Oller: Miles and miles before they sleep. Golfers on lower-level tours pay their dues
Alex Weiss is thankful for small victories, like being able to store stinky golf shoes in the enclosed bed of his truck to avoid having a smelly cabin.
You think Tiger Woods worries about that?
Weiss recently bought the truck from a car dealer friend near Lakeland, Florida. He wanted the extended cab to feel like home because, well, it kind of is. During a typical golf season, the touring pro from Pickerington who lives in Davenport, Florida, will put more miles on his vehicle in a month than many drivers do in a year.
Such is the long-haul life of a professional golfer playing the myriad tours that are a notch or three below the PGA Tour. No private jets to whisk you from one first-class tournament to the next. Just double-digit-hour drives, with commercial flights mixed in when the miles run too long to get behind the wheel. Like when playing in Argentina, Columbia and Brazil, where instead of being pampered like Ryder Cup regulars the lower-tier guys need to pick and choose meals carefully.
And sometimes pick wrong.
After graduating from Pickerington North, Weiss played golf at Marshall, then moved to Florida and became a pro in 2018. His first week as a professional took him to Panama, where one night he ate something that disagreed with him, violently.
“I ended up getting food poisoning,” Weiss said. Between bouts of “puking on the sidewalk,” the only pharmacy he could find on a Sunday morning was a hole in the wall.
“Just a lady working out of a window,” he said. “She didn’t speak English. I only spoke a little Spanish. She ended up selling me three pills in a paper sack, unmarked, for like 72 cents. They worked.”
Somehow, I don’t see Rory McIlroy having to purchase anti-nausea pills the same way, but that’s life on the Latinoamerica Tour.
Did we mention Weiss had his passport stolen in Panama?
“That was my first real week of professional golf,” he said, managing a small smile.
Things are much better on the Korn Ferry Tour, which is the big time compared to some of golf’s mini-tours. Weiss won’t be playing the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship this week at the Ohio State Scarlet course, but the 27-year-old accepted an invitation to participate in Monday’s pro-am. From there, he was driving to West Virginia to play another pro-am, then hunkering down to hone his game for Tour qualifying school next month.
For a few weeks, then, he gets a breather from having to nickel and dime his way across the country.
“I’ll kill dollars any way I can,” he said. “Usually if I’m staying in a hotel I’m probably splitting the room cost with somebody else. I’ve been staying with my caddie (Ben Roeder), who was my college roommate. Last week (in Boise) the cheapest thing we could find within 25 minutes of the golf course was a Sleep Inn. It still ran us $110 a night so we split that up.”
Life on the road used to be even more challenging before Weiss collected a $100,000 paycheck in 2021 for winning the Colorado Open. He feels blessed to have received early financial support from a fundraiser organized by Turnberry pro Scott Jones, and he has playing privileges at his home course in Florida, the Country Club of Winter Haven, but memories of how his career began are hard-wired into how he budgets.
“When I first moved to Florida I took $50 to Wal-Mart on Monday and that was my food money for the week,” he said “Cereal or eggs in the morning and cold cuts for lunch. I’d make a meal from rice, ground beef and beans and eat it every night for seven nights. I stretched it out pretty good.”
His 2023 season has been disappointing, with too many missed cuts, but he still figures to break even.
Why keep grinding out a life of 11-hour drives, budget hotels and value-menu meals, all on a career earnings of $141,580?
“The only time I would consider pulling the plug would be if I feel like, 1. I can’t get better; and 2. my best stuff isn’t good enough,” he explained. “I’m not there yet. As long as I have the time and the money and the ability, I’m going to keep doing it.”
It is tempting to feel a bit sorry for players grinding below the PGA Tour, but 35-year-old Evan Harmeling said to not play a sad violin for him, because he has never felt cheated.
The Boston native is anything but discouraged about how things have gone on the Korn Ferry Tour, and before that the Latin American and Canadian tours.
“The exact opposite,” said Harmeling, who tees off Thursday at Scarlet having earned $482,421 over an 11-year career, the past six on the Korn Ferry Tour. “Sure, I want to play on the PGA Tour. My goal has always been to play in the Masters, but it’s definitely not been the short end of the stick.”
Harmeling, who lives in Jacksonville, Florida, is as much an adventurer as golfer, and delights in rattling off the enriching experiences he has enjoyed through his travels.
“I get in the (local culture and cuisine) mix more than anyone out here, especially when I was single,” said the married father of two young girls. “I’d finish my round and immediately go and get into the mix.”
The mix certainly has had its moments. Earlier this month, Harmeling stumbled into a “sauna house” during a trip to Belgium for DP World Tour stage qualifying. Little did he know that the place was, as he put it, “a place you would bring a lady, or 10 people, an orgy spot.”
Harmeling ranks the Latinoamerica Tour as the most fun, and in at least one way the most rewarding. He met his future wife in Brazil. And the food? Fantastic.
“My second tournament after I got down there was in Mazatlan, Mexico,” he said. “This 400-pound guy gets us in an airport taxi and we say, ‘Take us to your street taco spot.’ And we go and they’re pressing tortillas right in front of you. Incredible.”
But even Harmeling admits life on the smaller tours can be both challenging and confusing.
“Oh my gosh, I’ve been with my family the last two weeks and we got into our (Columbus) Airbnb at 1 a.m. and when I woke up we were going for groceries and I legit did not know where I was.”
He knows where he was not – on the PGA Tour. But that’s OK. He believes you can experience interesting culture and cuisine anywhere. So I sent him to Momo Ghar.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Golfers who toil below PGA Tour must watch budget as much as golf ball
