not having the funds puts you at major disadvantage. When really young - many, many kids will have access to the best teachers, equipment, tournaments, schools, camps, etc. how does someone with both parents working constantly or poorer or a single parent struggling to get by do this? They won't.

 

 

Hogwash. Either you have the game or you don't. No amount of money, camps, instruction and schooling is going to give you talent you don't have.

 

If you have the talent, you will naturally move up the ranks at little to no cost. If you don't, you will be one of those kids looking for financial backing and wasting everyone's time and money as you miss endless cuts

I'd be curious to know what defines "really rich". My Chinese girlfriend thinks that means 100's of M. To me, it means, +250k household income per year.

 

$250K a year in California is poverty level. In Texas, you're doing OK.

[kiteman]

This thread is awesome. Did you guys read the ESPN article recently about Tiger?

 

http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/15278522/how-tiger-woods-life-unraveled-years-father-earl-woods-death

[imakaveli]

You don't need to be really rich if you are really good

 

-Rory McIlroy

[Shilgy]

The title of the thread:

Do you have to be really rich to be on the Tour?

 

To be on the tour-assuming the mens PGA tour- you have to be really rich because otherwise you lost your card. Other tours like the LPGA you could be marginal and keeping your card but a far cry from rich.

 

Most of us have been answering the question as to get on the Tour. And there money is a big help but most cities have clubs or programs that will assist children that show an interest and aptitude for the game.

[doublepar93]

The title of the thread:

Do you have to be really rich to be on the Tour?

 

To be on the tour-assuming the mens PGA tour- you have to be really rich because otherwise you lost your card. Other tours like the LPGA you could be marginal and keeping your card but a far cry from rich.

 

Most of us have been answering the question as to get on the Tour. And there money is a big help but most cities have clubs or programs that will assist children that show an interest and aptitude for the game.

This. I've seen talented high school kids playing clubs donated to the school, due to low working class parents not be able to afford to buy them clubs. If the student was good enough at golf, then they could get some college interest if they placed high enough in events and showed some potential. Money helps, as always, but dedication and raw talent trump it all.

[Pent08]

I know Rory came from very little but his parents sacrificed so much to fund everything. From what I have seen, however, is that most kids who ascend into golf or at least try to make it have upper middle backgrounds at the very least.

[Eric267]

If your not playing one of the "big 3" sports (football, baseball, basketball) it definitely takes money to get to the top. Think about it! Those sports if your really good you get picked out young and everything is paid for by your school district. Coaching, gear, gym time, etc..

 

I I've in a ski town and ski with some awesome skiers that come from moderate income families. Could they have been World Cup skiers, maybe? If their parents had shitloads of money to get them there. I bet if you went to the local squaw valley ski program events and talked to the parents 90% would be Ritch Bay Area peeps with a second home in Tahoe worth 750,000$+. A few might have a dad/mom who works ski patrol or instructor and sacrifices to get them into the program, but for the most part that's not the case.

 

Kind of think of pga pros the same way. A few will make it because of pure talent growing up playing at their local muni where there dad that works for the city can get them a free season pass. But most likely not! I bet if you went to an event where young kids trying to make the pga tour were playing an event you'd find the same thing. 90% of the parents making 200,000$+ a year

[NoTalentLefty]

No

[c7015]

If your not rich you better make up for it in skill

[deasy55]

McIlroy's father was a barman who worked 3 jobs to pay for his sons love of golf. He made the tour without issue.