The past few weeks have been a lot of fun. I’ve been playing every day, shooting good scores. Last week I got to caddy for Alan (swing coach) in the SR USOpen qualifier @ San Gabriel CC.
Watching Alan play was a great experience (a former US Tour player and now SR Euro-Tour pro). He was on point throughout the day, but ran into some trouble on the par 5s, and one par 4 with 3 bogeys, hit one birdie later on, but missed the play-off cut by 2 strokes. Talk about a heart breaker.
This week, I’ve had to face the harsh reality that I’m probably not going to make to Qschool next month because, A. there’s a $3500 entry fee and B. Even if I did enter, my gut tells me it’s a 50/50 chance of getting through the prequal & stage 1.
I need more time…
So, at the moment I’m struggling between going back to work for a few years and potentially doing this again in 10′/11′, or, try and scrape by and keep playing for another year…which I’d love to do, but, doesn’t seem realistic as there are bills to pay.
Here’s how it breaks down: I have a car, that after insurance costs about $500/mo, a health insurance policy that runs $230/mo, mobile communication for $100/mo, a gym membership @ $40/mo, the ShoreCliff’s unlimited golf pass @ $300/mo, oh, and throw in another $500/month to put some food in the stomach and gas in the car, and $550 for a place to sleep at night.
So all in, to keep this project going we’re looking at over $2K/month in expenses.
For the most part, my peers provide mixed feedback. Some fellow risk-takers push me to keep going. “live in a tent, get a motorcycle, eat rice and drink water, you went from shooting in the 100s to 70s in 9 months, do you know what you’ve accomplished?!?” while the more reserved ones usually say “You had a great run Erik, but, it’s time to face reality, your resume is getting cold”, and, that is also very true.
One option considered was to get a part-time gig at night to allow me to still play during the day; bar tending seems like and obvious route, but those gigs are hard to come by this time of year and staying up all night working another type of shift job would just cause me to sleep all day instead of play golf.
Getting a job at a course was another idea as it would eliminate the cost of playing golf and provide some income, but, not many places are looking for a guy who wants to work 15 hrs/week just to get free golf.
Giving golf lessons was also something considered investing; I’ve given a few here and there and most people have thoroughly working with me, but punching the numbers, it would require giving somewhere between 40-50 lesson/month to cover the cost of this adventure…
So, for the time being, all options are staying on the table; I’m entertaining putting a suit back on and going to work and still looking at ways to the continue PGAhereicome.
Got any bright ideas???
