# Tour Golf

Golf is a tough sport, not in a physical sense of course. I've never heard anyone whince when they see something on the golf course, unless maybe someone gets hit with a ball, but that's almost always a spectator. So when I say it's a tough sport, I mean the mental side, the fine margins and the ease in which someone can fall out of the top 100 to 200 and suddenly be worrying about their tour cards.

We look at our TVs on a Sunday to see how the big tournaments fair out. We see around 80 players with ridiculous tan lines on their foreheads smiling at the cameras. They tend to have beautiful wives, fame and galleries of fans. It looks like some life and I would for the most part, it is. What you don't see is the sacrifices, the hours and hours and hours spent practicing and then when all is said and done, the vast majority end up as a club pro, a coach or a caddy. The dreams of green jackets are replaced by green oversized trousers on a 27 handicapper hacker that just can't seem to get the ball in the air. At least they can charge then €80 per hour I suppose, but it's a long way from Augusta.

The margins are just so fine, and the difference between the best of the best and the regular pros is like the difference between a handicap of 2 and a handicap of 22 or so I'm told. I suppose the worst must be getting as far as the Korn Ferry tour or the Challenge tour and never progressing beyond that. So close, but yet so far. These guys don't make much Benjamins either, even the regular winners are making very little. In fact most of them basically need a nestegg or somebody bank rolling them in order to survive on the second tier tours. You see there are lots of expenses from hotels to golf clubs, nutrition to air travel and there are not that many numbers on the green side of the ledger to balance things, unless you win every week and if you do that then you will make it to the top tier USPGA tour or European Tour.

# A short history of Power

Seamus Power was born in Waterford, Ireland in 1987 and has been very well thought of in Irish golfing circles for a long time. I know semi pros who used to play against him as a juvenile and it was always clear that Seamus had the potential to make the big time.

Power, like any Irish golfer looking to make it got a scholarship to play college golf in America. He played college golf at East Tennessee State University where he won five times including the Atlantic Sun Conference Championship in 2007 and 2010.

After he graduated from, Power like many before him had to ply his trade on mini-tours while attempting to qualify for the Web.com Tour. He won two events on the eGolf Professional Tour in 2014 and earned his Web.com Tour card for 2015 through qualifying school. All of these endeavours cost money, as explained above but luckily Seamus could afford it.

He had two top-10 finishes on the Web.com Tour in his first year and played consistently finishing 72nd on the money list, which was enough to retain his card on the Web.com tour.

In May 2016, he won the United Leasing & Finance Championship, becoming the first Irish player to win on the Web.com Tour. In 2016 he also achieved a lifetime ambiton of representing Ireland at the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

# Coming of Age

Seamus has never done it the easy way and back in 2016/2017, he looked primed to make the top 25 on the web.com tour and claim his PGA tour card. He had a nightmare of a final tournament and in the end squeezed in by a mere $287 claiming the 25th and final place.

In his nerve-racking day of golf at Atlantic Beach golf club in Florida, Power was in and then he was out and then he was in again and out again about a dozen times. He somehow summoned the strength to birdie the 18th to make the cut right on the cut line. He finished out with very average rounds of 70 and 71 and a total of -6, which was 17 shots away from the winner, but the cheque for $2,975 was just enough to keep inside the top 25, just.

He has managed to retain his card since, again just, but this year he is really showing his true potential and has been there or there abouts in lots of tournaments and currently sits at 49th in the world rankings, making Augusta in April tantalising possible - the top 50 golfers in the world the week before the Masters are invited. Check out some of these finishes:

# Breakthrough Win

After years of huffing and puffing on the PGA tour, always with one eye looking backwards over his shoulder, this past few months, Seamus has ploughed on and found his mojo. That potential that had been seen in him since he first swung a club in the early 90s has started to blossom and although Seamus will never have doubted himself, his scores and play are causing others to sit up and take note.

In July 2021, Power finally won his first PGA Tour event. He played his socks of at the Barbasol Championship and prevailed in a tense play off against JT Poston which took a full six play off holes. The win took grit, determination, belief and golfing brilliance. The win helped Power join an elite and short list of Irish winners on the PGA Tour. He can now be talked about in the same breath as Pat Doyle, Peter O'Hara, Pádraig Harrington and Shane Lowry. Power broke into the top 50 for the first time in his career on 17 January 2022, following a third-place finish at the Sony Open in Hawaii, meaning he looks likely to get an invite to all of the majors in 2022 if he can keep his form going.

The future is bright for Waterford's brightest son, that's for sure, and like Shane Lowry he is likeable and I reckon most golf fans will want the Irishman to do well. He is at it again this weekend and is very much in the hunt going into the final round at The American Express. Go on Seamus ya good thing!

That's it. Thanks a lot for stopping by.

The photos used throughout are not my own and were sourced at www.pixabay.com and https://www.irishmirror.ie/

Peace Out