PGA Tour players rarely quit. Not really. Not in public.
Others continued to play forever, transitioning to the Champions Tour, preparing for Charles Schwab’s points from South Dakota to South Florida until the end of time. Others play for a long time, clinging to the status quo even as it diminishes, dropping one rung at a time until there is no denying that both feet are on the ground.
But we don’t often get the kind of farewell tour we see in other sports. We don’t get thank you ads or tearful press conferences— unless you’re Jack Nicklaus or Arnold Palmer, when it finally happened in the mid-’60s or mid-’70s. So we often miss the perspective of life on the edge, the exit interviews of professionals who made it work for a while but eventually made it to the bottom.
Enter Martin Trainer.
In some ways, the job of a coach is strange and unique. For a while he had a Ricky Bobby-esque trajectory, either struggling to win or missing the cut; he climbed onto the PGA Tour with multiple Korn Ferry Tour wins and wins in his first season, locking in a few more years of tenure.
But in some ways Coach can speak to the general experience of the Pro’s Tour better than the guys we usually hear from, the Schefflers and Schauffeles and McIlroys and Morikawas of the world. He fought for status, rode tours, waited around as an alternate, on Monday he passed and Q-Schooled missed cut after cut and yes, he did win.
Now he’s taking a unique post-PGA Tour route, preparing for psychology school while pursuing his career as a therapist. He says that high level golf gives you a lot of knowledge about stress and depression.
Coach shares 10 things he learned in new retirement announcement-turned-interview The Drop Zone. The five pieces are below; you can find loads more on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
(Side note: I wrote my own retirement letter several years ago, although as a spoiler alert I never won on the PGA Tour.)
1. There are (obviously) some really good things about being a pro golfer.
People often think that playing on the PGA Tour means you’re living the dream; the truth is, if you’re not a top dog, it’s more complicated. But yes, Coach confirmed with clarity: there is something so many great things.
“I think there are some exciting moments that I don’t think you can get outside of professional sports. It’s when you make a long putt and the crowd cheers,” Trainer said. “It’s a different kind of experience, out of the body. When you play 17 at [TPC] Sawgrass, you hit that tee shot and you hit the green, or let’s say you birdie that hole and the crowd goes crazy. I think those are surreal experiences and hard to wrap your mind around.
“I don’t think it’s very ‘natural’ to be put in that situation, but it’s certainly very exciting.
But more than happiness, work provides a certain clarity of purpose. I thought there was something very touching and beautiful in the way the coach explained this little bit:
“In terms of lifestyle, I think the great thing about playing professional golf is that you always have a goal. You always have a new week. You always have something to work towards. I think in our modern lifestyle there are a lot of people who feel purposeless, who feel separate and apart from society, and you have this sense of purpose, I think, with golf, where you find your goal to pursue.
“It’s a craft. It’s a craft that feels important and meaningful. And I think that part really grounds you. It allows you to always look forward to something. So it’s a kind of mental catnip. Because you always have next week, even if you blow up and miss the cut by seven shots, you can always make a few tweaks to the next range and hope it’s better next week.”
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2. Pro golf can be brutal, too.
“We just talked about the good parts. I think unfortunately there are a lot of really challenging parts, especially from a mental health standpoint,” the coach said. “I think there’s something really unnatural, I think, about flying every week to a new place, staying in a hotel, never having a sense of community, never being aware of your surroundings, not having a routine involving your surroundings. … When you’re in a new place, especially the first few years you’re there, you try to enjoy it randomly, but I remember it randomly. with Rory Sabbatini in the practice round It was like, my third event and I asked Rory, I said, ‘Hey, How many times have you played this event?
And he just looks at me straight in the face and he’s like, ‘I’ve played here for 24 years straight.’
“And it’s like, at some point, maybe you went to that fun little museum they have downtown, 22 years ago. And maybe you have your own little restaurant that you go to. But the years go by and I think it gets harder as time goes on to be excited about those things.”
For Trainer, whose PGA Tour status has finally come to an end, one rock-bottom spot stands out — particularly one tournament that ended with a splash:
“I think there was one moment that I think was the lowest I’ve ever been,” he said. “It was a few years ago at 3M [Open]. So, towards the end of the season, I had a really good first round. I shot like six under par or something like that. I was in second or third place after the first round. [Editor’s note: Confirmed, Trainer opened with 65 and was T3.] And I was already missing a bunch of cuts, so I was like, ‘Oh, finally, I’m going to have a big week. This will be my week.’
“And the second round I just absolutely bombed. It was really windy, tough conditions, and I just made bogey after bogey. And it comes down to the last hole, and all I need to do is make par or bogey to decide.
“And I’m like, blasting my iron into the water and making a double bogey. And I’m just so devastated. And that’s something I’ll never miss. That moment of just like, so much devastation, that spark of hope that’s just been taken from you is really cruel.”
3. Stress is very real.
The coach described the first-tee pressure as “eight out of 10” but said that’s still low compared to competition, where it goes up to “11, or higher.” His best illustration of that situation? Enter the 2024 Zurich Classic, where coach and partner Chad Ramey ended up in a playoff against Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry.
“I didn’t hear the club, actually,” said the coach. “And I just remember later, I was like, I had no control over what I was doing. I mean, it was what they talked about when you couldn’t even think. Like, when you’re at a distance, you can have a flexible mindset. Here there was no thought of bowling, there was just survival, you fight or flight, and you just have to hit this ball, and it’s hard to imitate that. It’s hard to even imagine being inside it. But he really turns to favoring a very primitive form of likeness, hand-eye contact at that. You can’t even try to control the club. You’re just going to swing. Just one mode. It’s swinging.”
How did it go for Trainer in the playoffs?
“You know, it’s mixed,” he said with a grin. “I mean, I hit a good drive, but then I had a really hard pitch shot and I hit it a little low. And then I had to par the hole to get to the next one. It was about six feet and I just drilled it to the right. And I think it’s hard to even control the club at that point, you just hit it.”
4. Celebrity unknown.
The coach said he never achieved anything close to celebrity — “when I went to the store or went out on the golf course, no one knew who I was” — but his win at the 2019 Puerto Rico Open propelled him along with other top-level winners and gave him exposure to the biggest names on the Tour.
“It’s really a curse in a way,” he said. “I think normal people … everyone seems to dream about celebrity and social status, and you know, recognition, but I struggle to find any good in that. Just going to the grocery store or getting on a plane and you have people come up to you and say all kinds of weird, stupid things to you? It’s not going to be fun. … over again over again. And after a while, it’s like, you can’t just ignore it, you have to deal with it. So he went up to him and told him something – this guy was trying hard to get his autograph during the game, and he politely told them to come and ask after the round. But yeah, dealing with that, it’s going to drive me crazy. I don’t know how those guys do it.”
5. Best lesson on Tour? They come together – except one.
As a professional golfer, Trainer said, you’re often more concerned with the score you can shoot on a course than its history or architecture. But not always.
“You’re right that they all end up blurring together, but there are a few that are different,” she said. “Number one, I think, Pebble Beach, it was the only practice round you look forward to all year.
“You think professional golfers love golf. Actually … practicing, especially when you’re tired or not happy, can be a struggle.
“But playing Pebble Beach was always fun, practice or not.”
You can listen to the rest of the interview below, or follow the Drop Zone at one of these links:
Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Instagram | Twitter
Dylan Dethier welcomes your comments at dylan_dethier@golf.com.
