Sep 28, 2026 · 28 min · 9 segments
You can’t lose a coin flip on purpose. Trust me. I've tried. And it turns out, that’s a useful way to think about luck and skill. A golf professional needs to be able to reproduce the bad shots as…
At one point in my life, while working for Wells Fargo Financial, while living in a rented basement in Tacoma, while being force-fed Dido, white flag, 12 times a day, I decided I'd become a golf pro.
So I made my way to the driving range after work, hammered on a bucket, and finally got up the nerve to talk with the pro on staff.
It turns out, becoming a golf professional was going to be just a bit harder than I anticipated.
The criteria? In addition to adhering to the PGA Constitution and understanding all the rules, you'd need to show some proficiency with, you know, the actual game of golf.
I was a little closer to 10 over after 9, but perhaps with some practice and a lot of lessons from this guy, I could whittle away at my handicap.
Once you pass the PAT, you enter the swing anatomy and mechanics portion of your certification.
Hitting it straight, rolling it in, that's all well and good, but you need to know why you hit it straight and roll it in.
And more to the point, for those future clients, you need to know why they couldn't.
Can you step up to the tee box and hit a duck hook like Phil the oncologist who plays every Wednesday afternoon? Can you send a banana ball slicing into the other fairway like little Timmy did in the club championship? You'd better learn, because a certified golf professional needs to have the skill and ability to swing it like their clients, so they can fix those swings and give hope to yet another generation of golfers.
But with proper care and feeding from your local golf professional, you'll hit just enough good ones to keep you crawling back for more.
At one point in my life, while working for Wells Fargo Financial, while living in a rented basement in Tacoma, while being force-fed Dido, white flag, 12 times a day, I decided I'd become a golf pro.
So I made my way to the driving range after work, hammered on a bucket, and finally got up the nerve to talk with the pro on staff.
It turns out, becoming a golf professional was going to be just a bit harder than I anticipated.
The criteria? In addition to adhering to the PGA Constitution and understanding all the rules, you'd need to show some proficiency with, you know, the actual game of golf.
I was a little closer to 10 over after 9, but perhaps with some practice and a lot of lessons from this guy, I could whittle away at my handicap.
Once you pass the PAT, you enter the swing anatomy and mechanics portion of your certification.
Hitting it straight, rolling it in, that's all well and good, but you need to know why you hit it straight and roll it in.
And more to the point, for those future clients, you need to know why they couldn't.
Can you step up to the tee box and hit a duck hook like Phil the oncologist who plays every Wednesday afternoon? Can you send a banana ball slicing into the other fairway like little Timmy did in the club championship? You'd better learn, because a certified golf professional needs to have the skill and ability to swing it like their clients, so they can fix those swings and give hope to yet another generation of golfers.
But with proper care and feeding from your local golf professional, you'll hit just enough good ones to keep you crawling back for more.
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