ON PGA TOUR, BREAKING EVEN IS AS CRUCIAL AS BREAKING PAR (Published 1981) (2024)

THAT golf professionals are entirely on their own, even to the purchase of a soft drink from the concession stand, explains why their community has no sympathy for striking baseball players. A golfer is an independent entrepreneur who makes and pays for his own travel arrangements. There is no salary, no guaranteed purse. If he fails to qualify on Monday, he has spent money and lost a week without earning a dime. If he makes the field but misses Friday's 36-hole cut, he has spent more money and time, and still not earned a dime. And even if he makes it through to the final round Sunday, he could come out with less than $1,000 in earnings.

Last season only 73 touring golf professionals, of a total of more than 250, topped $50,000 in winnings on the PGA Tour. That figure is barely above the minimum the players say they need to break even, and as a result many of them must seek income from such related activities as pro-ams.

Their life is not the easy one it often appears to be. The less successful and even those in the middle range depend on personal sponsors - often affluent businessmen with an enthusiasm for golf - who advance money for expenses, advances that must be repaid out of earnings.

Most golf pros work a six-day week. On Monday they play either a qualifying round or a pro-am. There is also a Wednesday pro-am preceding a tournament. And finally there is the tournament itself, Thursday through Sunday. Some pros find themselves working seven days a week, perhaps practicing on Tuesday.

Every year dozens vanish from the tour. Some leave by choice; the grind has worn them down - they and their wives - and they haven't earned enough money to live on. Others are forced out by a regulation stipulating that a player forfeits his tour card if he fails to win a specific amount, about $9,100 the first year and $12,000 each succeeding year.

Among those who leave are long-established pros. Larry Ziegler, Gibby Gilbert and Mike Hill will quit full-time competition at the end of this season. Another veteran, Dave Stockton, says he is thinking of doing so.

Recent interviews with players yielded a consensus: It costs around $1,000 a week to travel the tour, counting such expenses as transportation, room, meals. Costs of air travel are stunning. Caddie fees range from $150 to $200 a week plus 4 to 5 percent of the winnings, occasionally more. The better a golfer places in the money, the higher his caddie expenses.

For a full year, the consensus is, it costs $30,000 to $45,000 to break even. (One redeeming factor is that with travel and business expenses so close to total income, tax problems are not exceptionally severe in the middle and lower ranges.) The biggest variable is the number of tournaments a golfer plays, 25, 30, 35 or whatever. Other variables include personal life style and tastes; whether air travel or road travel; whether a player's wife (and small children) travel with him.

Some travel as cheaply as they can, sharing motel rooms and cars with other players. Others insist on living above bare minimum, because pride and self-esteem are involved. Mike Holland, a tour rookie who has a sponsor, believes scrimping would affect his game. ''I go first class,'' he says. ''I feel as long as I have the money, and I'm not going to be here forever, you might as well enjoy it while you can.''

Most players try a mix - a top-rate hotel now and then, a barely adequate one the rest of the time. Fly the long trips. Drive the shorter runs, hoping the car will hold up.

Finances being what they are, ''official'' purse money is only part of what most touring golfers must earn. Nearly all supplement those winnings with extracurricular golf. That is an economic fact of life, like built-in overtime. Outside activities, for the most part, are the Monday pro-ams, but also included are outings of companies entertaining customers or executives. The player gets a fee of $500 to $1,500.

David Thore, who held a golf scholarship at Wake Forest, is 27 years old and has forfeited his touring card twice. He has twice failed the qualifying school, the 72-hole competition in which aspirants vie for a limited number of cards.

Having earned his third card in June 1980, Thore struggled, and last month things looked particularly bleak: He needed $1,931 to reach the target of $9,157 set by the tour for first-year players. As insurance, he went to the qualifying school then in session to try for a new card. He failed. But there was still enough time remaining on the old card to enter the Memphis Classic. Thore got hot there and sank a lot of putts. He tied for sixth and won $10,425. He had gone to the wall and come back, walking.

''If I hadn't made it at Memphis,'' he said the other day, ''I would go back to qualifying school and do it again. Until I've exhausted every effort, I'll keep trying. I've been doing nothing else but playing golf since I was 9.''

Like many other young players for whom success has been difficult, Thore says that ''you can't play your own game'' under these conditions. The need to make the cut, he says, forces most young pros to play conservatively.

No longer quite a youth, but a struggler nonetheless, is 33-yearold Ed Dougherty, once a semipro baseball player. Dougherty tells a joke about himself. ''I was leading Westchester,'' he says, ''and they put my name on the leader board. The lead didn't last long. By the time they reached the Y, they were taking down the D.''

Dougherty, who has earned less than $3,000 this year, now has sponsorship for the first time in his career, and his first priority is to pay back the money with his first $20,000 in winnings. He tries to find motel rooms costing perhaps $20 a night, or at discount rates arranged by the tournament. He travels mostly in an old Cadillac that had 147,000 miles on it before the transmission broke. He feels the effect of a $14 phone call, of $35 spent for a tank of gas.

''If I was married, I could not do what I am doing,'' Dougherty says. ''I wouldn't want to put a wife through this grind.'' Lennie Clements, who was an all-American at San Diego State, failed two qualifying schools in 1979 and 1980. He earned his touring card by another route, entering a series of 10 tournaments in the hope of winning the required $9,157. This spring Clements was near the deadline, and he still had to earn $250. He missed the cut at Inverrary; he could not get into the Doral-Eastern; he missed the cut at Greensboro. His last chance was the Magnolia Classic, a satellite event opposite the Masters. There Clements finished fifth and won $3,100. Since then he has won $8,000, and for this year, he says, he is ''in the clear.''

''My first objective was to get my card, whichever way it had to be done,'' Clements said during last weekend's Greater Milwaukee Open. ''Then I kept making cuts - I've made 12 or 13 of the last 18.''

That success notwithstanding, Clements is still battling the firstyear syndrome, in which he has to acclimate himself to a whole new world and new people, travel constantly, pay bills, learn new golf courses, learn to play under conditions that change every week. All these factors affect a rookie's game. ''I've not played the best golf I can play,'' Clements says.

One pro who exemplifies those grappling with finances in the middle range is Morris Hatalsky, 29. His best year was 1979, when he won $62,000. This year he has won $17,086, not including money from proams and contracts with manufacturers of equipment and clothing.

Hatalsky says that his ''most conservative break-even point is $42,000,'' reflecting expenses for himself, his wife and their infant son - ''and that is living on a moderate level.''

Hatalsky is a qualifier, but he gets into many tournaments by making the cut the preceding week. ''Even a nonexempt player who's doing halfway decent gets invitations to pro-ams for $500 to $1,000,'' Hatalsky says. ''That takes care of part of the expenses for the coming week.''

Then there are the established players who are giving up the tour. Gibby Gilbert, 40, has toured since 1968, has won three tournaments and has consistently been in the top 60 on the earnings list. Last year he won $108,603, for 40th place. But, to hear him tell it, that's not a lot. Traveling on the tour costs him $1,000 a week, and, besides his desire to put his three sons through college, he has a home in Chattanooga to maintain.

''This year I'm up to $45,000 on the tour, and I need at least another 25,'' Gilbert said in a trailer shop where his 3-wood was being reshafted during the Greater Milwaukee Open. ''If I do make it, plus something on the side, I still will show very little profit. I believe I could make $50,000 a year at home and make out better than I do on the tour.''

Gilbert is ready to test that premise. He has a head-pro job ''99 percent assured,'' he says, at a new club in Chattanooga. Larry Ziegler has had it after 17 years, especially with ''expenses getting tough.'' He figures he needs about $60,000 a year to break even and about $80,000 for everything - tour expenses, maintaining his home in St. Louis and supporting his wife and two children in reasonable comfort.

Ziegler is looking forward to an ''oppportunity to be civilized,'' a reference to his forthcoming job as director of golf at a club in Hollywood, Fla. He will be permitted to play up to 15 tournaments, primarily in summer, when the Florida season is slow.

Mike Hill, after 13 years and three victories, is ready to leave. His older brother Dave also has just about left the tour. Mike Hill intends to take a club job in Michigan and grow soybeans, corn and beef cattle on his farm.

''It's not possible to make 45 and spend 45 and be away from your family.'' he says.