When former Husky Nick Taylor won his first PGA TOUR event in November, everyone was surprised — everyone, that is, except those who know him best
by Steve Kelley
Standing on the first tee at Kapalua this past January, with the warm zephyrs gently blowing across The Plantation Course and the reflection of the sun glinting diamonds off the Pacific Ocean, Nick Taylor must have taken a moment to think about his journey to this tourney and all of the switchbacks and setbacks and championships and chunks he has navigated to get there.
Taylor, like every other golfer invited to this first event in the 2015 calendar year, had accomplished one of the most difficult tasks in sports. He had won an event on the PGA TOUR and qualified for this Hyundai Tournament of Champions.
All of us who have played a sport at any level have fantasized about a moment like this. What must it be like settling into the batter’s box at Yankee Stadium? Or waiting under a punt in the Rose Bowl? Or hunkering over a putt at Augusta? And what must it feel like to understand that you’re a champion; to know you’ve faced the monstrous pressure of your profession and succeeded?
On the first tee at Kapalua, Taylor absorbed his moment.
“Kapalua was one of those moments where I could kind of pinch myself,” Taylor said in early February, taking a week off from the Tour after playing four consecutive weeks. “It kind of made everything that I’d done sink in a little more. I’d love to go back. That’s for sure. It was a great week.”
Taylor, 26, earned the right to play in the event by winning the PGA TOUR Sanderson Farms Championship in Jackson, Miss., last autumn, in his fourth-ever start on the Tour.
“It gave me a lot of confidence in my golf game,” he said of his win in Jackson. “I definitely need improvement, but when I compare myself with the top players in the game, I know the gap isn’t that wide. [The win] gives me motivation to get better, but also gives me confidence to know that I’ve already been through this once, so there’s no reason I can’t do it again.”
Unless your name is Rory, Phil or Tiger, the transition from amateur golf to the PGA TOUR is far from seamless. Rookies in the National Football League or National Basketball Association often talk about the speed at the next — and highest — level of their sport.
But in golf it isn’t the speed, it’s the unrelenting demand on your skills, your nerves and your will. It’s every week, every hole, every shot against every other great player in the game. There are no breathers in this game. Every week, it’s you against the best. The Tour is so deep now that it seems as if every weekend there is a different pack of hungry professionals competing for a championship.
“The longer you’re out here, the more you realize you need some breaks along the way,” says Taylor, who finished tied for 29th at Kapalua. “You obviously try hard every week, but some weeks, things pop at the right time and you get some momentum going, or certain weeks the bounces go a certain way, or you’re not reading the greens well, for whatever reason. You try to learn from your mistakes. But if you do the things you can do well consistently, you’re going to be in contention a lot.”