A taste of tour life; why a pro-am serves up anticipation, exhilaration and humiliation—for us and, occasionally, for them

Golf Digest, Jan, 2004 by David Owen

SCOTT MCCARRON TOOK HIS FAMILY WITH HIM TO THE 1996 LINCOLN-Mercury Kapalua International. It was just his second year on tour and he was concerned about the cost of the trip, so he was happy to learn that a "professional-amateur" party had been scheduled for Tuesday night--a free meal and an evening's entertainment for himself and his entourage.

At the party, however, McCarron noticed with growing unease that he seemed to be the only professional in attendance. Suddenly, he understood why: The event wasn't a friendly get-together for competitors and fans, as he had assumed; it was the "pairings party," at which teams of amateurs would choose their professional partners for the following day's pro-am. "I had flashbacks to kickball in elementary school," he said later. He hid in the bar with his father, returning only to beg mercy from the members of the next-to-last amateur team--who, after a lengthy, whispered deliberation, grudgingly agreed to pick him.

McCarron told this story (and got big laughs) at another pairings party, the one held before the pro-am at the Western Open last July. Once again, he was the only pro in attendance, although this time he had an official function, as one of the evening's emcees. I was there, too, because I had pretty much begged Golf Digest--a "presenting sponsor" of the Western--to let me play.

The selection of pros took place after dinner, when McCarron picked our partners for us, by blindly drawing their names from a bowl--a humiliation-proof method, perhaps devised by him. We all wanted Tiger, of course, or, barring him, Phil Mickelson. Both of those guys were still available when my team's number came up, so my heart was pounding as McCarron unfolded our assignment. And, sure enough, believe it or not--I swear the system wasn't rigged--we got J.P. Hayes.

Fantasy (ours) vs. dread (theirs)

Every tournament on the PGA Tour except the Players Championship, the four World Golf Championships and the four majors has at least one pro-am. (The LPGA, Nationwide and Champions tours have pro-ams, too.) Most pro-ams are one-day events, and most are played on Wednesday of tournament week, the day before the real competition begins. The amateur participants are usually local fat cats--the entry fee for the Western pro-am was $4,500, and it was nonrefundable in the event of bad weather--plus a handful of freeloaders (like me) who are tight with one of the sponsors.

For a typical golf fan, playing in a pro-am is a fantasy come true. It's a chance to spend five hours getting on the nerves of a real tour player, and it provides numerous opportunities to obtain personalized mementos that can later be sold on eBay. Participants also get free stuff--in this instance, a dorky-looking but possibly somewhat expensive leather briefcase, half a dozen golf balls, a golf glove and a small box containing two of the three liquid ingredients of a cocktail called the Ultimate Cosmopolitan.

The excitement felt by the amateurs in any pro-am is almost exactly offset by the dread felt by the professionals, most of whom would prefer to be mowing their lawn, if not their neighbor's lawn. But the tour requires the top pros to take part, mainly because pro-ams generate favorable PR and make tournament sponsors happy. Outwardly, at least, most pros try to be good sports. A few, inexplicably, even seem to flourish: Five of Mark O'Meara's first eight tour victories came at tournaments with multi-day pro-ams.

To be quite honest, when the Western pairings were announced on Tuesday night, I was a little unclear about the difference between J.P. Hayes and J.L. Lewis--or, for that matter, between J.L. Lewis and J.J. Henry. On the tee the next morning, though, I recognized Hayes almost immediately. (His name was printed in large capital letters on the side of his bag.) I also met the three other amateurs in our fivesome: Bill, who is the CEO of a company that makes "liquefied gas aerosol propellants and foam blowing agents" (handicap: 8); Kenny, a youngish Eurodollar-options trader (11); and Norm, a stockbroker approaching retirement (11). My handicap was 13.

Our first hole was the 10th on Dubsdread, which is the best of the four excellent courses at Cog Hill. The 10th is a short par 4-380 yards for Hayes and 329 for us. The fairway angles to the left and is flanked on both sides by leafy trees. Hayes hit driver, bombing his ball over the inside corner of the dogleg, leaving him less than a wedge to the flag. Then Norm hit the first of his many perfect drives up the middle, Bill hit a decent drive to the left side of the fairway, Kenny pulled his tee shot slightly, into the rough on the left, and I hit a solid 5-wood, giving me 125 yards to the flag. I followed my excellent tee shot with a smooth 9-iron, holding my finish, pro-style, as my ball soared high, landed on the green and stopped 15 to 20 feet from the hole. Walking up to mark my ball, I twirled my putter in my right hand and made various good-natured remarks to my caddie, blithely unaware that I had just hit my last good shot of the day.