A Good Walk Spoiled: Chapters 9-11, Pages 212-313

I have found out that most of the players written about in the book had a good family life when they were children. A lot of the time you hear about living in a poor community and how they only way out is to succeed in their chosen sport to make the big money. The fact is that golf is a rich mans sport. It's not life basketball where you can put a hoop up at home and play by yourself. To play golf, you need the hundred dollar clubs, the balls, clothes and golf course membership. That's why it is weird reading about someone who made $1.165 million one year finishing 53rd on the money list back in the mid '90s and then fall the next year to $320,000. I would just like to make the difference off of the two years and be happy with that.

That doesn't tell the whole story. A player that finds himself having a breakout year will get invited to these unofficial big money tournament overseas or in a make for T.V. event competing against a handful of other top players for hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, the next year the player may not finish as well as he did the year before because all of the extra golf played and the extra attention that they are getting. If a sponser comes up to a player and offers a player $5,000 a week to wear a hat with their logo on it, it would be impossible to turn them down. The real problem is when a golf club maker asks you to switch to their clubs for double the money you were making using the other guys clubs. Players cash in on this possible once in a lifetime opportunity and switch clubs without even thinking. Most of the time that player will struggle with the new clubs, so the money that's being gained off the golf course through sponser is being lost on it with new, unfamilar equipment.