Boredom Sets In

In my month without tournament golf, I've had to find other things to do. You can only practice so much in a day. To occupy some time yesterday I started digging up my backyard. When I get enough grass dug up I'll plant some bent grass seed and magically I'll have my very own putting green (or at least a large patch of bentgrass). I haven't really thought about how much time it would take to maintain, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I really need to get back in action.

My Story

I've been around golf all my life. My dad is a pro as well (played the Nationwide Tour and in 2 PGA Championships), so I learned the game from him. Still, my first love was baseball, so I didn't play as much golf when I was growing up. When I got to high school I decided to focus on golf and I haven't looked back. I won the state championship as a junior, and ended up the team captain of the University of Utah golf team. I won several amateur tournaments during my college golf career, but I never played even close to my best in any college tournaments. I was an "academic" All-American (combination of grades and scoring average) in my junior and senior years.

When I finished school golf (and graduated) last year, I was ready to play for myself and to make a bit of money. I got off to a roaring start, finishing 4th, 2nd, and 3rd in my first three tournaments as a pro. The rest of the year went pretty good, although I didn't get a win. I ended the year with 11 top ten finishes in 25 tournaments (including 8 top 5's). That being said, I didn't exactly rake in the dough. I made enough money to keep myself out of the red, but I wasn't able to enter the tour qualifying last fall. The $4,500 price tag can be quite hefty to someone without a sponsor.

Anyhow, the first six tournaments of this year have been hit or miss. I seemed to have come out of the Utah winter with more rust than usual, and I haven't been able to get in every tournament I thought I would. The local section of the PGA hasn't been letting me play in most local tournaments (me not being a club pro), so I am excited to hit the road in a week or so. My last competitive score was a 64 at the Saltwater Classic (Riverton, WY) that helped climb from out of the money to a tie for 9th. The thing is, that was almost a month ago. Having that much time off is torture, especially when you need to make a check. I've been working hard on my game during that time off, but I'm itching for some real competition. The Wyoming Open starts on July 7th, followed by the Salt Lake City Open, the Denver Open, and the Colorado Open. The rest of the summer should be action packed.

My Road

My name is Luke Swilor. I play professional golf for a living. I'm planning on using this blog to talk about life playing mini-tour golf tournaments as I try to get to the PGA Tour. I don't have a tournament in the next few weeks, but starting in July I should have at least one tournament a week until PGA Tour school in October and November. I will post more after each tournament. I hope to give people an idea of what it's like to play golf for a living away from the PGA Tour. More to come.