William McGirt remembers as a child being told by people such as his teachers and coaches that he could accomplish anything if he put his mind to it.
Other people, however, were less supportive that McGirt could realize his dream.
“I can remember when I was at Wofford (College) telling some people that I was going to play on the PGA Tour and had a lot of people laugh at me,” McGirt said.
People including friends. He was a couple of weeks from graduation at Wofford in Spartanburg, S.C., when he sat with a friend and reflected on the previous four years, during which McGirt won the 2001 Southern Conference individual championship. The friend asked him what he was going to do next, and McGirt said he would try to play on the PGA Tour.
“He kind of laughed at me and spit out his beer,” recalled McGirt, who turns 42 on June 21.
McGirt told the story in a telephone interview last Saturday as he was traveling from Bluffton, S.C., where he and his family of four moved about two months ago after almost 20 years residing in his wife Sarah’s hometown of Spartanburg. William McGirt is now in Dublin, Ohio, host this week of the PGA Tour’s Memorial Tournament.
Muirfield Village Golf Club is the site of McGirt’s lone victory on Tour, which came in 2016 at age 36 and in his 165th start. After turning professional in 2004 and spending years playing on various mini-tours while keeping his mind on his goal, McGirt earned his PGA Tour card in 2011. He proved the naysayers wrong.
“When you believe in yourself that much, you’re going to work that much harder to reach your goal,” said the native of Fairmont, N.C., near Lumberton.
The 5-foot-8 McGirt has embraced his everyman status as a popular, relatable journeyman grinding on Tour. There have been some highlights since that victory, like reaching the FedExCup Playoffs for eight straight seasons, and McGirt has earned nearly $11 million on Tour.
But he’s also had his struggles, especially with injuries the past three years.
He had surgery on his left hip in September 2018 and a second one in August 2019, causing him to miss the 2018-19 season. The only tournament he played in 2020 was the Memorial.
“Let’s just say I’m about done with surgeries, I hope,” McGirt said. “A lot of it goes back to my days of squatting behind home plate.”
This leads McGirt to tell another story, though no details about beer spitting this time. The location was a doctor’s office, where he was getting the hip examined for the first time.
The doctor asked him about his sports history. McGirt was a very good baseball player in high school, good enough to get college offers. He played the sport for 10 years.
The doctor asked him which position, and he responded catcher.
“He said, ‘Don’t tell me 10 years.’ So I just sat there in silence.
“He said, ‘Well?’ I said, ‘You told me not to tell you.’ ”
Paying a price
The wear and tear of catching for 10 years had taken a toll on McGirt’s hips and knees.
“I wouldn’t trade that time for the world. I absolutely loved it,” McGirt said. “But looking back at it, it’s probably cost me a few years with surgeries and setbacks and stuff with my body.”
He was a good defensive and great hitting catcher for average.
“I hit almost .500 my junior year in high school and just under .500 my senior year. I was over .400 as a 5-foot-nothing sophomore,” he said. “I might have been 5-2, maybe.”
As golfers have a photographic memory of golf rounds they’ve played, McGirt remembers specific details about his baseball career. He thinks he struck out only five times in three seasons of varsity baseball.
“Two or three of those were on called third strikes I know were not strikes,” he said pointedly.
Still, he showed no hesitation in answering that he has no regrets for not pursuing a college baseball career.
Another chance
He’s playing on the PGA Tour through a major medical extension. McGirt explained that he had averaged competing in 29 events his previous three full seasons, so he has 29 starts to reach the point total that was 125th in the standings in 2018-19.
“I have a small number of events, as (opposed) to where if I was fully exempt, I could play every single event, or as many as I wanted to,” McGirt said. “I’ve got a certain number, and once I hit that number, I need to be at a certain point total. If I’m not there, I’m done.”
That’s a lot of pressure to maximize opportunities. He has to be highly selective with those 29, entering tournaments where he has fared well and the course fits his game. According to the PGA Tour website, he has made the cut in two of seven events.
“I haven’t played that well, but I’ve played a whole lot better than where I’ve finished,” McGirt said. “I feel like I’m on the verge of starting to play really, really well again.”
Following the Memorial, McGirt will be able to commute from his home in the Berkeley Hall private golf community to play in a one-time-only event, Palmetto Championship at Congaree. The June 10-13 tournament, which is replacing the RBC Canadian Open this year because of logistical complications related to the COVID-19 pandemic, is at Congaree Golf Club, a private club north of Ridgeland in Jasper County.
McGirt is a Professional Ambassador for Congaree and raves about “this gem of a golf course” and its professional staff that “is on top of everything but they’re not on top of you.” The atmosphere is relaxed, the course condition impeccable, and the remote location has few if any distractions, he said.
He might be the leader in the clubhouse, to borrow a golf phrase, among his peers by having played 40 to 50 rounds at this relatively unseen Tom Fazio-designed course never before on the PGA Tour calendar.
“That being said, it’s a golf course that really on paper does not suit my game. When you look at the scorecard and you see 7,800 yards, I’m not a bomber,” McGirt said. “So you have a very long golf course with no real penalty off the tee for spraying it.”
The shots get harder closer to the green, he said, and golfers could go crazy with so many options on club and shot selection. They have to trust their first instinct, erase doubts and commit to the shot, he said.
“Experience is going to be either a lot of help or it could be that the experience of knowing what can happen, you might have a little scar tissue in there that hurts,” he said.
“I can see both sides of that,” he continued. “The problem is I know some of the areas you just can’t play from and know it’s a big number waiting to happen. You always have that in the back of your mind. So trying to put that out of sight and out of mind, and just hit good golf shots, is the hardest part.”
McGirt does have a track record, however, of succeeding when he puts his mind to something.
Nathan Dominitz is the Sports Content Editor of the Savannah Morning News and savannahnow.com. Email him at ndominitz@savannahnow.com. Twitter: @NathanDominitz