Golf Central

Ever wondered where today's tour pros would be without golf? Imagine if golf had never been invented. What would they do to make a living; serve burgers in McDonald's, stack shelves in a supermarket... collect bins? Not this lot, who'd all be able to fall back on sports they played as youngsters before they took to the fairways to make millions...

John Daly

Obviously we're over the moon that Daly chose a career in golf, but the Wild Thing could well have ended up on the playing fields of the NFL. An extremely talented kicker, Daly was a high school letterman in American football and once reached the final stages of the NFL's Punt, Pass and Kick competition as a nipper, but decided he was better at golf. Wonder if the tough NFL training regimes would have kept him in shape?

Shane Bertsch

Not a household name by any means, Shane Bertsch has still managed to make a killing on the PGA Tour ($2,167,950 to be precise) out of being a nobody. Before concentrating on golf as a profession, Bertsch had a promising career as a junior tennis player, but decided to pack it all in after losing a crucial match to future world number one, Andre Agassi. Good attitude that, Shane...

Peter Hedblom

It's hard to decide whether those Swedes ar better at ice hockey or golf. Henrik Zetterberg or Henrik Stenson? Peter Forsberg or Niclas Fasth? It's a tricky decision, but one things for sure, Peter Hedblom's had the best of both worlds. Gavle- born Hedblom took up ice hockey when he was six years old, but gave up thoughts of pursuing a career on ice in 1986 because the game took up too much time and he was more interested in golf, anyway. Having enjoyed relative success on the European Tour, Hedblom still plays ice hockey at a competitive level for his local team.

Jerry Kelly

Nicknamed 'The Cylinder' on tour because of his ability to make so many clutch putts, Kelly not only played ice hockey for Madison East high school, but was also an all-city selection at the same level. Kelly complained, however, that ice hockey hindered his early golfing career because the sport's aggresiveness filtered through into his golf game. We've heard a lot of excuses in our time, Jerry, and that's a particularly bad one...

Anthony Kim

If there's one player we should all be thankful for choosing golf over another sport, it's the super-talented Anthony Kim, whose first love as a youngster was basketball. Kim played point guard at high school, and spent his days playing ball, using every spare minute of the day to practice his free throws. Despite having dreams of acareer in the NBA, Kim's dad put him straight, saying, 'You are not going to be the president. You are not going to make it to the NBA. What you can do is play golf.' We're not that keen on pushy parents, but props to Kim's dad for those blunt words of wisdom.

Allen Doyle

What is it with golfers and ice hockey, eh? With 11 Nationwide Tour wins under his belt (or should that be ice hocket girdle?), Doyle's had a good time of it on the fairways, but could have had an equally, if not more succesful career hitting pucks and checking players up against plexiglass. Doyle attended Norwich
University on the Francis Ouimet Scholarship, and was not only the 1970 ECAC golf champion, but also graduated as the top scoring defensman in the university's history.

Ian Leggatt

After spending his summers practising his golf, Candian Ian Leggatt would use his wintersplaying ice hockey, and as a result, became involved in speed skating, and did so up until the age of 19, just before he went to university. Leggatt raced short track distance, always on indoor rinks, and became Canadian national champion. Probably best to stick to golf, Ian... can't imagine there's much money to be made in speed skating.

Simon Dyson

Dyson can thank his lucky stars he made it as a golfer, because the best he could do as a youngster was to play for Yorkshire under-21s at tennis and get onto the books of the footballing giants that are York City and Scarborough.

Parker Machlacin

The 29-year-old from Honolulu, Hawaii, is having a pretty decent year on tour, but if he hadn't have picked up a set of golf clubs, we'd probably find him on a beach somwehere playing professional voleyball. A three-year volleyball letterman at Punahou High School, Machlachin was a setter on three consecutive State Championship teams and a two-time all-league and all-state selection. We not sure how he ended up being such a good golfer, though, because his mum was captain of the 1976 US Women's Olympic volleyball team and his old man works as a play-by-play volleyball announcer.

Ian Poulter

Poults had schoolboy trials at Tottenham Hotspur, but probably opted for golf for one of the two following reasons; he realised that it's sacreligious for an Arsenal fan to play for Tottenham, or Spurs bosses wouldn't let him wear check shorts.