How To Become A Pro Golfer At 30

It is a dream for many golf game enthusiasts – to get a professional golfer! But, how practice you it? What credentials do yous need? And what are yous likely to get paid for playing golf? Earlier we get alee of ourselves, let's have a await at what being a pro golfer is all about.

To brainstorm with, being a pro golfer does not necessarily mean you play golf for a living. What information technology does mean is you are a certified member of the PGA – the Professional Golfers Clan – and being then can lead to a variety of potential jobs.

Of course, you could become a professional person golfer, and gear up out to play the game for money. Before you do this – and chuck in your job – consider how many professional golfers at that place are playing the PGA Tour. Official statistics reckon in that location are 80million golfers across the world. Of these, 245 play The Tour. So, your chances of becoming an actual pro histrion are very slim.

Simply allow's non stop there; your PGA Membership opens upwardly a globe of potential golf game-related employment. There are many golf game clubs around, and each needs a direction team to go on the grade and social club in running order. Most in these positions – from Club Superintendent to General Manager – are usually PGA Pro Golfers.

Many clubs employ a Golf Pro to tutor other players, and peradventure a couple of players beneath the lodge pro. So there are jobs out there for you if y'all accept your centre assault working with golf.

Just, your ultimate aim is withal to play golf professionally, and for many people it is! Why shouldn't you requite it a get?

Permit's talk about what yous need to do to become a PGA Pro, and then we'll accept a look at some more criteria that need to be considered.

The Steps to Becoming a Pro

The PGA is a worldwide organization overseeing golfing professionals in many countries, and each state follows very like requirements for becoming a pro. In that location are sure criteria you need to encounter – we'll talk in a little more particular most ability in a moment – to exist accepted past the PGA, so let's accept a look at these.

Outset you need to pay the set fees – y'all tin can find these at the PGA website – once you lot take completed all the other entry requirements, so we recommend that you have a close look at what it is going to cost should you pass, and budget accordingly. If you lot are intent on joining, you need to set aside this fee – it will depend on the state yous are in – so that you are ready to pay to finalise your membership.

To become a fellow member, you also have to complete coursework – it'due south not all taking place on the greens – in three parts that need some serious revision. These will involve a variety of golf-related exercises, technical and otherwise, that prove y'all are suitable for membership.

The coursework is not easy, but if you are an avid golfer with feel and are willing to delve a little deeper into the game and its technicalities, yous should not just find it interesting, merely also enlightening.

For some players the requirement is that y'all have a golf-related job earlier you utilise to go a pro. This could be anything from a greenkeeper to a caddy.

Even so, in that location are also some university bursaries that can help bring students on who are golfing fans, and these are also worth looking at.

In addition to further tests, the major function of becoming a golf pro is displaying you ability over 36 holes. This is the PGA Histrion Ability Test, and it involves completing the 36 holes in one day, and meeting or surpassing a certain score. This brings the states nicely onto the next department!

How Practiced Do You Accept to Exist to Get a Pro?

Let's cut to the hunt: you take to exist very skilful to become a pro. Quite just, you take to exist amid the very best few hundred golfers, and that is non going to be easy. Nor is it incommunicable, equally there are pros out at that place, and there are new pros coming onto the tour all the time.

Nosotros're talking in this section virtually playing golf as a professional, rather than qualifying and becoming a teacher. This way, we can show you just how much work goes into becoming a top player.

So, a question: what'south your handicap? If you lot're a role player with a good deal of feel – say you've played some amateur tournaments and so on – you might have a very low handicap, or you may even be a scratch golfer, one who has a zero handicap.

Yous retrieve that yous're ready to plough pro with a scratch handicap? You'll find you're a long style out of your depth!

This is why there are then few genuine pro golf game players in the world. You might be a peachy club player, but unless you lot've been playing off – at the very least – +iv for a while, you're not going to cut it on the Tour. Many players take a +6 handicap when they beginning playing pro golf, and that'southward a tall social club for even the best amateur players.

Wait at a few of the large names: Phil Mickelson is +5.2; Paul Casey is +six; Tiger Wood in his heyday was +vii.nine! Now non all pro golfers take such handicaps, simply you'll exist difficult pushed to notice one lower than +iv.

Further advice is that an amateur player should exist below par in half of the tournaments they play and, when playing on a title course, 3 over par should be your highest score. If you can't meet all of these, you're not going to make the cutting, quite simply. If you can, so now might be the fourth dimension to think nigh playing professionally!

How Much Do Pro Golfers Become Paid?

Permit'south say you have all the talent, experience and credentials to get a professional actor, and you accept passed the routines that permit y'all to become a PGA Pro. What can you expect to earn? We'll hang back for a moment and talk about the various different ways of playing golf for coin, before we talk about those that play on the Tour.

The best way forward is to begin playing in the Minor League tournaments. These are developmental tournaments held to bring on pros who are looking to move upwardly to the major tournaments. The Nationwide Tour is one, and others include the National Golf Association Tour and the eGolf Tour. In the erstwhile, the Nationwide Bout, earnings average per annum will be around $17000.

The top player in a recent year netted more the $400,000 merely bear in mind the tail ender took home less than $2000.

Ane thing yous accept to consider is that pro golfers are non paid a salary. Go pro, and you are relying on successful tournaments to earn you a living, and it is non always easy with competition rife! Also, pro golfers must pay their own expenses in the style of lodgings, travel, entry fees, food and daily living, all of which is upward-front expense.

Assuming you are proficient enough – and work difficult enough – to achieve the pinnacle echelons of professional golf, what can you expect to bring home? Recent figures from the PGA Tour show that a median earnings effigy of around $600,000 is perfectly possible.

The summit players will take dwelling over $6million, but it all depends on how many tournaments you compete in, and how successful you are.

A poor season could hateful very little earnings once your expenses have been sorted. It is off-white to say, withal, that prize money in golf is quite impressive – 45 tournaments on the PGA tour equals a smashing number of opportunities – and someone has to win, so it could be you!

You can wait to earn an easy $600,000 a year just for competing on tour.

How Much Does it Price to Be a Pro Golfer?

In the section to a higher place we talked about expenses, and the fact that pro golfers earn only from the money paid out by tournaments. To give you an thought of what it costs to exist a pro golfer, nosotros're going to look at an case of a actor setting out on one of the mini-tours, which is where you will likely begin.

First, the role player has to take part in what is known every bit Qualifying School. This is where players play through stages to be accepted on one of the mini tours, and the fee for the school is effectually $3000, then that's the commencement expense to consider. If you don't get through and you desire to try again, you have to pay again, then y'all demand to be at your best at this phase. Then, permit's assume you get through, what's next?

Next is to cull the mini bout, so nosotros'll use some averages here. You need to play in a good number of tournaments to stand whatsoever run a risk of making coin, and usually a mini tour consists of around fifteen tournaments over 30 weeks, and so that's our starting betoken. What'due south the price of entering each tournament? This can vary, and may be anywhere between $200 and $900, and then allow'due south assume an boilerplate of $500 per tournament.

Take a break to add together things upwardly here, and we already have a running full of around $x,500, and that's but to enter the tour and get through qualifying school.

Now what else do we take to consider? Travel is a major factor, equally tournaments tin can be a long way apart. For the sake of this do, nosotros'll assume that flights and travel to and from each course cost around the $250 mark – which is a fair guess – so that's another $3750 added on. Then you need hotel expenses, and even staying at the cheapest is going to price y'all effectually $1500 at the very least, so we'll call it that.

In addition to all of that, you take to live! Frugal you might exist, but you're still going to rack up $1000 a month with ease, and so over 8 months – say – that'due south $8000.

The Price Breakdown

• Qualifying ($3,000)
• Tournament Fees ($7,500)
• Travel Costs ($3,750)
• Living Expenses ($8,000)

Total: $22,250!

Now, you could cut that down past staying on friend's couches where possible, by getting to and fro by bus, or by eating less, but you need to be fit, good for you and on elevation of your game at all times. We're also assuming that y'all get practise time for free, which is not always the example.

One final thing: the pay for only making the cut at 1 of these tournaments commonly weighs in at around $1500, which is exactly break even if yous make the cut at each tournament! Prize money comes on top of that.

So, it'south not cheap, merely many people do information technology – a few hundred each year and growing in number – and there'due south no reason you lot can't be among them.

Can Yous Become a Pro Golfer at Any Historic period?

There are no age restrictions on becoming a pro golfer, but the standards required to play at professional level are so high that yous need to aggregate a great deal of experience earlier you decide to get pro. As we accept seen to a higher place, even our rudimentary example of a golfer joining the mini tour is not cheap, so it has to be something y'all are committed to and dedicated to in every way.

Statistics bear witness that the average age of golfers on the PGA bout is around 35, and that most plow pro at about thirty, with many years of experience playing beforehand, usually from a very young historic period. And so, if you're in your twenty'southward and just starting, you are probably as well late.

If you've been playing since you were a kid and are in your 20's, racking up amateur tournaments and with a consistently improving handicap, you're a prime number candidate.

Why Would a Golfer Not Plow Pro?

We recall nosotros've answered this question quite well in the sections above. A pro golfer is taking a big risk in assertive they have the talent, dedication and skill to become professional.

There is no chore security – make a few mistakes and miss the cut, and that weeks expenses are gone – and if you have a family, it is something that both partners need to be committed to.

You might consider other options, including perhaps becoming a form pro and earning money from appearances, tutoring and advice, or fifty-fifty taking up a position in a club.

Bear in heed that the main reason golfers don't turn pro is considering, quite frankly, they know they are not good enough, and that applies to some of the all-time golfers you will play against in your lifetime.

Determination

If you are a very talented golfer, the right age with a +three or more handicap and a consequent playing average, then there is no reason professional golf should non appeal. The few who get in beyond the first stages can become very successful indeed, only information technology is not a determination to take lightly.

If you are successful, you can enjoy an exciting career and earn some very decent money, then consider your game and keep improving, and so make that decision when you know the time is right.

Source: https://www.hittingthegreen.com/how-do-you-become-a-pro-golfer

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