Have you heard of Emiliano Grillo, Smylie Kaufman, Justin Thomas, Peter Malnati and Russell Knox? The media are calling these guys “first time winners” even though they may have won countless events over the years.
What is hard to describe to the everyday golfer is just how good you have to be to make it onto the PGA Tour and how dedicated these players are. Let’s take the name that is probably the least known to have won this year, Peter Malnati.
I had not heard his name before he won, so I looked at the PGA Tour website. He is 28 years old, has won twice on the Web.com Tour, played in 18 events on the PGA Tour in 2014. He had won 3 professional tournaments before getting on the Web.com tour, one as an amateur.
I am sure that Peter spends 6 days a week (or more) “grinding”. This means practising and playing, with small breaks, for probably 8 to 10 hours a day. He likely travels thousands of miles per year staying at mediocre hotels and eating out at chain restaurants all the while trying to figure out what works best for him.
Should he play 4 weeks in a row, or take a break? Should he play that smaller event to try and make some money or should he try and qualify for the bigger event? All that is over for these “first time winners”. They have a place to play for at least 2 years and all the other perks that come with a Tour win. But please don’t think that they came out of no where and just happened to get hot. These players have been preparing for that back nine on Sunday for most of their lives.
If you want to see what “grinding” looks like, just go down to the range at Bear Mountain and you will see Riley Wheeldongrinding it out. I know he was there yesterday and he decided to go to Phoenix for a Gateway Tour event because “no sense playing well and not making any money”. Wish him well and remember that some of the guys you see on your TV on Sunday were in Riley’s shoes just a short time ago.
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