Mini Tours are a way of life for many professional golfers around the United States. Bouncing from one town to the next, teeing it up in events that many have never heard of or even knew existed.Still, the wonderful world that is mini tour golf is there to answer the call to thousands of professional golfers chasing their dreams of making it to the PGA Tour.
Savannah, Georgia native Mark Silvers is one of those players that is chasing that dream, and chasing it down very well.
The former South Carolina Gamecock has played on a variety of mini tours the past two years, including the eGolf Professional Tour, the Hooters Tours and the Peach State Pro Tour.
Silvers, won many awards and accolades while at USC including: 2006 SEC Freshman Academic Honor Roll, 2007 & 2008 SEC Spring Sports Academic Honor Roll, 2008 Cleveland Golf All-America Scholar and the 2009 SEC Scholar Athlete of the Year.
With his collegiate career behind him heading into 2010, Silvers turned to the mini tours to continue his quest of professional golf.
During his 2010 season, Silvers would go on to to win two events on the Hooters Tour to go along with another three more top-20 finishes to earn himself $14,438 in five events.
While 2010 was a good year for the first year pro, 2011 would prove to be his coming out party.
This year would be the year Silvers would play an entire season of mini tour events, mostly on the Peach State Pro Tour.
In an interview given to Savannah Now, Silvers said he was playing regional mini tours to "knock some rust off."
"It's just one of those things," he continued. "I worked on my game some over the winter. When I started playing again, everything felt good."
Good must have been the understatement of the year for Silvers in 2011, as he was better than good on the Peach State Pro Tour -- He was great.
Silvers would go on to win eight events on the mini tour in 2011, including the Tour Championship at the Georgia Club in early October.
Those eight wins pocketed the second year pro over $95,000 on the Peach State Pro Tour. Combined with his two wins from the Hooters Tour this season as well, Silvers earned over $100,000 in 2011 playing on the mini tours.
"It's been fun, said Silvers. "I've just been hitting it well and putting it well and trying to make as many birdies as I can while I'm hot."
With such as stellar 2011 in the books so far, what's next for Silvers?
PGA Tour Q-School of course.
When I spoke with Mark on the phone recently, he talked about what he had planned for his upcoming schedule heading to Q-School.
We plan to stay in contact and combine to do a series following his journey for the rest of 2011 leading us through his quest to the PGA Tour.
Very nice story on Mark Silvers. I have never heard of this guy but seeing what he has done the past few years, maybe I should remember the name.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to reading the next stories about him heading to Q-School Eddie, nice job.
Chad - Thank you for the comments on the piece. It was a lot of fun to write and do the research on this young man.
ReplyDeleteI have to credit Courtney Capps for giving the material and the idea to do something on Mark.
Please keep checking back in as we continue to follow him on his Q-School journey. Thanks again.
Chad, as Eddie said thank you for your interest not only in this article but our website as well.
ReplyDeleteThis series will continue in the future along with more articles on the PGa & LPGA Tours as well as our newest Product Review series. Thank you again.
-Paul E.
How is Q school going for Silvers?
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, Mark was unable to move forward to the second stage of Q-School. He shot rounds of 74, 69, 76 and 75 putting him in T50.
ReplyDeleteOnly top-20 are to move on from that event.
Talking to him recently he said he will take a little time off and get back to work over the winter break and head back out on to a mini tours and try and Monday qualify for Nationwide Tour events as well.
When the season gets back under way in 2012, I will be doing a follow up piece on Mark.
Thanks for checking back in on his progress and results.