Virginia Beach golfer has a lot to 鈥楥row鈥� about as he pursues PGA goals
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — On an average summer day, during a typical round of golf with friends at Cavalier Golf & Yacht Club, something extraordinary happened. A mildly seasoned golfer, with only 11 years of golf experience under his belt, broke the club record with a score of 60, nine under par.
Virginia Beach native and Birdneck Point resident Tom Crow has played golf since he was 12 years old. He is a graduate of Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University and played on the golf team for all four years he attended. Crow has plans to play golf as a career and dreams of playing on the Professional Golf Association (PGA) tour. However, he knows it isn’t an easy road.
“There’s an incredibly large talent pool that are all trying to make it on the PGA tour,” said Crow. “Golf has become a very popular avenue for young athletes. It is no longer just something that your fathers and grandfathers do in their time off. Golfers now are true athletes, and the sport is taken just as seriously.”
Crow loves the mental challenge of the game. “One day you can hit the ball great, swing feels great, you see lines on the greens well. But the very next day, or even the next hole, that can all go away.” The possibility of a perfect game keeps him motivated. “In my mind,聽the perfect round of golf would be to birdie every hole. It has never been done before, and there’s a very good chance that it never will, but it鈥檚 almost addicting to keep trying.”
This pursuit of the perfect game reinforces the realization that golf is an individual sport. “It really is all on you. Whether you’re on a team or not, the faster you accept and enjoy that, the better,” said Crow.
During his record breaking game, he was aware of what could happen. “I knew where I stood in comparison to [his goal score of] 59 the whole back nine. I honestly wasn鈥檛 really thinking about 60 as much as I was 59,” said Crow. “I knew that JJ Serrao had the previous course record of 61 from the black tees before they redid the bunkers and added a pond on number one. So, I guess my course record should be categorized as on the ‘new course.’ Really my goal was to shoot 59, which I fell a little short of, so breaking the record was really just a consolation prize.”
He doesn’t take the accomplishment lightly, however. He’ll just keep striving for the Holy Grail of that perfect game.聽Meanwhile, Crow has turned his love of the sport into a career venture while he pursues his PGA goals. He and two friends, Trey Wren and Parker See, started Sticks Golf, a golf media company. They created a video series available on YouTube and produced a podcast series accessible on all major podcast providers.
“Our goal is to create content聽that the serious golfer will enjoy,” explained Crow. “We play with aspiring and seasoned professionals to give the viewer an idea of what it’s like to play with someone of that magnitude. On the podcast, we strive to have in-depth, personal conversations with professional golfers. We talk about their journey to where they are, where they are going and their opinions on anything related to golf.”
Crow lives in Virginia Beach in the summer and lives in Boynton Beach, FL during the golf season. He works as a caddy at The Dye Preserve Golf Club in Jupiter, FL to fund Sticks Golf. He plans to actively pursue his professional golf career this fall. Crow is serious and determined to design a career around golf. Yet, he stays grounded. He said, “At the end of the day, it’s just a game.”
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