Picking up a Passion

There are a lot of people in this world that love golf, know the game well and may even be fine golfers, but obviously not everybody can play on the PGA Tour, so a good portion of those people just settle for making golf a backburner hobby.

One of the unfortunate realities of this world is that money is a necessity, which for many people means putting their passions on the backburner in the name of a steady job and/or a reliable career. How many people wake up when they are 40 and realize that they are not and never have been all that happy with their careers? It just so happened that when they finished high school or college, they needed to start making money right away, so they took the first entry-level job they could find and just worked their way up over the years, got comfortable and mistook that for happiness and satisfaction.

Golf people, though, have an option because unlike many other sports golf is also one of the more popular hobbies out there, which creates a lot of so-called "golf jobs." Just think of how many people belong to country clubs or have a Sunday morning tee-time at the local public course; of all the people at the driving range throughout the day. Think of how many business deals are discussed and closed on the golf course; people could not be a part of that if they could not golf competently. And what about those youngsters that want to be Tiger Woods? Nike doesn´t have several lines of golf shoes just for the handful of rich country club members and golfers on the PGA tour.

Where do people learn to play golf? Who teaches them?

Obviously people learn at their local courses; the people who teach them, though, are not necessarily PGA tour golfers. Typically, those teachers are certified PGA Club Professionals, sometimes called golf professionals. The word "professional" may sound intimidating, but these people are not necessarily pro-golfers, rather they are professional teachers. And it is a status that anybody can reasonably attain through simple golf education and training, either through an apprenticeship with a PGA Club Pro or through a collegiate education program, which typically includes post-graduate job placement.

There´s no reason for anybody who truly loves golf to put his or her passion on the backburner in the name of a career, when a career in the game is within anybody´s grasp.