Tom Whitney resigned from his job as head of US nuclear missiles to pursue his passion for professional golf, becoming a full-time rookie on the PGA Tour in 2024 at the age of 34.
Whitney watches her tee shot on the second hole of the final round of the Simmons Bank Open for the Snedeker Foundation at The Grove, Tennessee on September 17, 2023. Photo: AFP
The US has three air bases that house a total of 450 nuclear missiles, of which Whitney and his teammates were in charge of 10 during their four years stationed at F.E. Warren base in Wyoming.
At that time, Whitney worked in shifts, each shift lasting 24 hours. When it was his turn, he and his teammates would go down to a bunker about 30 meters underground to maintain the system, adjust the target direction according to intelligence information, and ensure that they were ready to press the fire button when the President gave the order. Whitney's total time on duty was equivalent to nearly a year.
“We’ve been training for it, but we hope we never have to do it. But all 450 missiles are always ready to go,” Whitney said on January 17, before making his debut on the U.S. Open with a full-card. He will begin his 2024 PGA Tour campaign at The American Express at PGA West in La Quinta, California.
Whitney was discharged in early May 2014 after four years of service. Prior to that, he was a student at the US Air Force Academy, graduating in 2010. Whitney entered military school because he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his brother, Bob, who was two years older. In that environment, Whitney was a star on the golf team, winning many cups.
Whitney started playing this sport when she was six years old, and Bob was eight.
The two of them started playing golf by accident. At that time, Whitney’s family lived in the South Lake Tahoe area. When Mike’s father was renovating his house, he had a friend who mixed mortar for the walls. But the friend was absent every few days. After asking around, Mike discovered that his friend was taking time off to practice golf at a nearby course. However, when he caught them red-handed, Mike’s father tried playing again. Not long after, he bought two sets of clubs as Christmas gifts for his two sons. And then the three of them started playing golf. Mike also consulted golf magazines to teach his son techniques.
Bob later achieved a "zero" handicap - the pinnacle of amateur golf.
When Whitney left the Air Force to become a professional golfer, Bob remained in the military, intelligence, and later rose to the rank of major.
However, Bob committed suicide in 2020, at the age of 33, after suffering from depression.
Whitney used Bob's military ID to mark the ball's position, as if he had his brother with him on the professional golf course. It was a goal he had in mind since high school.
Whitney became a tour player a week after his discharge. He won his first tournament as a professional, earning $10,000. But it took him nine years to reach the PGA Tour as a full-time player. During this time, Whitney chose to gradually develop his career, starting with small-scale state and regional tournaments to gain experience for higher levels.
By the time he earned his full PGA Tour card, Whitney had played 37 tournaments on the third-tier Latin American circuit and 117 tournaments on the second-tier Korn Ferry Tour.
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