“Welcome to the first tee, from Wantima, Brisbane, the 2022 British Open champion, CAMERON SMITH! “

If the course announcer continued before the rapturous applause broke out, they might have tossed in a few other interesting morsels, “the 2nd ranked golfer in the world”, for instance. Or perhaps even “year to date earnings” … What are we looking at with Cam Smith? $160 million?

Welcome back to Brissie, Cam – your shout for steaks and beers at the Brekkie Creek!

The reason for casting our eyes forward, to “tee-off time” at next week’s Australian PGA championship at Royal Queensland is not to marvel at the size of Smith’s bank balance. It’s to draw a comparison with the financial state of affairs of so many others in the field – that’s where the true heartbeat of Australian professional golf lies.

Is there another sport on the planet that divides and separates the “haves” and “have nots”, more clinically and brutally than golf? Doubtful.

For every Adam Scott and Cameron Smith, flying around the world in private jets, sharing sleep nights between chalets in Switzerland, beach houses in the Bahamas, and home bases in Floridian gated communities, there are literally thousands, if not tens of thousands of battlers, playing and living week to week, hoping and praying that the one big break they need is just around the corner.

One decent break – that’s all they need, then they’ll be on their way.

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What an alluring temptress she is, the game of professional golf. A beguiling mix of pleasure and pain, doled out in disturbingly disproportionate amounts.

Lying comfortably in the middle of the fairway, 2% of the players, enjoying 98% of the riches, while to the left and right, deep in the rough, there’s the other 98%, scratching and scrambling for golf’s loose change.

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What separates one group from the other? Not terribly much – a couple of shots here and there, a thin wedge, a fat iron, a missed putt from short range – anyone who’s falling just short can quickly identify the missing ingredient.

The common denominator of success of course has nothing to do with luck. Success stems from the formula – natural talent x hard work x persistence. But that doesn’t mean other factors don’t come into play.

I remember at a lunch at Lakelands on the Gold Coast a few years ago, Phil Scott explaining that his son, Adam, was lucky that he had the resources to support (read fund) his son’s professional tour “apprenticeship”.

For plenty of others, the feeder creek runs dry, well before the river of gold starts to flow. How successful could they have been with a significantly larger fighting fund? Nobody will ever know. They wind up working in real estate, or take a job in a golf shop, on the weekend, watching the big boys play on television.

Then there’s golf’s fairytale stories, where on account of a sliding door moment or two, a gifted young golfer is hauled out of a sinking tinnie onto a luxury liner.

Sunshine Coast’s Steve Bowditch for instance. In the early 2000s, Bowditch was next to penniless, sleeping in his car and ready to give it all away, when out of the blue, he won a sizeable pro-am at Yeppoon. The following week, he won another one.

In doing so, he qualified for the South Australian Open at Royal Adelaide. He won there. With the tournament co-sanctioned by the American “Nationwide” tour, he was automatically eligible to play in the ‘States. He’d go on to earn status on the main PGA tour, winning not once but twice. He’d get picked to play in the Presidents Cup, he’d meet his (now) wife Amanda, the daughter of a Texan oil baron. And that journey all started with a 36 hole pro-am.

Sliding doors – you never quite know where they are going to lead.

Similarly, in the Australian PGA field next week, there are two of Royal Queensland’s “modern day” favourite sons, Jake McLeod and Jed Morgan, the defending PGA champion.

They’ve both already had a sliding door moment in their career, McLeod’s coming in December 2018, when he needed to finish in the top 20 in the last event of the year to win the Australasian Order of Merit. He finished 19th, a journeyman pro bogeying the last hole to hand McLeod his prize – a European tour card and a start in the British Open. Again, a single putt determining very different destinies.

Morgan’s romping 11-shot win in the 2021 tournament helped catch the eye of Greg Norman and his LIV golf tour talent scouts.

That’s where Jed’s been plying his trade in 2022 – under the wing of The Shark, jetting around in the breakaway tour’s dedicated “jumbo”, or similarly scaled commercial aircraft, decked out decadently, with all the Arabian flair you’d expect.

Morgan mightn’t have set the world on fire – outside of the event in Saudi Arabia where he pocketed US$290K for finishing 12th – his best finish was a tie for 25th. But in terms of pure money making opportunities, it sure as hell beats teeing it up in the Dalby Pro-am, which is where a quite a few of his contemporaries would have been.

Yes, a bit like cricket, it’s a funny old game, golf.

But the most relatable stories? You find them deep in the rough, guys scratching around, looking for loose change, waiting for that sliding door to open.

The Australian PGA Championship will be held at Royal Queensland Golf Club from November 24-27th.