However, Laurinburg native Leonard Thompson has not only had the chance to be a professional golfer, he's about to play in his 1,000th tournament between the PGA and Champions Tours.
Thompson, 62, is in the field for the Champions Tour's SAS Championship in Cary, which gets under way today, and he will join an elite group of nine other golfers who have played in 1,000 tournaments between the two tours — Miller Barber, Dave Eichelberger, Charles Coody, Arnold Palmer, Dale Douglass, J.C. Snead, Gay Brewer, Gene Littler and Jim Colbert.
He's played all over the country for the past 37 years and said making it to his 1,000th tournament has come from a combination of several things going his way.
"You don't set out to (make it to 1,000 tournaments)," Thompson said. "But to do it, I think there's four or five things that have to happen. You have to have good health not have any major injuries. You also have to have a family that's willing to put up with you being gone. You have to have organizations that produce tournaments and you just have to be kind of hard-headed. It's hard to say exactly what you have to do to make it to 1,000. It's more of a combination of things.
"I didn't even know I was close to 1,000 tournaments until somebody showed it to me last year. It's an achievement."
Even with all those things going his way, Thompson didn't have anything handed to him. He had to earn the right to stay on the PGA Tour and Champions Tour and Thompson takes pride in the fact he's been on Tour for so long.
"(Playing golf professionally) was something I've always wanted to do as a kid," said Thompson. "I got out here and liked it and I've been able to play well enough to stay out here for close to 40 years. They don't let you keep playing unless you do something to earn it."
Thompson's 999 tournaments consists of 651 PGA Tour tournaments — where he won three times and recorded 168 top-25 finishes en route to over $1.8 million in earnings — and 348 Champions Tour events.
He's had even more success on the Champions Tour than he did on the PGA Tour, placing in the top-25 116 times — a rate of once out of every three events. Thompson has been in the top-10 44 times, won three Champions Tour titles and earned more than $5.7 million in winnings.
Add it all up, and he's got six tournament championships, 26 top-three finishes, 113 top-10s and 284 top-25s. He's earned $7,520,797 over the span of his career and the numbers don't include the 17 Nationwide Tour events he's competed in as well.
Thompson — who officially retired from the Champions Tour prior to this year and is limited to 11 events per year — spoke of the decision to cut back on his schedule.
"It wasn't hard," said Thompson, who lives in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. "One of my goals when I started to compete on the Champions Tour was to be able to leave on my own terms. I didn't want to run out of exemptions. I just wanted to be able to say I can still do it. I have four grandchildren and I want to see them grow up. By retiring from full-time competition, I have a chance to do that. It wasn't a hard decision from that point of view."
Thompson's first tournament came back in 1971 and fittingly enough, the tournament was in North Carolina. He debuted at the Azalea Open in Wilmington and two weeks later, he placed eighth at the Walt Disney tournament in Florida and got $5,000 for his work.
Other highlights include making a 50-foot birdie putt to knock off fellow Wake Forest alum Curtis Strange to win the Pensacola Open, firing a 29 on the back nine of Pinehurst No. 2 at the Colgate Hall of Fame tournament and shooting a 61 at the Canadian Open.
As he prepares to compete in his 1,000th tournament, Thompson said he plans to keep on playing Champions Tour events as long as he can be competitive.
"I'm playing OK right now," said Thompson. "But I took my retirement, so it's harder to stay sharp. I'm looking forward to (playing today). I thought it would come and go, but it's turned into a bigger deal than I thought it was. When not a lot of people do something, it interests people.
"This isn't my last year, though. I'm going to play up to 11 tournaments a year as long as I can. If I can't be respectable, I'm not going to do it. I finished 15th in Austin earlier this year and that's not bad for a 62-year-old man. I just don't want to be a hindrance and hold up people."
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