My parents moved to a golf course subdivision, Green Acres GC, when I was 6 years old and I was able to participate in junior golf.  Although nothing like the junior golf programs today, this gave me my first opportunity at competive golf.  This continued every summer until I was able to work as a "rack rat" or bag boy at the local course.  The local junior tournaments prepared me for high school golf.  As a freshman I started #2 on the golf team and played #1 as a sophomore until I graduated high school.  One of my weaknesses was not playing in more competative situations (state or national level) to prepare me for what was to follow.

After high school, I attended Purdue University in WestLafayette, IN and was a walk-on to the golf team.  It was great to play against other players from outside the state and get an idea on how the competition was at a Division 1 level.  I ended up playing for 1-1/2 years on the JV team until my Electrical Engineering studies started to suffer.  At this point I decided to drop the team and work toward getting my degree.

During the summers I continued to work at the local golf course and started activly pursuing a golf career also.  I signed to be an assistant professtional and started working toward my Class A PGA status (head golf professional at an approved golf club).  These steps are more complicated now, but the program was to pass a playing test and then attend the PGA business & teaching schools (usually requiring a few years to complete).  I started by passing the state "players test".  This consists of playing 36 holes on a specified day and given a target score to shoot (depending on the course rating it is around 76-76=152).  After the first 18 holes my score was 80....and we had to wait for a rain delay.  I was able to come out and fire a 70 on the second round to get a score of 150 to pass by a couple of strokes.  At this point I was able to play in some PGA tournaments around the state (Pro-Ams, Pro-Pro matches, etc).  I ended up playing in a few events, but actually worked around 70 hours/week at a pay rate of a little better than minimum wage.  Two years later I had my EE degree and it was a "no-brainer" to decide to take 4X pay increase for fewer work hours.  A few years later I applied for my amateur status and it was approved by the USGA.

To this day I enjoy every chance I get to play, but with the family comittments it is usually limited to 9-18 hole league every week.

My biggest complaint is having to give lots of strokes for league matches....

--->  Kevin