Ballistic missiles were featured prominently in the news over the weekend, the result of a false emergency alert sent out to those in Hawaii, including PGA Tour players there for the Sony Open in Hawaii.
So it seems a reasonable time to note that Tom Whitney, who knows more than most about ballistic missiles, those with nuclear warheads, moreover, has received a sponsor exemption to the CareerBuilder Challenge in La Quinta, California, this week.
Whitney is an Air Force Academy graduate who “served four years as a Nuclear Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Operator at F.E. Warren AFB in Cheyenne, Wyoming,” according to his website. The job “placed him in command and control [of] America’s nuclear weapons, where he was in charge of coordinating routine and emergency maintenance, exercises, tests, inspections, and ultimately launching the ICBMs under direction of the President.”
A La Quinta High graduate, Whitney last year told Desert Sun golf writer Larry Bohannan this:
“I was one of a two-man crew that sits in a harden bunker underground hooked up to our nuclear missiles,” Whitney said. “Our job would be to launch the missiles if we received the codes. The codes never came. Our day-to-day duties were routine maintenance, just day-to-day readiness.”
Whitney, 28, played the Web.com Tour last year, though was unable to secure a US PGA Tour card, earning only $US49,856 in 15 starts. He made his US PGA Tour debut via a sponsor exemption in the Shriners Hospital for Children Open last October and missed the cut.
