The Difference While giving a desperate man a ride yesterday in order to purchase him some gas for his truck, the topic of occupations came up during our forced small talk. It pretty much went like this-
Me: So Clayton, what do you do?
Clayton: I drive a front end loader for a construction company, you?
Me: I'm a golf professional...
Clayton: Holy Shit! You ever play Tiger Woods?! (some subtext here- Clayton, being poor and black, has no a priori knowledge of the game or profession and I'm assuming loves Tiger Woods for being the only competitive black golfer- Vijay is Pacific Islander, so I'm not counting him- assumes I'm rich, forgetting I just walked out of a crappy duplex)
Me: No no, I'm a golf pro- not a touring pro.
I can't even begin to explain how often I have this conversation. While I'm sometimes deliberately vague at parties with the details on what I do in order to impress girls (and even if you try to explain, it still works... much more than "I'm studying electrical engineering"... which got me nowhere), it is very different than the players you see on tv. Being a PGA professional, also called a club professional, means that you jumped through x amount of hoops (filled some binders with crap, went to some seminars, did 16 months of internships, shot 155 or better over 36 holes of golf) in order to get your certification. A tour pro, or PGA player, either went through tour school or made enough money playing on sponsor exemptions, to get his card allowing him to enter PGA events. This card identifies him as one of a few hundred players in the world who are really good at golf. My professional status (which isn't really needed to obtain a job as a golf professional at a course) proves that I can play better than 99% of the population (it seems impressive except that 1% of the people who play golf in America is around 270,000 people) and qualifies me to run the business end of a golf course, giving lessons, and play in limited club pro events for purses generally in the low thousands of dollars. Tour pro status allows you to play in tournaments with purses in the millions. Basically, the only reason to get the certification is to make getting a job running a course easier and to give you some kind of certification to make people believe that they should pay you for golf lessons.
If you ever meet someone who claims to be a golf professional, keep this in mind before asking him why you haven't seen him on TV lately- chances are he isn't one of the less than 1% who actually plays golf for a living. Furthermore (if you want to impress him) don't use the word golf as a verb. It makes as much linguistic sense to go "golfing" as it does to go "footballing" or "tennising" ... and please-PLEASE- refrain from saying anything along the lines of "I golfed a...".
Golf aside, I've come to the conclusion that Cap'n Crunch's crunchberries (while delicious) should carry some kind of warning from the surgeon general on the box. Besides slashing your gums, I think the crunchberry dye is seriously affecting the color of my poop. Either that or I'm deathly ill...
Me: So Clayton, what do you do?
Clayton: I drive a front end loader for a construction company, you?
Me: I'm a golf professional...
Clayton: Holy Shit! You ever play Tiger Woods?! (some subtext here- Clayton, being poor and black, has no a priori knowledge of the game or profession and I'm assuming loves Tiger Woods for being the only competitive black golfer- Vijay is Pacific Islander, so I'm not counting him- assumes I'm rich, forgetting I just walked out of a crappy duplex)
Me: No no, I'm a golf pro- not a touring pro.
I can't even begin to explain how often I have this conversation. While I'm sometimes deliberately vague at parties with the details on what I do in order to impress girls (and even if you try to explain, it still works... much more than "I'm studying electrical engineering"... which got me nowhere), it is very different than the players you see on tv. Being a PGA professional, also called a club professional, means that you jumped through x amount of hoops (filled some binders with crap, went to some seminars, did 16 months of internships, shot 155 or better over 36 holes of golf) in order to get your certification. A tour pro, or PGA player, either went through tour school or made enough money playing on sponsor exemptions, to get his card allowing him to enter PGA events. This card identifies him as one of a few hundred players in the world who are really good at golf. My professional status (which isn't really needed to obtain a job as a golf professional at a course) proves that I can play better than 99% of the population (it seems impressive except that 1% of the people who play golf in America is around 270,000 people) and qualifies me to run the business end of a golf course, giving lessons, and play in limited club pro events for purses generally in the low thousands of dollars. Tour pro status allows you to play in tournaments with purses in the millions. Basically, the only reason to get the certification is to make getting a job running a course easier and to give you some kind of certification to make people believe that they should pay you for golf lessons.
If you ever meet someone who claims to be a golf professional, keep this in mind before asking him why you haven't seen him on TV lately- chances are he isn't one of the less than 1% who actually plays golf for a living. Furthermore (if you want to impress him) don't use the word golf as a verb. It makes as much linguistic sense to go "golfing" as it does to go "footballing" or "tennising" ... and please-PLEASE- refrain from saying anything along the lines of "I golfed a...".
Golf aside, I've come to the conclusion that Cap'n Crunch's crunchberries (while delicious) should carry some kind of warning from the surgeon general on the box. Besides slashing your gums, I think the crunchberry dye is seriously affecting the color of my poop. Either that or I'm deathly ill...
posted by Justin at 4:32 PM 
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