You may have heard the story of the dentist who’s playing in the US Open Golf Tournament this week. His name is Matt Vogt, and he’s 34 years old and runs his own dental practice in Indianapolis, not far from where he once played college golf at Butler University. Vogt is ranked 1,173rd in the World Amateur Rankings. Meaning he’s not generally a threat to play in one of the nation’s most prestigious golf events, a tournament that allows only 156 players to tee off. Most of those are names you might recognize, at least if you follow golf, including leaders on the PGA Tour, former tournament champions, and a host of pros that get in through a fairly stringent process that brings the best, or at least most accomplished, to the Championships.
But, because it’s the Open, there’s a way for other folks, perhaps one might say normal folks, to play their way in. It’s not quite totally simple, but technically speaking, any of us can give it a shot. First, you need to have a golf handicap of .4 or lower. So basically a scratch golfer. Once you’ve cleared that hurdle, you can enter and do really well in one of over 100 regional qualifying events, where almost 1000 of over 10,000 entrants play there way into something called “the longest day in golf,” 36-hole tournaments played at 13 locations, where you might be up against former PGA tournament champions and folks who earned a lot of money to play golf for a living. At each location, somewhere between 2 and 8 folks will get an invite to join the field of golfers who have been invited, because maybe they’re a top 60 pro in the world. It’s that simple.
Most of the qualifiers will be people with some pedigree. But, beyond the mid-tier pros and guys on the back end of the career, you’ll get a 17-year-old high school junior who’ll play for the University of Georgia in a year. And you’ll get a dentist from Indianapolis who, in storybook form, used to caddy on the Oakmont Country club outside Pittsburgh as a kid, where the US Open will be held this year. Don’t worry if you missed some of this, because it’s pretty much all you’re going to hear for the first two days of the tournament, after which Matt’s unlikely to make the cut and will return to his glamourous life of filling cavities.
There’s something particularly appealing about this story. Not just because of Matt’s homecoming, or because he’s got a 9 to 5 or even because he’s got a 15-month-old daughter and recently lost his dad. Those are all heartwarming and made for TV. But what’s most interesting is the idea that a somewhat normal person can line up against a pro – not in some corporate exhibition or grown-up summer camp, but in an actual tournament as a true competitor. Imagine trying that in, say the NBA. It’s not like your YMCA rec team can play their way up to say, the Lakers. But that’s kind of what happens in golf.
There’s other sports like that. Soccer has open cups where lower level club teams can technically play their way to a top tier pro squad. And some upstart basketball events, like The Basketball Tournament that’s a million dollar winner take all event, it does level the playing field a bit. This is why a lot of people like doing major marathons or triathlons, where you can basically line up next to someone who might have just won an Olympic gold medal, even if that’s the last time you’ll see them. One the one hand, it demystifies and humanizes elite athletes, people we often only see through a tv lens or from a very expensive stadium seat. But on the other hand, competing against, or more likely next to someone that talented makes their greatness that much more obvious. It’s a lot harder to say you could’ve been a pro when you realize the vast gulf between where you think you are and reality. It’s why most good Division I college athletes know the seemingly small distance between them and a professional may as well be the distance between Earth and the Sun. The closer you get, the further you realize you are.
This week, Matt Vogt will be pretty close. And I image as a dentist, he’ll sport quite a smile.
Keith Strudler is the Dean of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him at @KeithStrudler.
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