Does a successful PGA Tour career require winning? This veteran tour pro wrestles with that question in this must-watch video

By

[Photo: Cliff Hawkins]

Patrick Rodgers just made the cut this week at the Charles Schwab Challenge, shooting a pair of 69s at Colonial Country Club. Yet when the 33-year-old tour veteran leaves the property on Sunday, he will be in the same situation he was when he arrived earlier this week: searching for his first career win on the PGA Tour.

Colonial marked Rodgers 329th career PGA Tour start. In that time, he has earned $US20.6 million. Only three other players in PGA Tour history have made more money without a tour win. Tommy Fleetwood had earned more than $US30 million before finally breaking through at last year’s Tour Championship (plus he had seven victories on the DP World Tour to fall back on). Before jumping to LIV Golf in January, Ben An had made $US21.5 million on the PGA Tour. Meanwhile, Denny McCarthy is the current “leader” in most money earned without a victory at just north of $US22 million.

RELATED: Denny McCarthy just jumped to the top of this career money milestone (for better or worse)

How you look at Rodgers’ career depends on the perspective you bring to it. The Indiana tour pro won 11 times in college, matching Tiger Woods’ university record at Stanford. Expectations were high for him after turning pro, including his own expectations.

“The struggle cut deeper than I ever imagined,” he recent said in an episode of the PGA Tour Studios series, “Mindfulness”. “Every missed cut somehow felt like the worst one. Every bogey on the last left a pit in my stomach. Watching my peers achieve the success I desperately chased chipped away at my ego and my belief. Hundreds of what-ifs. Thousands of hours of effort with seemingly nothing to show for it.”

He was reading from a letter he had written himself late last year. The words make plain the struggles that Rodgers has with his own career and place in golf.

But Rodgers also says his story is about more than wins, that success isn’t measured in how many trophies you collect or dollars you have in your bank account. As he reads the letter in the video, you gain a fascinating look at a young man coming to grips with life, and how faith, family and friends carry a currency that transcends his job.

Here’s a portion of that letter:

And yet, I’m incredibly blessed. I play a game for a living. I’ve earned far more than I deserve. But none of that erases the internal battles, the weight of expectation, the fear of falling behind, the quiet pressure of survival. Golf can be beautiful – and brutally honest.

So I had to redefine winning.

When the outcomes I dreamed of didn’t arrive, I had to create a new scoreboard. I started asking harder questions:

Where did my confidence crack?

When did I fold under pressure?

What risks was I afraid to take?

That process – uncomfortable, humbling, honest – became its own form of victory.

And life shifted, too. Two beautiful kids and a supportive wife taught me there’s more to being a ‘winner’ than making birdies. I walk through our front door and feel like I’ve already won something bigger than golf can offer.

Through failure, I learned to love the process.

Daily systems. Reps without applause. Quiet growth.

That’s what grounds me.

Maybe the struggle is the point.

When the wins didn’t come in bunches, I had to ask myself why they mattered so much. And I realised: a trophy isn’t the end game. What I’m really chasing is discipline, teamwork and self-actualisation. You can have all of those without holding anything on Sunday afternoon.

The video is 18 minutes long, and yet worth every second you spend watching it. Anyone who ever met Patrick Rodgers along his road from junior phenomenon to college All-American to 12-year tour pro will tell you that he is a man with heart and soul. And while he may still be striving for his first PGA Tour title, he is indeed a true winner.