Being a professional golfer requires a lot of time and dedication. You’ll need to develop your skills through lessons and constant practice. Finding a reliable golf partner or joining a local golf club can help you get the experience you need to become a pro. Once you hone your skills, you will need to participate and excel in amateur and professional tournaments to become a professional golfer.
How to Become a Professional Golfer: Method 1 Develop your Skills
Step 1
Start playing as early in life as possible. You or someone you know dreams of becoming a professional golfer, it’s important to start as early as possible. If you are a child or teenager, don’t wait until you are an adult to start fulfilling your dreams. If you are an adult, start playing today.
The sooner you start playing golf, the sooner you can reach your goal of becoming a professional golfer.
Step 2
Take golf lessons. Even if you played golf for years, you can still benefit from golf lessons. Lessons offer the opportunity to hone particular skill sets and get feedback from your instructor. Try taking golf lessons at your local golf course, or even sign up for a class through your local high school or college.
Ask friends, family, and other golfers for suggestions on good golf instructors.
See what kind of lessons the local country club or golf course offers.
Step 3
Be consistent in your golf practice routine. To become a professional golfer, you must play golf regularly. Spend time practicing your short game and putting, as well as fairway and greenside golf.
Start by spending 10 hours per week playing golf on a golf course in a variety of settings.
Work up to 20 hours per week of golf practice.
Step 4
Master multiple skills. To become a professional golfer, you’ll need to work on specific skills that will help you achieve peak performance. You will need to master the skills of putting, sand trap, full club swing, ball striking, ball striking, ball striking, lob, and wedge approach.
Try to work on each individual skill during golf lessons, incorporating the instructor’s feedback.
Step 5
Spend enough time on each golf skill. While it is important to spend as much time as possible on the golf course, it is equally important that you devote time to each specific skill. Doing so will ensure that you develop a wide range of skills to your fullest potential.
Spend equal time each week working on putting, sand trap, full swing, ball striking, ball striking, ball striking, lob and approach wedge skills.
Step 6
Develop your mental skills. Becoming a professional golfer means working on mental and physical skills.
Most importantly, you must believe completely in yourself and your ability to master the game.
Let your confidence guide your game.
Method 2 Finding Opportunities to Play
Step 1
Find a reliable golf partner. To become a pro you need to improve your skills both through individual effort and through competition with others.
Finding someone you can play golf with regularly will help you become a better golfer and accelerate your journey down the professional path.
You can also post on online forums or use an app like Golf Match to find a local partner.
Step 2
Join a local golf club. Joining a local golf club offers many benefits. In addition to gaining experience, you’ll make connections with other golfers in your area.
Joining a local club can also get you invited to participate in the club’s tournament program, giving you opportunities to compete in local and regional tournaments.
Step 3
Compete in amateur tournaments. Don’t waste opportunities to play in local, regional, and national amateur golf tournaments.
These tournaments will give you a competitive experience. Playing in amateur tournaments will also allow you to become known on particular golf circuits, which will be helpful as you progress in your golf career.
Some amateur tournaments to consider include the USGA Amateur Championship and the USGA Amateur Public Links Championship.
Method 3 Turn Professional
For every professional golfer, playing on the PGA Tour is the ultimate dream. However, for anyone who wants to make it to the top tour and rub shoulders with the best in the world, the road is far from easy.
Obtaining a place in the PGA of the United States is very hard, it requires talent, work, discipline, sacrifice, money, and luck.
Step 1
Compete in multiple professional golf tournaments. Try to play in as many professional tournaments as possible. This will give you experience and exposure to other professional golfers and potential sponsors. Some tournaments to consider are the eGolf Professional Tour, the NGA Pro Golf Tour, and the Moonlight Tour.
You can sign up for the Moonlight Golf Tour.
You can enter the eGolf Professional Tour by registering on their website.
Step 2
Play in the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament. Also known as Qualifying School or Q School, it is played in 4 sequential stages. Players qualify for the stages sequentially, with only 144 players reaching the final stage. After the final stage, the top 25 players will qualify for the Web Tour.
Information on qualifying tour processes and registration can be found here.
Step 3
Win your PGA Tour Card. After qualifying for the Web.com Tour through the qualifying school, you will need to earn your PGA Tour card to become a true professional golfer. You can do this by winning 3 events on the Web.com Tour. You can also earn the card by finishing in the top 25 in total earnings for the Web.com regular season.
How to Become a Professional Golfer: The Process to Get There
The first step to reach the PGA qualification is a pre-qualification, in which players who do not have any status in any tour participate.
In that first stage, they involve all players who have any status in a mini-tour or have participated in the qualifying school in previous years. In 2010, 855 professionals played, of which 256 qualify.
The second stage involves the 256 previously qualified players, plus another 192 who for various reasons are exempt from participating in the first stage. This adds up to 448 players, of which 116 qualify for the third and final qualifying stage.
In that third stage, in 2010, a total of 156 players participated, 116 of them coming from the second stage and 40 exempted. Six rounds are played in two courses and only 29 of them obtained the privilege of playing in the 2011 PGA Tour.
In addition to the long road to be in the small group of those chosen to play with the best, the investment that players make for these stages is immense.
In 2010, the registration fee to play the qualification was 4,500 dollars per player plus transportation, hotel, meals, and caddie expenses in each of the stages. Around 10,000 or 12,000 dollars had to be invested to obtain the much-coveted card.
Learn more about How to Perfect your Golf Swing.
