Let the golf begin

When I was a little kid, I would watch professional golf for hours on end.

I would watch Tiger, Phil, and all the rest, but I would also watch the lesser-knows, the journeymen. I always wondered what life was like for these guys, without all the celebrity. I always wanted to learn about their lives as pro golfers, without the glamour and fame.

Now, somehow, I'm going to find out. I still can't believe it, really.

Thanks to the generosity of Golf World managing editor Tim Murphy, and the Nationwide Tour (especially Jeff Adams), I will be traveling to Nationwide Tour events this summer with media access and credentials. As a journalism major at Syracuse, I have been lucky to cover a variety of different events, but this endeavor is far and away the most special to me. It's the fulfillment of a life dream.

Anyway, what exactly am I doing? The best part is, I still don't know really. I am working on a capstone project for my Honors distinction at Syracuse, and I am going to use the Nationwide Tour as my focus. I will be specifically focusing on veteran Jeff Gove (the namesake of this blog) and rookie Paul Haley, to explore the differences in the golfing life between rookies and veterans. Along the way, I hope to develop a sense of what life is like on the Tour, and everything that may entail.

Ultimately, it would be cool if I could write some sort of book from the material that I learn and gather, but at this point I don't even know what the book would be like. Heck, I wouldn't even know where to begin, but that's all part of the learning process.

I am also excited to meet golf journalists that I have read for years, and to talk to them about the lifestyle of covering golf tournaments. I hope to someday be a professional golf writer myself, and anything I can learn can only help me. Through this experience, I hope to learn what covering a golf tournament is really like, aside from my previous visualizations and perceptions.

I'm headed to Greenville tomorrow, to cover my first event, the BMW Charity Pro-Am. I left Syracuse last Wednesday, and I enjoyed a few days of golf and the beach with my brother and friend Jack from school. We even got to play the Ralston Creek course at Daniel Island, where the Nationwide Tour Championship was last fall. My uncle belongs there. Small world.

Like I said before, I don't really know where I'm going with this whole charade, but I can't wait to get there. I have a semblance of a plan, but the plan will only unfold as it will (did that even make sense?).

Along the way, I will be posting stories, hopefully a lot of them. Along with event coverage and interesting stories I may find along the way, I will be posting about my experiences as well. Everything is fair game, from my experiences covering the tournaments, to characters I may meet along the way, to my life as a rogue traveling journalist.

I'm already pinching myself that this is really happening. Let the golf begin.