Professional golfer

A professional golfer is somebody who receives payments or financial rewards in the sport of golf that are directly related to their skill or reputation.

The professional golfer status is reserved for people who play, rather than teach, golf for a career.

The early professionals were working-class men who made a living from the game in a variety of ways: caddying, greenkeeping, clubmaking, and playing challenge matches.

It was not possible to make a living solely from playing tournament golf until some way into the 20th century (Walter Hagen is sometimes considered to have been the first man to have done so).

Golf is affordable at public courses to a large portion of the population, and most golf professionals are from middle-class backgrounds, which are often the same sort of backgrounds as the members of the clubs where they work or the people they teach the game, and are educated to university level.

Leading tournament golfers are very wealthy; upper class in the modern U.S. usage of the term.