# Becoming Pro



## aaronjunited (Jun 1, 2011)

Im new to the forum, look forward to chatting with you all. 

I want to hear everyones views on becoming pro and playing on the european tour or the pga tour.
I know you have to play of scratch and go to Q school and get your tour card. 
What i want to know is, do you have to be in your teens, and be young to become a pro, or is there pros out there that have done it at an older age, say from 23 - 35 years old? 

Would be nice to hear peoples views.


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## FrogsHair (Mar 4, 2010)

I don't think age has anything to do with it. With all the different pro tours around, there is something for just about every age group. That said, obviously someone at an advanced age is going to find it even more difficult to play consistently well. Tom Watson who just won a major senior tour event, and his peers are in a special group of their own when it comes to playing pro tour golf. 

You already know you have to play at scratch or better to be successful on any tour. 

What I think separates the pro players from the better amateur players is their mental, and physical ability to to play at scratch or better on a different course, under different playing conditions each, and every week. This, after sometimes traveling through different time zones. The pro player can adjust both mentally, and physically to these changing conditions. The successful tour professional has a 100% complete golf game at their disposal. Those who are the most successful on tour use more of that 100%, more often, than their competition. No pro tour player has the ability to play at 100% of their game for 72 holes. Not even for 18 holes for that matter. 

I also believe that person's genetic make up goes a long way in their golf game, and how well they can consistently play. Most decent playing amateurs do not have the genetic (physical and mental) make up to play at the pro tour level. 

Last, but not least, just to get started, the aspiring pro tour player has to have a great deal of financial backing, regardless of how strong their mental, and physical game might be. Not having "up front" money has probably kept a lot of good players off the various pro tours. Of course having a proven tract record of quality play will help getting the proper financing to play, but getting that proven record of play cost some coin too.  




aaronjunited said:


> Im new to the forum, look forward to chatting with you all.
> 
> I want to hear everyones views on becoming pro and playing on the european tour or the pga tour.
> I know you have to play of scratch and go to Q school and get your tour card.
> ...


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## aaronjunited (Jun 1, 2011)

Thank you very much for that reply. Best reply or advice on this topic ive ever had. 
I think anyone can make it as a pro, if they put the work in and work for it, anythings possible.

Thanks.


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## Big Hobbit (Nov 2, 2010)

How to become a pro, and make it onto the European tour;

Picking 3 different examples. Ian Poulter went from assistant at a golf club to Q school, and we all know how good he is. Rory McIlroy did it via the American Collegiate system, and after a short but sparkling amatuer career turned pro. Guy Wolstenhome, at top British Amatuer for many years turned pro just before his 50th b'day and plays on the senior tour.

How good do you have to be to be successful on tour? Think about the length and difficulty of the courses, and then add in what the winning scores usually are. You need to shoot something in the region of -10 to -20, 4 or 5 under each round to be in with a sniff of winning.

If you want to go down the Ian Poulter route you need a handicap of 4 or better, and have a pro take you on as an assistant. Thereafter its 3 years to qualify. After that its up to you. If you want to go down the Rory route you need to be off at least scratch or better. What I would recommend is you get to mid/low Cat 1, off 3 or better, and play as many scratch comps as you can so you can measure yourself against the best amatuers around your local area.

Get a good teacher, and some good advice.

Good luck.


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## aaronjunited (Jun 1, 2011)

The Rory McIlroy way sounds good. But is this not hard to get into?
How do you play as an amateur? Do you need to play amateur competitions and get noticed.

Thanks for that post it was helpfull.


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## Big Hobbit (Nov 2, 2010)

aaronjunited said:


> The Rory McIlroy way sounds good. But is this not hard to get into?
> How do you play as an amateur? Do you need to play amateur competitions and get noticed.
> 
> Thanks for that post it was helpfull.


There's been plenty of young golfers including quite few from Europe who have gone down the McIlroy route, Montgomerie is another. Most American Universities have golf scholarships and teams. They play quite a few inter uni matches. McIlroy's record at uni is actually better than Woods'.

As a very good amatuer you may get invites into some pro competitions but they are few and far between. The British Open takes amatuers but they have to qualify, and need a very low handicap just to be able to apply... +3 or +4 I think.

McIlroy turned pro part way through the season, and got into a number of comps via invites but he still had to earn £xx amount of money to earn playing priviledges for the following season. His amatuer record is what got him noticed. You would need to be at least at County level, and ideally Walker Cup level to get those sort of invites/opportunities.

Failing that, as Frog said there are a number of tours that act as stepping stones to the major tours, e.g. each PGA region has local tours, then onto tarten tour & Europro tour, then European tour. The US tours operate in a similar fashion. They operate like leagues where the top so many players progress onto the next tour.


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