Tour pros. They’re different from us amateurs. 
    If you happened to catch the end of BMW Championship at Olympia Fields in August, you know exactly what we’re talking about.
    Here’s a brief recap of the climactic finish:
    Dustin Johnson was trailing by a shot on the final hole and staring down an impossibly difficult double-breaking downhill birdie putt from 43 feet. He needed to make it to send the tournament into overtime with clubhouse leader Jon Rahm.
​    Of course, this happened…

    Beginning with a summer job and rising through the ranks to President and CEO of a nationwide company with 83 locations, Al Morris’s ride in the golf retail business may seem as plausible as a golfer recording two holes in one in the same round, which he has done. But his success and the rise of the Worldwide Golf Shops — which operates Roger Dunn Golf Shops and The Golf Mart here in SoCal, along with five other brands nationwide — has been anything but lucky. It’s based heavily on hard work, paying attention to customer needs, and grinding day after day to continually get better. 
​    We caught up with Morris between meetings and a cross-country flight to learn about his career and a remarkable day he had on the golf course that few of us will ever experience.

    There's plenty going on in the world of SoCal golf these days, from one of the biggest names in professional sports making his PGA Tour Champions debut to the coronation of a newly minted LPGA star that no one outside of the Symetra Tour had ever heard of prior to this past weekend and much more. 
​    Here's a look at five storylines we're following…

   Youth was served in the Southern California Golf Association’s 121st Amateur Championship, which wrapped up August 20 at Goose Creek Golf Club in Mira Loma.
   Luke Potter, a 16-year-old from Encinitas, became the youngest player ever to win the venerable championship, but it took three playoff holes to secure the victory.
   Potter, who was also the youngest player to compete in the U.S. Amateur at Bandon Dunes in Bend, Oregon, in mid-August, fired an 8-under-par 62 in the final round of the August 17-20 event to tie Pepperdine freshman Caden Fioroni and send the match into a three-hole aggregate playoff, which he won on the last hole.
   Five shots back of Fioroni, who led going into the final round, Potter shot up the leaderboard with a 7-under 28 on the front nine, which included five birdies and an eagle, an impressive showing for the youngster, who is committed to play at Arizona State.
   Both players finished 15-under after four rounds with scores of 265, with Potter shooting 67-68-68-62 and Fioroni 69-68-61-67.

   The proverbial shotgun has sounded, and the heart of the Southern California PGA tournament season is now under way.
   Six major events – beginning with the Super Senior Section Championship, which tees off today – will take place across Southern California over the next five weeks. 
​   Here’s a look at the titles that are up for grabs:

    Wade Wilson knows a lot when it comes to golf. The PGA professional at El Niguel Country Club in south Orange County has been teaching the game for more than two decades and he’s helped countless golfers shoot lower scores over the years. We've certainly learned a thing or two from reading his articles that appear in El Niguel's monthly newsletter, which we help to produce.
    And it’s not just because of his vast knowledge of the golf swing. Wade has a deep understanding of how to help golfers get the most out of their game simply by employing a little everyday common sense. 
​    With that in mind, here’s some good advice to follow from Wade before deciding which tee boxes you're going to play from the next time you tee it up…

    We’ve all been there during a round of golf. Everything is going along just fine. Then, all of a sudden, a bad hole. Then another. And another.
    “Too many golfers I come in contact with say the same thing when I ask them how their game went,” says Indian Wells Golf Resort’s PGA Head Golf Professional Tom Burley. “They say, ‘Great, except for about three holes.’ I find that a lot of golfers can hold their round together for a while, but not all 18 holes.” 
​    We asked Tom to share a few ways to remedy that. Here’s what he had to say: 

    Long before Eric Lohman was the PGA General Manager at Monarch Beach Golf Links in Dana Point, he was an accomplished junior player in the Coachella Valley who competed on the Southern California PGA Junior Golf Tour and later on the UCLA golf team.
​    With a combination of more than 25 years in the industry and his experiences growing up in the game, who better to seek out for advice on helping kids enjoy the game? 
​    Here is what we learned from the 2017 Southern California PGA Golf Professional of the Year who now sits on the Board as the Secretary of the SCPGA​:
Success can be measured many ways
    Does your child enjoy what they are doing and does their effort pay off with some sort of quantifiable result such as a win, a high finish, making a team, happiness, exercise or friendship? The answer to that question is different for everyone.  
    There should always be a goal, and if that goal is met – whatever it may be – it should be considered success. If I took 10 kids at age 6 and worked with them weekly for 12 years, they would all be different athletically, physically and emotionally at age 18, so their definition of success (and their parents’ definition) will likely be vastly different among the group.