Assistant pros have a love for the game

The really amazing part about assistant golf pros is not that they often have to be on their feet in the pro shop for nine hours at a clip or that they make little money or that they have to leave home for five months out of the year, taking jobs in Florida to make ends meet.

Most amazing is that, on their one day off a week, they usually go to some course and play golf.

"It's the love of the game, the thrill of the game, the chance to see how far you can go," said Nick Beddow, 28, who regularly travels from his home in Shirley to Monday assistant pros tournaments. He actually won one at Quaker Ridge in Scarsdale this season.

Getting his game in shape for that was no easy achievement, given that he works at Great Rock Golf Club in Wading River, a public course, and often tends the register and answers the phone from 5:30 a.m. to late afternoon. "To stand on my feet for nine hours and then try to go out and get practice of any value, it's tough to do," he said.

One thing tougher is finding people who love golf more than the participants in the Met PGA Assistants Championship, which began Wednesday at Bethpage Red. It is their major, one that offers berths in a national tournament and one that always arrives right after Labor Day.

"The busiest weekend of the year," said Matt Sita, an assistant at Nassau Country Club, who normally has a full schedule of lessons.

"People think you play golf all day, but I actually don't. I haven't practiced much since the Long Island Open," said Sita, thinking back to early June, when he shot a first-round 65 at Wheatley Hills and placed third.

Sita shot 78 Wednesday, recognizing that sometimes the game is there and sometimes it isn't. Twelve years into his career -- six at Nassau after six as an assistant at Glen Cove Golf Club -- this still is better than anything else he could imagine.

At 34, he plans to play at least one more season on the Florida mini-tour from November through April. "I have to live very frugally. I had to cut the nightlife out of my regimen," he said, adding that he has played against guys who have won on the PGA Tour. "I know the difference between us is three or four shots, on average. But those three or four shots, at our level, take a lot of work, a lot of time."

So he is patiently waiting for a head pro job to open up, as are most others in the field this week.

David Head, 38, an assistant at Laurel Links, has been at it for 13 years, at five different clubs. He caddies in Florida during the winter to help pay the bills, having once chucked it for a job in corporate sales.

"I realized that while I was sitting in an office cubicle, my buddies were out teaching, playing and enjoying themselves more than I was," Head said after he made seven birdies Wednesday and shot 3-under-par 67.

Like Nick Bova of Friar's Head, who also shot 67, Head is the son of a club pro and feels like the game is in his blood. Bova, 26, is proud to have been born on the last day of the Masters.

The bottom line is, an assistant pro has to really push himself to practice after a long day, and then has to tighten his belt on payday. But in the words of Jesse Fitzgerald, 32, assistant at Garden City Golf Club, "It's probably the best office in the world. I played 18 holes today and that was considered work."