‘10 minutes can change your life’
Chicagoan Vince India came excruciatingly close to earning his PGA Tour card.
Vince India treated the evening of Aug. 10 as if it were like the hundreds of others spent in his quest to compete among golf’s elite.
He washed down his dinner with three Dalwhinnie 15-year single malts. He watched “The Blues Brothers” for the millionth time, belly-laughing when Sister Mary hits Joliet Jake and Elwood with a ruler to punish their bad language … and then they can’t stop cursing with every smack.
He slept soundly and arrived at Pumpkin Ridge in Oregon for the final round of the Portland Open, two shots off the lead. Notch a victory in the regular-seasonending event on the Korn Ferry Tour — the PGA Tour’s developmental circuit — and his life would change. He would have job security and a chance to share the first tee in 2020 with the likes of Tiger Woods and Brooks Koepka.
A win would mean he and girlfriend Meagan Pagano could buy instead of renting in Chicago’s Old Irving Park neighborhood. On the road he would go from Fairfield Inns to Four Seasons.
Most important, the 5-foot-10, 150-pound late bloomer who joked about “hitting puberty at 27” would find validation for his endless hours on the range and in the gym, trying to rid the “stutter” in his swing and build up his “toothpick” legs.
On his way to the course, India selected a song with a great beat that he hoped would stay in his head all day to keep him relaxed. He picked a 1992 classic from Ice Cube.
“‘It Was a Good Day,’ ” India says.
‘Very humbling. And really stressful.’
It’s Oct. 9, two months after India’s final-round performance at Pumpkin Ridge prompted this lead from Golf Digest’s Brian Wacker: “Look away. Stop reading. NSFW. Golf is an unforgiving game, and its history is littered with carnage of epic collapses. Sunday … was no exception.”
India survived the carnage. So did his blunt, self-deprecating personality.
As he downs cod tacos on the patio at the
Glen Club in Glenview, India ponders existence in a profession with no safety net. His official earnings last season were $67,184, and he estimates he spent $60,000 on airfare, rental cars, food, lodging (he saves money by often staying with host families) and caddies.
“However you play, you earn your keep,” he says. “It’s wonderful, very redeeming. And very humbling. And really stressful.”
After returning to Chicago from Oregon, he couldn’t sleep. He had nightmares about what transpired around the 18th green, a scene wretched enough that Golf Channel’s Chantel McCabe tweeted: “I can not explain what it’s like to see this play out in person. I was nearly in tears interviewing him. I hate golf.”
India still loves golf, especially “leisure golf,” as he calls it.
Upon returning, India played with friends at Glen Flora Country Club in Libertyville: a $40 two-man best ball with $20 skins and a postgame scramble. The drink of choice? A transfusion — vodka, grape juice and ginger ale.
“It’s a wild time,” he says. “We play fast, make a lot of birdies.”
India plays to a plus-6 index, meaning he would have to give a 12-handicap a shot a hole, depending on the course. He wasn’t always this good. Not even close.
Despite being the youngest ever to qualify for the Illinois Open at 16 years, 2 months and breaking every individual record at Deerfield High School, India was lightly recruited.
“Illinois had their guys, Michigan State had their guys,” he says. “I’m like: ‘Jeez, it looks like I’ve got nothing going for me. Please somebody take me!’ That team was Iowa, which was last in the Big Ten by a lot. It was a glorified high school team.”
India turned pro after being named Big Ten Player of the Year in 2011, traveling the world in his quest to build his career.
In 2014 he joined the Web.com (now Korn Ferry) Tour, golf’s equivalent of Triple-A ball. And he grinded, finishing between 131st and 209th on the money list.
He ranked 125th heading into the final event of the 2019 regular season but felt great about his game after discovering a way to rewire his brain. The method: a towel drill, similar to what former Cubs pitching coach Larry Rothschild used to have Mark Prior do.
India would curl up a towel and strike it against his golf bag 100 times to replicate proper tempo with his downswing.
He opened in Oregon with rounds of 64 and 65. He “rode the towel feelings,” he says, and caddie Markel “Flea” Ferris told him: “You’re the best putter on the planet right now. You don’t need to fire at all the pins.”
Pressure built during Saturday’s third round. Golf Channel covered it live. India held his own, shooting a 68.
He would start Sunday in the next-to-last group with Bo Hoag, a 31-year-old Ohio State alumnus. Hoag would later describe the round as “a life-changer.”
That description would apply to both.
‘Would you like a drink?’
India remembers every shot. Of course he does. It’s his livelihood.
He rolled in a 30-footer on No. 5 for birdie. He bogeyed No. 8 after making a “bull(bleep), decommitted swing.” He reached the par-5 11th in two and made an uphill 4-footer for birdie. He bogeyed No. 16 after his gap wedge approach mysteriously spun back, even though “it’s Sunday afternoon on Poa annua and it’s 80 degrees outside.”
He drained a 12-footer for birdie on No. 17, improving to 3 under for the round. He stepped to the 18th tee in a four-way tie for second at 19 under. Playing partner Hoag was at 21 under. India thought to himself: I have one hole between me and the PGA Tour.
India figured he needed to eagle the 18th to force a playoff. The 545-yard par-5 has a narrowing fairway, a bunker short-right of the green and a steep bowl short-left that forms a chipping area.
The course website describes it like this: “The left side of the green basically goes off the Earth.”
India needed to win the tournament to secure his 2019-20 PGA Tour card. A par would get him through to the three-event Korn Ferry Tour Finals, in which the top 75 on a points list get another opportunity to earn a card.
India “roasted” his tee shot, he says, leaving 223 yards to the front pin position.
That’s 4-iron yardage, but given his adrenaline and the skinniness of the green, he opted for a 5-iron. He hit it decently, but the ball strayed into the bunker.
“I figured it’s not that bad if it’s near the lip,” he says. “But it wasn’t. It was 15 yards back. Now I’ve got a long bunker shot.”
India could have played it out to the right and likely two-putted for par. That was the safe choice.
“I looked at the pin and thought: If I hole this bunker shot, I could be on the PGA Tour,” he says. “So I took a more aggressive line. I thought I hit a wonderful bunker shot. It came out nice with some spin.”
So did Luke Donald, one of the best bunker players of this century. He tweeted: “The bunker shot sounded nipped on TV.”
India thought to himself: Oh, my goodness, that’s gorgeous.
But the ball wouldn’t stop.
India kneeled in the bunker. He refused to watch his ball trickle across the green, into the chipping area and near a drainage cover. He got a free drop, but his ball settled into a small divot. Now he was screwed.
“You could hit seven different clubs in that situation, and I don’t think any of them is the right play,” he says. “I couldn’t putt it because the drain was in front of me. I wasn’t confident in hitting a bump-and-run into the slope. I tried to hit something with a little spin. I didn’t catch it solid.”
The ball rolled back to his feet. Cringeworthy.
“Watching it unfold,” Golf Channel’s McCabe said this week, “I was having a mental breakdown of my own. These guys out here (on the Korn Ferry Tour) are like my big and little brothers. They’re gambling with their own money, which is really compelling — and terrifying.”
India still had to get out of jail. He “gunned” a chip that came to rest off the green. He then pitched to 2 feet and holed it for a 7 — his only double bogey of the week.
“I could not believe what happened,” India says. “There’s a 10-minute window where I could be on the PGA Tour … and now I don’t even have job security for next year. It’s hard for your brain to process.”
India was distraught, and McCabe had to interview the winner, Hoag. But she told her producer she was determined to at least ask India if he wanted to speak on live TV. The two had bonded earlier in the week while chatting.
When she saw him, shoulders slumped, she told him: “Vince, you can say no, but people want to hear from you.”
India did not even consider declining the interview.
As his girlfriend, Pagano, put it: “I’m rather shy and reserved, but Vince can talk to anybody.”
India spoke for 35 seconds, his voice shaking at the end: “I just did my best.”
Looking back, he says: “The fact that Chantel was getting emotional made me emotional. After she asked me that last question, she could tell I was seconds away from breaking down.”
India and Pagano, who had flown in that morning, left the course and returned to their host family’s home. She didn’t know what to say other than: “Would you like a drink?”
‘It wasn’t because of nerves’
Shortly after his gruesome “Tin Cup” moment, India learned of what he called an “enormous silver lining.”
By getting up-and-down for 7, India finished 85th on the Korn Ferry points list. The top 85 gain automatic entry to the final stage of the Korn Ferry Tour Qualifying Tournament, which began Thursday at Orange County National outside Orlando, Fla. Other Chicago-area hopefuls in the field include Nick Hardy, Patrick Flavin, Brad Hopfinger, Andy Pope and Jordan Hahn.
The top 40 and ties after Sunday’s final round will receive a full Korn Ferry Tour card for 2020 plus 401k and medical benefits. India enters Sunday in a tie for 30th after rounds of 68, 70 and 68.
India has been in Florida for weeks getting ready. He might not watch “The Blues Brothers” on the eve of the final round, but he will be smacking a towel against his golf bag.
And his mindset is sound.
“I finished top five in probably the hardest tournament of the year with the most pressure,” he said. “I thought I played really admirably. I didn’t hit bad shots. It wasn’t because of nerves. There were just two really difficult shots.”
His takeaway from the experience? “Ten minutes,” he said, “can change your life.”