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WAIKOLOA, Hawaii >> So you want to be a professional golfer? Pro golfer’s life not as
easy as it seemsIt sounds good, doesn't it? That's what everybody thinks. This is what everybody thinks about being a professional golfer:
1) Play golf. 2) For lots of money.
You love playing golf, don't you? And if only somebody would give you some money for it. It would be a perfect life.
Sure, if it were only that easy. But it's never that easy. If it weren't a job, if it wasn't work, if someone else could put up with all that shibai better than you can, they wouldn't have to pay you. Even ice cream taste testers can get the bad brain freeze. Even the photographer for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue has a bad day at the office.
So professional golf probably isn't as easy as it looks.
Watch the faces of golfers coming off the 18th green and you see people who have put in a hard day's work. You see a lot of sweat and stress and vacant stares. You see people who need to go lie down. If they had neckties, they would be loosened and disheveled, Al Bundy style.
Not a lot of glamour out there.
But of course, if you've already got a job with long hours, where you're never at home and your eyes and skin are weathered down by the elements, where your fatiguing body is exposed in the hot sun or the biting wind, and your brain is drained, and where, if you have a bad day at the office, you don't get paid, then maybe, yes, professional golf really is a dream destination.
And yes, at least there's no heavy lifting. That's what caddies are for.
Many people think that caddies have the easiest job of all, but caddies have it even worse. They get all the time consuming travel, the physical demands and more, the long days in the sun, and most of all, they have to depend on someone else for a paycheck.
If some hack slices and yips your percentage away, all you can do is watch. And wince. And hand them another club. And hope they choke on it.
(Actually, that's not true. Caddies are very soothing, understanding people. Unlike most of us, who would be "back-seat drivers" until someone hit us with a 9-iron.)
It still sounds great to you, doesn't it? I'm not convincing you at all, am I? How often do you golf? Once, twice a week? Three times if you're lucky?
And what do you do when you pau golf? That's right. You drink beer and tell lies to your friends. Don't try to deny it. Your wife knows already.
Pro golfers golf some more. And some more. They hit balls. And putt. And think about golf. And hit more. And go home to a hotel room. And wonder why their swing isn't working. (You should have seen Annika Sorenstam talk to her caddie yesterday. Her body language said, "What the hell is going on out here?")
And then they get up in a strange bed in a strange city and do it again. If they're lucky enough to make the cut.
But then, nobody held a gun to their heads and forced them to play a recreational game for millions of dollars.
There are perks. Of course, there are perks.
"Free food, free drinks," an awed Michelle Wie said.
Wait, maybe you're right. That sounds like the perfect job after all.
Kalani Simpson's column runs Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
He can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com