My name is Clay Wonnell, I'm a big dreamer with the rare opportunity to do what I love for a living. In August 2016, I began my journey from a PGA Club Professional to a PGA Tour Professional. For non-golfers this is essentially the same as your Local City Council Member seeking a seat in Congress. I draw this parallel in the most respectful way to all parties involved as my intention is not to belittle the position of a Club Professional. Club Pro's work their asses off in a staggering variety of roles for relatively little money just about every day with the exception of some Mondays or Tuesdays when the Country Club is closed and isn't hosting any outside events to supplement the bottom line. Great Club Pro's ultimately do what they do because they love the game and they want to help others find the same enthusiasm. Having worked in the industry for nearly ten years as an intern to a second assistant to a first assistant, I have nothing but respect for the PGA Club Professional, all I'm saying is your City Council Member has a long fuckin way to go to get to Congress.
Your City Council Member probably possesses a lot of the same qualities of a seasoned Senator; articulate, benevolent, charismatic, ambitious. The difference between the Senator and the Councilman is ultimately taking advantage of opportunities to employ these skills toward the desired goal. Competitive golf is similar as most seeking greatness will hit the ball about the same, with a few exceptions of freakish talent. Ultimately what an aspiring pro needs to do to be successful is use his skills at the right opportunity to achieve the end goal. Obviously a lot of hard work goes into honing the skills of a competitive golfer, but essentially all one one needs to do is take advantage of an opportunity at the right time and the dream can pretty quickly become a reality. As far as I'm aware golf is unique among professional sports when it comes to the accessibility to the highest level of competition for mere mortals via Qualifiers. Many PGA Tour Events across the world host open qualifying events on the Mondays before the actual big boy event in which the lowest two or three scores will earn a chance to literally play for millions of dollars later that week. Granted you have to put on a godlike performance in one of these qualifiers to earn this opportunity, but it's a hell of a lot better chance than you've got of showing up at Wrigley Field, hitting a beast mode home run in front of the coaching staff, and them handing you a jersey for the next game.
Thanks to some personal savings and help from friends and family, I am so grateful to have the opportunity to completely dedicate myself to the game and hopefully take advantage of the right opportunity at the right time to earn a PGA Tour Card. I am well aware of the fact that I am still the Local City Councilman with a wrinkled suit, but fuck it, you've gotta start somewhere.
I plan to write here from time to time as a sort of a journal of my odyssey. I hope to see you along the way.
Love
Clay
No comments:
Post a Comment