David Byrne is Canada’s house guest, travelling the country while trying to create his second big break in golf

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This article was published 28/08/2021 (1840 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

David Byrne played a recent event on Mackenzie Tour-PGA Tour Canada and stayed with an 86-year-old woman, introduced to him by a friend, to help save money. They ate pizza, watched “Jeopardy!” and laughed about the Blue Jays.

It’s an odd connection on paper, but it’s nothing for Byrne. He’s Canada’s house guest, he says, and this summer he’s driving his 2017 Chevrolet Malibu across the country to play on the Mackenzie Tour, staying with friends — no matter their age — and rediscovering joy in the game, and life.

“Golf is why I have friends. Golf is why I get up in the morning,” he says. “I come from a small town where there’s not a lot of stuff to do, and when that’s the case there are only a few things, usually bad things, to do. I don’t know where I’d be without golf.”

The car had 26,000 kilometres on it when he left Windsor. It’ll have more than double that when he’s done. His girlfriend, Zoe Bennett, is with him. The car has a clothing rod across the back seat, plenty of shoes, and little plastic boxes to hold his socks and underwear.

It’s home for the next couple of months, except for when he’s staying at other peoples’ places.

Marilyn Swartz helped in Toronto. The family of a girl he met at a Denny’s at 3:45 a.m. in Florida is taking care of Byrne and Bennett in Prince Edward Island. That girl and her husband are helping in Calgary. A group of guys called The Misfits will host them in Kelowna, B.C. And the twin brother of a long-ago friend just so happened to recently build a lake house in Waskesiu, Sask.

“It all kind of works out for me,” Byrne says.

Professional golf, however, hasn’t quite worked out the way he planned.

Byrne is 33. He serves at On a Roll Sushi and Slider on Windsor’s waterfront, doing his best to make quick money. He has played just one PGA Tour event in his career, which came after he won the Golf Channel’s reality show “The Big Break” a decade ago.

A teenage Byrne was told repeatedly how good he was, and had the results to prove it — he was ranked as the top amateur golfer in Ontario in 2007 — he went to the University of Detroit Mercy. He was the Horizon League’s player of the year in 2010.

He turned professional after school and bopped around minitours before he joined the cast of “Big Break: Indian Wells.” Byrne, who was the youngest competitor that season, won the title and $70,000 (U.S.). His take-home pay was about half that — “There’s a game show tax. Did you know that? Nice thing to find out when you’re 22” — but it was enough to get him to move to Florida.

Byrne also earned an exemption into the PGA Tour’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans where he played a practice round with Luke Donald, then the world’s top-ranked golfer.

“Hot girl at the bar. No one ever talks to her,” says Byrne, smiling, about the advice his coach gave him when he suggested he ask Donald for a game.

They played, but Byrne missed the cut in the tournament itself.

Now, nine years later, he says he wasn’t ready for the opportunity. All he did was beat 11 people on TV to get a spot in the tournament. He wished he got that PGA Tour chance now, but Byrne knows he is closer to the end of his professional golf career than the beginning.

He graduated college more than a decade ago and often competes against guys who were born in the 2000s. Amateur Noah Steele, who won the Osprey Valley Open at TPC Toronto, is 23. “He demolished us,” Byrne says.

Byrne has been solid, if unspectacular, this season. But in three events, he’s made the cut in each one. After starting the season with a budget of just over $5,000, raised via GoFundMe, that means more money to fuel his adventure.

“I’ve done the struggle. I don’t want to be grinding when I’m 40 and trying to make $800,” Byrne says. “But I’m playing some good golf and I just owe it to myself to see this through properly on my own terms.”

More than the money or the playing opportunities, these next few months are a chance for him to fall back in love with the game. He’s happier than ever.

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Byrne ended up caddying at the posh Bel-Air Country Club for people like Steph Curry and Wayne Gretzky after moving to California in the mid-2010s with a former girlfriend who wanted to pursue modelling. The golfers there talked about anything and everything and had fun playing. When his relationship broke down and Byrne returned home to live with his mother, who raised him as a single parent, he had a new outlook on the game. Why couldn’t it just be fun for him, too?

He met Bennett — “an angel,” he calls her — and got into the Wim Hof Method of breathing, cold exposure, and meditation. He dealt with anxiety for a while, he says, and had a tough time recognizing it. It’s better now.

As far as what’s next, he’ll chase the white line for as long as he can. He has met tons people connected to golf and does his best to stay in touch with all of them. For the most part, they’re happy to have him in their homes as he goes. Maybe he’ll go to Europe, he says. He grew up playing against Nick Taylor, Adam Hadwin and Roger Sloan, and he’s seen them have a ton of success and gets inspired.

“I’m going to give myself this year and next year. If I’m still here in a couple years, hey, great. I’ve had a great golfing life and I’m sure I’ll get into golf in some form or another. But I’m just not ready to have a mindset of being on a farewell tour,” Byrne says. “Golf is my life. It’s everything, you know?”

Adam Stanley is an Ottawa-based contributor to the Star’s Sports section and the host of golf podcast Next Round’s On Me. Follow him on Twitter: @adam_stanley