Professional Golfers

In golf the distinction between amateurs and professionals in rigorously maintained. An amateur who plays for money even once usually loses his or her amateur status permanently and is banned from all amateur tournaments. A professional may not play in amateur tournaments. It is very difficult for a professional to regain his or her amateur status; simply agreeing not to take payment for a particular tournament isn't enough.

Professional golfers are divided into two main groups, with a limited amount of overlap between them.

• The great majority of professional golfers (at least 95%) make their living from teaching the game, running golf clubs and courses, and dealing in golf equipment. In American English the term golf pro often applies to these individuals. The senior professional golfer at a golf club is referred to as the club professional. If he or she has assistants who are registered professional golfers, they are known as assistant professionals. A golfer who concentrates wholly or nearly so on giving golf lessons is a teaching professional, golf instructor or golf coach. Most of these people will enter a few tournaments against their peers each year, and occasionally they may qualify to play in important tournaments with the other group of professional golfers mentioned below.

• A much smaller but higher profile group of professional golfers earn a living from playing in golf tournaments, or aspire to do so. Their income comes from prize money and endorsements. These individuals are referred to as tournament golfers, tour professionals, or in American English as pro golfers. See professional golf tours for further details.

Historically the distinction between amateur and professional golfers had much to do with social class. In 18th and 19th century Britain golf was played by the rich for pleasure. The early professionals were working class men who made a living from the game in a variety of ways: caddying, green keeping, club making, and playing challenge matches. When golf arrived in America at the end of the 19th century it was an elite sport there too. Early American golf clubs imported their professionals from Britain. It wasn't possible to make a living solely from playing tournament golf until some way into the 20th century (Walter Hagen is sometimes considered to have been the first man to do so).

In the developed world, the class distinction is now almost entirely irrelevant. Golf is affordable to a large proportion of the population, and most golf professionals are from middle class backgrounds, often the same sort of backgrounds as the members of the clubs where they work or the people they teach the game, and educated to university level. Leading tournament golfers are very wealthy; upper class in the modern U.S. usage of the term. However in some developing countries, there is still a class distinction. Often golf is restricted to a much smaller and more elite section of society than is the case in countries like the U.S. and the UK. Professional golfers from these countries are quite often from poor backgrounds and start their careers as caddies, for example, Angel Cabrera of Argentina, and Zhang Lian-Wei who is the first significant tournament professional from the People's Republic of China.

In various countries, Professional Golfers' Associations (PGAs) serve either or both of these categories of professionals. There are separate LPGAs (Ladies Professional Golf Associations) for women.