GAINING ON IT
From an interview with Jonathan Byrd

Jonathan Byrd enters his sixth season on the PGA Tour in 2007. He was won twice, at the 2002 Buick Challenge and the 2004 B.C. Open, but he wonders now if maybe he is on the verge of something far better.

HIGHS
On the PGA Tour winning anything is probably the highest achievement. Obviously, winning a major championship is one of the highest, that next to winning a Ryder Cup.

I think it’s an awesome feeling, but it’s just like everything else, it’s fleeting. Somebody else is going to win the next tournament. And in a few weeks, it just goes by so fast. There are more tournaments coming up, there’s a new year the next year. It just seems to go so quickly.

There are a lot of other highs out there. Just when you feel like you’re getting your game together, you shoot your low round of the year, you’re getting into contention week-to-week. It’s pretty fun if you’re putting some weeks together, trying to make a Ryder Cup team.

LOWS
The lowest low out there is feeling like you can’t compete, like you’re never in contention. I had a year in 2005 where I made a lot of cuts, but I was never in contention. I walked away from it trying to be positive, saying, “OK, that was a good year, I did a lot of solid things.” But it was boring. It was mundane. The job gets mundane and it’s a low. Then in 2006 I missed a fair amount of cuts, but I was in contention a lot more, and it was a huge difference. You’re playing to win tournaments. You’re not playing just to get by and to make a check.

GOALS
I’ve won two tournaments in five years on Tour. I’m getting beat a lot more than I’m winning. I face that challenge. I set goals every off-season, I set goals every year. You have result goals, which are making the team, or stat goals, which are result goals, or how you finish on the money list. Those are things you just can’t control because they’re result goals. But if I set goals based on what I want to improve in my demeanor on the golf course, what I want to improve in my attitude, what I want to improve in my practice time, what I want to do with my fitness. There are so many other goals you can set so you’re not losing all the time. If I go out and achieve this, this and this, then I’m going to play well. And then I’m going to achieve the result goals of finishing in the top 30 on the money list or winning the Masters or making the Ryder Cup team.

SUCCESS
You measure success by how you rate yourself more than how the media does. If you rate your success or your accomplishment based on what the media says, man, you’re always losing. They’re going to compare you to Tiger Woods. I’m 28 years old, he’s 31. You know, I’m a junior league golfer compared to him. But I can’t compare myself to anybody else other than what I feel like I can accomplish, what I can do. I’m not saying I don’t fall way short of my expectations most of the time, but I have other things that I work on that I can accomplish and keep improving on.

I think you measure success, a lot of it, based on your stewardship. What has God given you? In the area of stewardship, there are a lot more aspects than just money. We’re given talents, we’re given time, we’re given relationships, and we’re given money—I’m probably leaving some things out—but you’ve got to a good steward of all those things. I think that’s a good place to start.

SKILL
I’m close right now. I’m closer right now than I probably ever have been on Tour. I won the Buick Challenge my first year on Tour, and my game was pretty good, but it was nowhere near what it is right now. It wasn’t as sharp then. I wasn’t able to hit as many shots. There are things that I’m doing right now that will help me think better and better as the years come on.

I don’t think firing on all cylinders just means you’re winning. I’ve played really well in tournaments and my game hasn’t been really good before. I haven’t been good at the time. I don’t think that’s the gauge. I’ve been able to see really nice improvements in my game and I’ve gotten in contention. But I haven’t hit that mark yet where I’ve put it all together. When I put it all together, I’m going to win, or I’m going to be close every week.

APPROACH
My mental coach is Morris Pickens. He’s helped me so much in the past year in turning one thing around, which is that I’ve always kind of approached golf so that on a tournament week, Monday to Wednesday, was my work time. It has always been fun. I would go out and do my work and be pretty serious, but I was actually more relaxed during that period. But when the tournaments started, I would get locked up and try really hard. I had a hard time relaxing Thursday through Sunday.

I’ve learned to switch gears. Monday through Wednesday is my preparation-work time and I’m more serious during that time because I’m trying to get prepared for the tournament and then once Thursday starts it’s more of a relaxed time because I’ve done all my work. So that’s my time to have fun and go show off. That key idea—“show off”—is to just go out and enjoy competition.

GIFTS
I think God has given me a great desire to compete. He’s given me a great desire to pursue excellence in golf. I spend a lot of time doing that. That is a worthy use of my time, because I am glorifying God in my pursuit of excellence and trying to win golf tournaments. It gives my life great purpose and significance, because I’m ultimately doing that for God’s glory.

He’s also given me kind of a one-track mind. Like in relationships—hanging out with guys on Tour or from different ministries I’m involved with—some guys can handle a lot of different things, a lot more things on their plate. I’m not built that way. I’m better if I can pour my energy and my time into a few things, or just a few people, so I don’t get spread too thin. When I get spread too thin, I’m useless and I get frazzled.

NEXT
For me, it’s to continue to improve my game in more stressful situations. I still fight that urge when I get in situations to try too hard. I want things so bad that I kind of get in my own way, and I don’t let my talent come out. I want to be more relaxed in the environment of playing in the last group on Sunday—just going out and approaching each shot for what it is, and trying to show off on each shot and to engage on each shot, not for the result but to hit a great shot. The more I do that, the more relaxed I’ll become and the less I’ll worry about the result and how I’m going to finish.

FRIENDS
I’m really good friends with Ben Crane and Zach Johnson. I’m really good friends with my pastor at home, David Yarborough. I’m good friends with the guys at College Golf Fellowship, Brad Payne and Stephen Bunn. And I’m good friends with my brother, Jordan. And Dave Kreuger with Search Ministries. And obviously, my dad. If I need counsel or I need somebody to filter and idea through or just encouragement, those are the guys God has placed in my life.

GROWTH
There’s no outline. It’s different every year, it’s different every day. I’m in the Word, my prayer life’s good. It turns out it’s not so much the things I do—like I’m doing this, I’m doing this, I’m doing this—but I want to be in God’s presence and I’m hungry.

I’m definitely an early riser now because we just had our first baby late last summer, so that’s been awesome to be up early a lot. It’s a lot easier to worship and have a quiet time early in the morning before the day starts. That’s been a blessing.

AMANDA
I met Amanda in college at Clemson. We were both just about to start our junior year. We had a class together the semester before. I never really had enough nerve to talk to her, but I knew who she was. Right before that next year started, somebody introduced us, actually in a bar. We ended up getting together with a group of people the next day at the pool. We hung out some more and I took her on a date two nights later, and we’ve been together ever since.

We dated two years in college and about six months after we started dating we went to an FCA retreat through Clemson, and we heard Tommy Nelson go through the Song of Solomon series and that changed our relationship big time. We came back from that conference with a different perspective on pursuing holiness in a relationship and how we can glorify God just by dating and courting each other. We were dating at that point and I know we didn’t do it the right way the whole time, and we had our challenges going forward, but I really didn’t start courting her for marriage until we got out of college.

I knew she was the one probably about a year after we got out of college. It took a while for me. She would probably say different. She probably knew I was the one when we were in class together, before we even met.

LITTLE MAN
His name is Jackson Byrd. It’s going awesome. Just watching my wife’s body change and watching her go through pregnancy was scary. She ended up having a C-section, but watching the birth process and then God blessing us with a healthy beautiful son—that was an obvious miracle.

There are obviously a lot of challenges, like getting used to your world being flipped upside-down. You realize how selfish you are after you have that first child, because your life changes so much. He’s just awesome.

BALANCE
When we got pregnant, I think the biggest fear—to be vulnerable—for my wife and me, was that it was going to make things a lot more difficult on us. Maybe we weren’t ready or it was going to be more difficult for me to focus on my job and put the effort I needed to put into it to be successful. And then was it going to take the focus off of our marriage, our time just with each other? So those were two challenges we knew going into it.

But it’s been really strange. I thought I would have less time to practice and to work on my game and to pursue excellence in my game, but I haven’t lost any of that. My desire to do that has almost been enhanced. I’ve cut out a lot of things, like the time I wasted when I just watched TV and other things that weren’t productive. I’ve replaced that spending time with family, and I still get plenty of time to do my work and to practice and do everything I need to do to keep getting better.

AMATEURS
I don’t see any difference in those amateurs we play with and the group of guys that are on the PGA Tour. People in the business world are seeking financial gain and success in the business world; it’s the same personality as you see on the PGA Tour. They may have the wrong perspective, but they don’t recognize it because they don’t know any different. They feel like if they get one more notch in their belt or they get a new job position or they have that new car or they become a member at Augusta or whatever, it will completely satisfy them. You see the same pattern in every occupation. You see the same pattern in your hometown or on the PGA Tour, or with CEOs, or whoever you play with. I am so glad for the perspective of knowing there’s nothing in this world that can fill that void in our hearts but Jesus Christ and having a relationship with Him. I don’t see the need for Him just out there, I see it all over the place.

GIVING
College Golf Fellowship is probably the number one ministry I’m involved with. I just have such a heart for college students because I was in college and I was an idiot that first year and a half in college, just kind of living foolishly, pretty much running from God. I know what the environment’s like. You’ve got so many professors and so many different people who can influence your thinking in the direction you go in life.

The best thing I can pass on to younger players is my story. I can give them golf tips and I can tell them golf stories, and they love to hear that kind of stuff because I’m where they want to be someday, playing on the PGA Tour and I’ve won two PGA Tour events, so I kind of have some credibility going into it. A lot of kids just want to know golf tips, how they can get better, but the best thing I can give those kids is my story, my testimony, how I came to realize that I needed a Savior.

RELATIONSHIPS
I think God has been tugging on my heart this year about how important relational ministry is. The guys on Tour, we go through times where we’re really fired up about our Bible study or fired up about trying to tell more people about Christ. But we just kind of keep coming back to how important relational ministry is. There’s a time and a place to talk to guys. You have to wait for the opportunity where there is spiritual openness with guys.

It’s just been on my heart to hang out with guys and spend time with guys and just to meet guys right where they are, and to do things they like to do, not just on the PGA Tour, but guys at home. My wife and I and other couples do ministry right where we are—just doing the most mundane things, going to a baseball game, going out to dinner, whatever people like, going hunting in the woods. That’s ministry right there, spending time with people. Once they realize that you listen to them and they know you care about them, then there’s spiritual openness and they want to know what’s different about your life and why you have that peace or contentment in your life. Then God gives you an open door to tell them about Jesus.

You feel guilty that you should be doing more or saying more, and most of the time you need to be loving people more and spending time with other people relationally.

This article originally appeared in the 2007 Links Letter.

READY TO RUMBLE
By Jeff Hopper

After dinner, in the shadows of the setting sun, the two boys slid out the screen door and over to the back lawn again. Nine dugout holes defined the playing field. Two pitching wedges, the arsenal. This was the summertime ritual for Jonathan and Jordan Byrd. Who could chip it closer? Who could chip it in?

It was the way with the two boys, both in love with sports, both primed to play golf since not long after they could walk. And it was some kind of fierce.

"We’d duel it out every night and talk junk to each other," Jonathan recalls, "but it was healthy competition."

Healthy competition. It's a dichotomy that haunts Jonathan Byrd, the 23-year-old Clemson graduate who in four stunning weeks this spring leapt from the BUY.COM leftover list to second in earnings.

Perhaps life would be a lot easier for Jonathan Byrd if he didn't take things so seriously. But it's his nature. As a junior golfer, he didn't just participate in the Saturday morning 9-hole matches; he sweated them out. At Clemson, he wasn't just a three-time All-American; two seasons he was an Academic All-American, too. And now, with his golf dreams shockingly tangible, he struggles to relax. After all, there are balls to be hit and weights to be lifted and courses to know. The life of a Tour pro is so—well, so busy.

In the beginning, Jonathan and Jordan Byrd (Jordan is 18 months older) followed their father out to a field in Anderson, South Carolina, their cutdown 5-irons in hand. Dad hit balls. Jonathan and Jordan whacked them. There were no Tiger Woods-like Tonight Show appearances, but it was pretty obvious what Mr. Byrd was up to. He was planting a love of the game.

But even golf had to compete—with baseball and soccer and wrestling. Jordan led the way, but Jonathan wasn't afraid to take him on. And when it came time to focus, to choose one sport over the rest, Jonathan still had no fear, even though his small size put him at a visible disadvantage.

"When I started playing high school golf," Jonathan says, "I didn't hit the ball anywhere because I was real small. But I could beat most of the older guys because my short game was so good and I putted so well. They'd be hitting it way past me, but by the end of the round, I was two over or one over, and I'd beat them all. I'd hit 3-woods into every green, not able to reach par-4s in two, but still making par."

When it came time to size up colleges, though, Jonathan again used Jordan as his guide. Jordan, recruited in both wrestling and golf, chose golf at Furman University. Two years later, Jonathan toured five schools, looking for the golf program that fit best. He leaned heavily toward the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, his father's alma mater and his boyhood favorite. But Clemson offered a better program for golf and one other key advantage: Jordan would be just 35 minutes away.

"It just kind of fit," Jonathan says of his decision to choose the Tigers over the Tarheels. "You pray about it and trust your gut, trust your heart, and go with your decision. I definitely made the right one."

Praying about it. That was something his father and mother both had taught him.

"I was raised in an awesome Christian home," Jonathan says now. "But I didn't really start living my life for God, didn't really have a true relationship, I guess, until my sophomore year in college."

But indeed the seed of faith had been planted early. In the third or fourth grade, Jonathan attended a church camp where he prayed with his counselor to receive Jesus Christ as his Savior. Like many kids, though, Jonathan's faith was supported as much by his family as it was by his own conviction, and in high school, he began to sow other seeds.

"I was a good kid in high school, but I liked having fun and drinking and partying," Jonathan says. "I didn't do too much of that in high school, but when I went to college, that was what I associated with what was fun in college."

Jonathan's drinking became more frequent.

"In the back of my mind I thought, 'I can't be going out and getting drunk all the time and say I'm a Christian, but then I want to have fun, too.' So I went to college partying a lot and getting involved with alcohol."

But at the same time, Jonathan was doing what was expected of him—on the golf course and off. In his freshman year, he was named to the All-ACC first team, and by the time he graduated, he would be the first Clemson golfer ever to earn that honor four times. Twice he overlapped honors as an All-American for his golf and an All-American for his studies. There was no question about his dedication.

"Jonathan has been a dream to coach," his coach Larry Penley said when Jonathan was named Clemson's IPTAY Athlete of the Year for the second consecutive year in 2000. "He has been a great team leader, someone the younger guys can look up to."

And Jonathan's dream remained before him. His personal web site in his sophomore year at Clemson paid homage to Ben Hogan and expressed confidence about his desire to make it on the PGA Tour and even to beat Tiger Woods.

But it was during this same sophomore year that Jonathan Byrd, the golfer, finally confronted the Jonathan Byrd he had been taught to be since childhood. By that time, his conscience had been battling him for a year.

"I remember one time during my freshman year, two high school kids came up to me on campus," says Jonathan. "They asked, 'Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ and what He did for you?' And I got mad at these kids because I was going out to party. I knew what He had done for me, but I didn't want to acknowledge it, because I wanted to go out and have my fun."

But the "fun" of heavy drinking began to weigh on Jonathan. In fact, it somehow kept him coming back to God in prayer.

"It was the guilt that brought me back to praying to the Lord," Jonathan explains. "I said, 'I don't know how to get rid of this, because I'm so attached to it and so associated with it. But I know this is not what You want me to be doing.' So I just kept praying that it would be lifted. I didn't feel like I could beat it. I knew I couldn't do it on my own."

At Christmas break, the answer came.

"It was a burden that halfway through my sophomore year was totally lifted from me. Early in January, right before I went back to school, I just felt it lifted, the burden of that."

So Jonathan continued to pray.

"I went back to school praying really hard, 'Lord, I need to meet Christian friends. I need to meet Christian people and have people around me.' I didn't think there were many Christians on campus and when I came back, I realized that we had one of the biggest FCAs in the country. I started going to FCA on Thursday night."

(FCA is the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. FCA groups, or "huddles," exist on most campuses around the United States.)

Jonathan is not afraid to admit to his heavy drinking. But he quickly adds that the change that came over him was so sudden and so obvious, that others began inquiring about it.

 "Every time somebody asked me, 'Why aren't you drinking?,' I just felt His strength and His power in my heart saying, 'Tell them why.' So I would tell them, 'It just isn't something I want to do anymore. I'm living my life for the Lord now.' I could tell people that with a lot of certainty."

From there, Jonathan began a journey back into right relationship with God and with those around him. Although he knows he lost friends because of the change in him—a loss that he says was hard—he was supported by people he had hardly known before.

"I met a lot of great people in Clemson FCA," Jonathan says. "Some of the older people in Clemson, through one of the churches in Clemson, were just good friends."

While still at Clemson, Jonathan attended a retreat sponsored by College Golf Fellowship. There he heard Tommy Nelson of Denton Bible Church speak, and in following up on Nelson's message, Jonathan made changes in his relationship with his girlfriend. "We went through his tapes and changed our relationship, trying to be as holy as we could be," Jonathan says.

 And his relationship with his parents grows stronger. "Your parents just encourage you so much," he says. "They're there at all times."

 When it finally came time for graduation with a degree in marketing in the spring of 2000, Jonathan Byrd knew that he had accomplished so much and so little all at the same time. In 1999, he had been South Carolina’s Amateur Golfer of the Year. He had played two Palmer Cups and a Walker Cup as one of the country’s top amateurs.

 But there was still that desire, the one that played like a simple refrain, "PGA Tour, PGA Tour." Despite earlier opportunities to turn professional, Jonathan eagerly chose to complete his degree at Clemson. But when it was over, that dream was so much closer, as if he had just awakened from it, fresh and living in his mind.

 By the fall of 2000, he gained access to his first PGA Tour event as a professional, the Michelob Championship at Kingsmill, Virginia. He made the cut and finished tied for 36th. This dream, then, was better than fantasy. It was possibility.

 Next stop, Tour Qualifying School. Confident, Jonathan qualified through the first two stages, moving to the finals at PGA West. There the hurdles were higher, the competition stiff. Jonathan shot a disappointing 4-under par for the six rounds.

 He didn't make the PGA Tour, nor did he receive exempt status for the BUY.COM Tour. He gathered instead the lowest possible prize for a player who makes the final stage: BUY.COM conditional status. His number was 16, which meant that each week, after the tournament gave first rights to exempt players and Monday qualifiers, 15 other players would still get in before he did. He could try to get in as a Monday qualifier, but the chances were slim.

 "I did Monday qualifiers for the first four tournaments," Jonathan says of his early 2001. "I didn't qualify for any of them. You play a practice round on Sunday, then you play a qualifier on Monday. If you don't make it, you're practicing for the next five or six days, getting ready for the next one—one round of golf that means your whole week."

 So when, in Arkansas, he got in on his conditional number, Jonathan knew he had to seize his chance to earn a check. He shot 78 in the first round.

 Dream deferred?

 Only a day. On Friday, Jonathan rebounded with a 67, made the cut, and played well enough on the weekend to tie for 17th. He earned "a pretty good check," which would help him move up in the upcoming reshuffle—except that for Jonathan Byrd, the reshuffle was about to become marvelously incidental.

 Because of his top-25 finish, he was automatically in the next week's event at Greenville, South Carolina, about as close as he could get to home. But the Charity Pro-Am at The Cliffs was no ordinary tournament. The BUY.COM Tour's equivalent of the AT&T or the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, the weekend at The Cliffs would be as well attended for its celebrities as for its golfers.

 Until one Clemson grad made his move.

 Jonathan opened with a 67, then fell back with a 70 on Friday. He was six shots off the lead.

 "I knew I had to play really good on the weekend to cut that lead down," says Jonathan.

 Saturday was good enough. He fired 66 and was within three.

 And the Tiger—as in Clemson Tiger—fans began to take notice. The winner at The Cliffs could be one of their own. But Jonathan knew he needed a strong start to catch the leaders.

 He got it. In the first six holes, he made two birdies and an eagle. The pro-Clemson, pro-Jonathan Byrd crowd grew in size and intensity.

 "It's awesome to have all those people cheering for you," Jonathan told reporters after the round. "I don't know if every school is like that, but everyone around here just loves everything associated with Clemson."

 On the back nine, he just kept firing—though sometimes wildly—making five birdies and three bogeys.

 "I was just trying to concentrate on making a lot of birdies, birdie every hole, and stay confident," Jonathan recalls. "I did the whole time. Unfortunately, I bogeyed the last hole, got a little aggressive. But I still won by one. It was a great week."

 Great indeed. The paycheck, for $90,000, catapulted him to third on the money list. Two weeks later, after another top-3 finish at Virginia Beach, he was second. The dream, though not yet reality, was suddenly more possible than ever. At season's end, the Top 15 money winners from the BUY.COM Tour earn PGA Tour playing rights.

 But as an academician, Jonathan knows he still has lessons to learn.

 He knows he must learn to relax ("I haven't figured that out yet," he admits.)

He knows he must learn to be satisfied, with struggle and success alike. "I heard something on the radio," he says, "and I can't quote it, but you've got to be happy for where you are right now. If you're not happy with where you are, and you want to be somewhere like, say, the PGA Tour, that pretty much means you need to be lower if you're not satisfied with where you are. Guys like (PGA Tour professional) David Gossett have just wonderful attitudes and they're really satisfied with where they are and joyful all the time. I think that's how we should be."

And, believe it or not, he knows he must learn to live with more than one dream.

"I want to get as good as I can at this game. That is probably my highest goal. I also want to get married and have a family. That's something I'm excited about. It's kind of a conflicting goal, too. It conflicts with golf and being on the road. At some point I'm going to have to lower my goal for golf and concentrate on family. You can't go out there like Tiger does and work so hard for just golf goals, and still have a family and kids and stuff like that."

So maybe that Clemson Tiger's sophomore dreams of whooping the biggest Tiger of all were just that—sophomoric. Maybe now he is starting to understand the whole of this dream, this gripping desire. And maybe, like his big brother Jordan, Jonathan Byrd is equally talented at both golf and wrestling. Only, like Jacob, his wrestling match is with God. If so, he can't wait for the blessing.

This article originally appeared in the Links Letter, August 2001.