Floyd turns in sneakers for golf clubs
Colin Floyd insists he is serious about making golf his career.
Yet the former walk-on basketball player at Gonzaga University is making his professional debut at the 47th annual Lilac Invitational golf tournament using a set of irons he borrowed from his brother, Ryan, who was a member of GU’s 1999 NCAA Elite Eight team.
Floyd said he was forced to borrow the clubs after he sold the Mizuno blades he was playing to former Bulldogs teammate Blake Stepp earlier this summer.
“Blake wanted them real bad,” he explained, “so I told him I’d make him a good deal.”
Floyd has a set of new Titleist irons on order, but they didn’t arrive in time for the Lilac – a fact that hasn’t seemed to rattle the 23-year-old to any great extent.
“I’m excited about getting them,” he said Thursday, after shooting an opening round of 1-over-par 73, “but I hit Ryan’s irons OK today. My putter just let me down.”
Floyd hit his brother’s borrowed irons even better on Friday, posting a second-round 67 that left him alone in 14th place with a 36-hole score of 4-under 140, eight strokes off the lead.
Floyd, who is working this summer at Manito Golf & Country Club, said he was pleased with where he sits, considering the low expectations he had coming in.
“I’m just hoping to make enough money to cover my entry fee,” he said. “My parents wouldn’t sponsor me, so that $325 came out of my own checking account.”
And the dollar bills, Floyd admits, haven’t exactly been stacking up on his dresser since he graduated from Gonzaga and began the lengthy process of obtaining his PGA certification.
His job at Manito currently involves “mostly grunt work,” but Floyd is hoping to eventually move inside and work the desk in the pro shop. He has helped out at a couple of GU basketball camps this summer and plans to move into a house with two of his old college chums next month to save on rent.
He admits he has no concrete plans beyond November, when the staff at Manito is normally released for the winter.
Floyd said he has considered trying to hook on at a course in Southern California, but doesn’t know if he could stand being that far away from Gonzaga basketball.
“I’ll probably look for another job around here in the winter – hopefully a good one, where I can still go to some games,” he said. “I’m hoping they’ll give me free tickets.”
All things considered, the Zags probably owe Floyd a ticket or two. Along with spending five years as practice fodder and being rewarded with fewer than 60 minutes of actual playing time, he joined the Bulldogs golf team last fall.
And he did so with some respectable credentials.
A four-sport standout at Harrington High School, Floyd won the 1998 State B golf tournament as a freshman and tied for third each of the next two seasons. As a senior he gave up golf to run track, but never lost his love for the game.
“I thought about trying to play both sports coming out of high school,” Floyd said, “but I didn’t know if I could juggle all of that and my school work, too. Then last year, I figured I wasn’t playing that much hoops so I might as well try something else.
“The golf was something I always kind of wanted to try, and it ended up being a good experience. I probably should have tried it a year earlier.”
After joining the GU golf team, Floyd played in two tournaments, finishing in a tie for sixth place in the Tillinghast Invitational at Fenway Golf Club in Scarsdale, N.Y.
But by the time the Bulldogs’ basketball season ended with a third-round NCAA Tournament loss to UCLA last March, the golf team had already played four of its six scheduled tournaments, and Floyd competed in only one of the two remaining events.
He is currently playing in his fifth Lilac Invitational, where he finished as low amateur last year. He has also won both the Lilac long-drive contests he has entered and says he will try to qualify for the 2006 RE/MAX World Long Drive Championship that will be held in Mesquite, Nev., in late October.
The winner of that event earns $125,000.
“I’ve always been able to hit the ball a long ways, so I’m going to try to earn a spot in that,” said the 6-foot-1, 205-pound Floyd, who has purchased a driver head with a 4-degree loft that he plans to attach to the end of an extended graphite shaft that is also on order.
Last year’s winner drove the ball 376 yards, a distance that does not frighten Floyd, who recently won a long-drive prize during a tournament at the Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course with a blast of 367 yards.
“It’s doable,” he said, “especially if I can add 4 ½ or 5 inches to the shaft of my driver shaft. I think it’ll be fun. I don’t know if I can win it, but I think I’ll have a good time at it and maybe even win a little bit of money.”
Which, borrowed clubs and all, is still a distinct possibility at this year’s Lilac Invitational.