Baseball Bats
Mac O’Grady was driving back to his motel on a November evening in Florida in 1982. It was a cool but beautiful evening and as he pulled out of the car park of the famous TPC Sawgrass he rolled the car window down. A gentle smile of satisfaction across his face.
It was a special day.
Before getting to his motel room Mac pulled into the car park of a small nearby golf club. He parked the car, walked around to the trunk and took out a sports bag. He put the bag on the passenger seat of his car and sat back down. He pulled out a baseball bat from the bag and marked it with a date. Then he pulled out another baseball bat and put it on a different date.
Mac did this 16 times.
16 different bats.
He put each bat back in the bag, flung the bag over his shoulder, walked out to the course and found a tree. He pulled out the first bat and swung ferociously at the tree until the bat broke. By the 11th bat his shoulder was aching and he was crying.
He kept going until all 16 bats were broken.
Homeless
A few years earlier Mac was homeless, sleeping under a bridge and on church benches. He’d read poetry at night and dream about his future.
He grew up in Los Angeles, apparently with an abusive father and a mother who died from a brain aneurysm when he was 16.
But Mac was a golfer. I could say he was a talented golfer but that would probably be doing him a disservice. He was an obsessed golfer. His dream was to play on the PGA Tour and he chased that dream so much so that he was prepared to be homeless in pursuit of that dream. He couldn’t work because he had to spend his days on the range working on his golf swing.
Apparently he memorised every word of the book, “The Golfing Machine” an incredibly technical book about how to build the perfect golf swing.
His swing got so good that he actually almost played to the same level left handed as right handed. He once shot 65 in the morning right handed, had some lunch and shot 69 in the afternoon left handed.
But his putter would so often fail him. He would stand over a 3 footer and feel a rattle down his arm. He spent most of his career putting left handed because of these yips.
The First Attempts
In 1971 Mac arrived at PGA Tour Qualifying School in an attempt to get his tour card.
He failed.
In the years after he would spend season after season travelling around the world as best he could afford on The European Tour trying to earn enough money to survive.
Every November he would make the voyage back to Florida for PGA Tour Q School and every year he would fail. When he missed out on Q School for the 12th time, a PGA Tour official sneered at him, “When are you going to leave us alone? “
That only made Mac more determined.
Every year he would miss some short putts and miss out by a shot or two.
“I had many deaths on the golf course,” he once said.
Deaths. That’s what he called them. One such death came while trying to qualify for the Open Championship one year. He was going along nicely until he found a pot bunker on the closing stretch. He lashed at it 16 times and couldn’t get the ball out. He walked off the course.
Another death came at Sunningdale when he took a 14 on the first hole.
In 1978 he met a Japanese air hostess and said to her, one day I’m going to marry a Japanese woman. She laughed back - “Will you marry me?”
Two years later he did.
1982
Mac was an outcast. A mad genius obsessed with achieving his dream.
Then along came 1982.
He played 27 tournaments in a row on the European Tour that year, trying to get his game right. He travelled from Tunisia to Sweden to Scotland.
In the November he arrived to Florida again.
Q School was 6 rounds, top 50 get a PGA Tour card but really you want to be in the top 15 to get into every event on tour the following year.
The event would be held at 2 courses around the famous TPC Sawgrass. The first 4 rounds would be on a nearby, lesser known course with the last 2 rounds held at famous TPC Sawgrass that you’re familiar with, home of the Players Championship.
Another attempt to conquer his demons. He shot 79 in the first round and was towards the back of the field. The dream looked dead for another year.
In round 2 he went out in 42 on the front nine and it looked like his chances were gone, but he birdied four of his last five holes to salvage a 76.
Round 3 was a 71 and he was in 144th place.
But he battled through in a way that summed up his career.
In the 4th round it was blowing a gale and basically nobody could break 75 but Mac had played in this kind of wind all year. This was his time. He shot 66 and bolted up the leaderboard.
He was 24th with 2 rounds to go.
Round 5 at TPC Sawgrass started badly. He was three over par going to the par 3 8th when he holed out of a bunker for a birdie. Then he holed four 10-footers in a row to save par. He was faced with one of the most famous stretches in golf where he birdied 13, 14, 15, 16 and the island green 17.
He was right in the hunt to get his card when he reached the 18th tee of that second last round. The famous 18th tee at TPC Sawgrass lay in front of him. Water all down the left hand side of the fairway. He took a 1-iron for safety and aimed down the right but hit it in a bush. All his work unravelling in front of his eyes. He pictured his many deaths over the years.
But he found his ball and made a double bogey.
Final Round
Here he was, the final round with the chance to get his PGA Tour card on the 17th time of trying. The wind was blowing again as it often does at Sawgrass. He came to the last hole +1 for the round and inside the cut line.
The same water stared at him on that 18th tee but he wasn’t going to hit a 1-iron this time. He lashed the driver.
The ball was in play.
He played for safety, wedged down the fairway for his 2nd shot.
He stood over a shot from 160 yards to the flag - somehow trying to stay calm. Years prior, he used to drive around LA at snail’s pace trying to practice patience and calmness. Drivers would blare their horn at him but he would block out the noise. He was practicing for this exact moment.
He made his swing and looked up. The ball was flying straight at the flag. It stopped 1 foot from the hole. He walked up and tapped in from 1 foot.
Mac was headed to the PGA Tour on the 17th time of trying.
Parallels with Rory
Rory McIlroy took 17 attempts to win his first Masters for his career Grand Slam, the exact same number of attempts that Mac took to get his PGA Tour card.
Just like Roryr, Mac cried as he walked off the 18th hole that day at Sawgrass. But unlike Rory in 2025 who, was surrounded by cameras and adulation, a moment that was captured and broadcast around the world there was no such attention on Mac that November day in TPC Sawgrass 1982.
He didn’t care.
Baseball Bats
That evening Mac swung 16 of those baseball bats against that tree. 16 different bats for each time he’d failed to qualify for the PGA Tour. He also spent $500 making phone calls from his motel room that night to his various friends who’d witnessed his journey.
Mac went on to win twice on the PGA Tour and nearly won a US Open in 1987. He was once quoted as saying, “I’m a mosquito out here among the dinosaurs”.
It’s funny, if you go onto The European Tour website and search for Mac O’Grady all you see is a blank picture that reads: “Meet Mac” followed by a blank space.
It somehow doesn’t quite tell his story.
The Read
If you’re someone who takes their golf seriously, then I just got sent a really cool package by a company called The Long Game Journals that might interest you. This isn’t a paid or sponsored suggestion, but they’re really cool. A guy from Dublin has made these beautiful journals that help you plan your practice and mindset for golf. They’re also decorative and look beautiful in your home office.
The Caddies Lines
Mac O’Grady once tried to enter a fourball tournament on the PGA Tour by himself. He asked if they would let him play two balls, one right-handed, one left-handed. They said no.
I interviewed Mac Ogrady at the greater Vancouver open. I asked him why he had a feud going with then commissioner dean beman. ' he stole from me' he replied. So blunt but also refreshing.
The 16 baseball bats opener is one of the stranger golf stories I've read. Had never heard of Mac O'Grady before this.