After doing it’s best impersonation of the European Tour over the past couple of months, The Nationwide Tour has finally back on native shores this week as it travels to Bayou country for the Chitimacha Louisiana Open in Broussard, La. While that means the U.S contingent of Nationwide players gets their first chance to make their mark on the Top 25 on home soil, for those of us pros based in the U.S with little or no card, the Nationwide Tour returning to the states means one thing – Monday madness.

For those of you unaware, every Monday the PGA and Nationwide Tours run a qualifying tournament for those professionals and low handicap amateurs not already in the event for that week. There are 14 spots available for the Nationwide Tour’s Monday qualifying and 4 on the PGA Tour with the low scores of the day qualifying. Ties are determined by a playoff. The format boils down to, for all intents and purposes, “Go low, or go home.” 

Last week I logged more miles than a marathon runner attempting to qualify for the Chitimacha Louisiana Open and I thought I’d give you a run down of how it all went.

My roommate and I left Atlanta on Saturday morning at 9am and drove 5 hours south down interstates 85 then 65 to Mobile, Al where one of our traveling companions lives. As those who have been through Atlanta know, getting out of Atlanta on a weekday is virtually impossible. Rush hour in the morning stretches from 6am to 10am and from 4pm to 8pm in the afternoon. Needless to say we were fortunate to be traveling on the weekend and we made good time, arriving just in time to attend a friend and former tour player’s afternoon wedding on the beach.

While the festivities kicked on a little to late for the dedicated professionals amongst us, the three of us playing in the qualifier managed to drag ourselves out of bed Sunday morning and drive the final 5 hours to Louisiana, arriving in the mid afternoon. The final 30 minutes of the drive stretched on along rural back roads, winding through farmland and dirt-poor towns with front yards piled high with disheveled children’s playground swings and neglected, rusted Chevrolets and Dodge pick-ups. My roommate’s GPS couldn’t find the road we were on, planting us firmly in the middle of a field that didn’t exist. I guess satellites don’t hit that part of the country much. These are the places we have to qualify sometimes.

But we followed our noses and finally arrived at Squirrel’s Run Golf Course where we would all be qualifying the following day. We played a late practice round and practiced a little before heading to our hotel where we would attempt to cram the three of us into two king size beds. As you might imagine we take our drawing of straws very seriously. I would be teeing off at 8am the following day and both my mates would be off in the afternoon field at around 1.

My 6am wake up call came very early and I was on the range by 7 even though the sun was barely up. Despite making 4 birdies in 5 holes around the turn I couldn’t get anything going all day. Unfortunately, I also played a wrong ball during that stretch, halting any momentum I was building. It’s something I haven’t ever done, and I bogeyed the last two holes when it really didn’t matter to shoot 75. That certainly wasn’t going to be good enough to get through with a 64 already on the board, coming from the first couple of groups. On top of that I had to wait another 5 or 6 hours to find out if my travel companions had done any better.

I decided I may as well do some work on my game and following lunch I spent the next 4 hours practicing. I watched as many, many players walked off the 9th green, straight past the 10th tee to the parking lot, slammed the trunks of their cars and high-tailed it out of Louisiana. The boys finally got done around 6pm, neither of them had made an impression on the scoreboard, so we packed up the cars and got back on the road. After 5 hours cruising along I-10 we made it back to Mobile and got into bed (or couch in my case) around midnight. I felt absolutely exhausted after such a long couple of days driving and playing.

We rose early again and headed back to Atlanta, another 5 hours away, and got home around 2 in the afternoon. When it was all said and done we had traveled a grand total of 1180 miles in three and a half days and thrown a couple of rounds of golf in between. It may seem like it was all for nothing, but the greats like Nicklaus and Woods try and take positives out of every experience, and that’s just what I did, telling myself I had handled the wrong ball catastrophe with poise and strength – birding the next three holes I played. It was something I could take with me to my next round at least.

Monday qualifiers can be a funny thing. You can shoot 66 and still not make the tournament if the course is playing easy, or you can gut out a 71 and get through if it’s playing tough. I missed out in a playoff for the Knoxville Nationwide Tour event a couple of years ago, shooting 68 to get into a 13 man playoff for 4 spots. 13 for 4! Four players birdied the first hole, 8 made par (including myself) and one made a bogey. The four birdies went through to the tournament, the rest of us got back in our cars and headed home.

The best example of the psyche of the Monday qualifier I can think of came last Monday. My playing partner that day in Louisiana, a veteran pro who played several years on the PGA Tour and who shall remain nameless, was -2 for the day through 11 holes and playing solid, if unspectacular, golf. By the 17 tee he was making a call on his cell phone to change his flight home for the week. That’s kind of how Monday Qualifying goes.

But that’s also the beautiful thing about Monday qualifying; it’s a crap shoot and any week can be your week. I remember an interview with Camilo Villegas on TV a couple of years ago where they asked him if it was tough having to Monday qualifying each week because he didn’t have a Nationwide Card.

“If I have to Monday every week to get to where I want to be (the PGA Tour), then that’s what I’ll do. I don‘t have a choice” he replied.

I couldn‘t have said it better myself. That’s why we drive 1200 miles over a couple of days to Monday Qualify; because we want to be better, because we want to move forward. Because, to get to where we want to be, we have to.