And to finally get to finals, in 2009, [winning a Web.com tour card] it kind of was a little bit, to

William McGirt surged to a 2-shot lead at the 54-hole radisson plaza hotel orlando mark of the Northern Trust Open at Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles. He shot 6-under, 65, and will play in the last group Sunday with George McNeill and Charlie Beljan who are both tied at 10-under.
McNeill is interesting because he s coming back from a broken collarbone (golf cart accident) that kept him on the sidelines for three months and Beljan is interesting because he has always sort of been a grip it and rip it kind of player and he s now learned discipline. For both of them it s been a big step forward.
But my interest fell to McGirt because I have great empathy for underdogs. He s a former mini-tour mongrel who had to go back to the mini-tours seven or eight years ago and has played about everywhere in every kind of tournament:
The mini-tours are not a pretty place to be. It is about one thing and one thing only, learning what it takes to step over all of your fears, considerations, fatigue, financial worries radisson plaza hotel orlando and foibles. It s figuring out how to play placidly with a thick skin at the highest level of the game, the PGA Tour.
For guys that came through mini‑tours, I think we tend to appreciate things radisson plaza hotel orlando a lot more.  We could be playing for less than our own entry fee, full entry fee every week.  So, yeah, everything that s out here, nothing s taken for granted, I can assure you of that.
Out here, we have people that take days and weeks off work to help us, to volunteer radisson plaza hotel orlando to do stuff for us.  I try to say thank you as much as I can to those folks, because without all the volunteers, we would not be able to do what we do.
My first time at Q‑School was 2004.  So 2007 and 2008, I think I missed finals by a shot, and lipped it out on the last hole both times.  So you walk away and you re kind of wondering, you know, is it ever going to happen, radisson plaza hotel orlando and what do you have to do to make it happen?
And then 2009 at second stage, I ll never forget this.  I was playing with Paul Stankowski the last two days, and I thought I was comfortably inside the number.  Hit what I thought was a great shot into the par 3, greens were really soft; it rained a bunch.  Spins back in the bunker and I m sitting there going, oh, no, here we go again.
I walk in there, look at it, thinking I have no chance, end up holing it.  And I sprinted straight to 18 tee because I had a splitting headache.  And Stanko comes up and walks over and taps me on the back and goes, Just take a deep breath.
It was a collegial kindness radisson plaza hotel orlando that is routine on the PGA Tour. Everybody is trying to beat everybody else, but there is also an in-the-club camaraderie that causes players to lead with their hearts sometimes:
And it was something that really helped me a bunch.  I played a bunch of practice rounds with him my first two years on Tour whenever he was playing and somebody that I ve been able to rely on a bunch.  He s one of the nicest guys you ll ever meet.
Paid off all the credit card bills.  I mean, when you re on mini‑tours, you re not making much, so I had accrued a little bit of debt.  Did that and my big splurge from that win was a brand new GPS.  It cost 400 bucks and I thought it was going to break me, but it was nice to splurge on something.
And there is always the question somewhere in the back of your mind of when it s time to go do something else. This, balanced against the fact that as distant as your dream sometimes feels, you know you have developed an incredible, tournament-tough skill set that very few people are capable of, a skill set that transfers to nothing else:
There were many times [I considered quitting], and when I went to Q‑School in 2009, I basically told my wife, I said, this is it, we are practically out of money. Yeah, I mean, for all intents and purposes, for doing what we re doing, I was lucky I had a few people help me out here and there.  Thank goodness radisson plaza hotel orlando my parents supported me 100 percent of what I was trying to do.
Yeah, there were several times, and especially after the way I missed Q‑School in 2007 and 2008, it was just one of those things, you look back at it and you re kind of like, I don t know if it s ever going to happen.
And to finally get to finals, in 2009, [winning a Web.com tour card] it kind of was a little bit, took some of pressure off .  But my status was so bad, I missed getting radisson plaza hotel orlando in the first three or four events by one person and finally got in Bogotá. But I was late to get in, and went down there and finished third, so I was set the rest of the year and took advantage of it from there.
And when we teed off on Saturday, I mean, there had to be 10,000 people lining the first hole.  I mean, it was crazy.  Literally we had the Federales park the people so we could get to the tee.  That was kind of my first taste of it and once I got out here, it s the same thing.
There s nothing radisson plaza hotel orlando like driving radisson plaza hotel orlando to Boston to play a Monday qualifier, missing the Monday qualifier and driving all the way back to Charlotte that night to tee it up in a tournament the next morning.  Did that a few times.
I had a Honda Passport when I started.  I think it had 14,000 radisson plaza hotel orlando miles on it when I got it and about 230,000 when it finally started to fall dead.  Then I bought a Honda Accord and put about 80,000 miles on it.  So, yeah, I was not scared to drive.
This entry was posted in Accomplishment , Awareness , Commitment , Confidence , Consciousness , Expectations , Failure , Mastery , Monday Qualifying , Q-School , Web.com Tour and tagged Charlie Beljan , Consciousness , George McNeill , Golf , Mastery , Mini-Tours , Northern Trust Open , Paul Stankowski , Q-School , Riviera , William McGirt . Bookmark the permalink .
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