I Passed My PAT in the Most Stressful Way Possible

I'm sure there are other communities for PGA professionals on Reddit, but whatever. For context, I started golf a little later in life and only started taking it seriously about 5 years ago (I'm currently 37). So this is a huge accomplishment for me. I played in my playing ability test today to be a PGA pro. Our target score for 36 holes was 159. I shot a 159. This was my first attempt and I really was hoping to be one of the few who pull that off.

I couldn't get a birdie to drop even though so many were so close. I had one all day. Mostly physical errors because golf is really hard, but I did have one costly mental error early in my second round.

Anyway, I needed to par the last 5 holes to pass. Once I stopped playing passively and got more aggressive, good things happened. BUT with my heart rate at 120 on the last hole of the day I hit my driver so nearly out of bounds, that I hit a provisional. I had to punch out left handed... I proceeded to hit a very good wedge from 92 yds uphill. Had a tough 10ft putt downhill. I couldn't figure out the read as I went all around the cup. I had to trust what I saw from behind the ball and made the best and most relieving putt of my life.

I think anybody who's gone through this understands how hard it is. Good luck to any of you doing the same. It's wild, I only got into the golf industry a few years ago with a 15 handicap. Feels good, I just had to tell the story somewhere.

EDIT: A lot of comments here are very strange to me. If you've never done it, you won't get it. It's a one day, 36-hole grind. If you can handle that pressure and pass, I don't care who you are, you're a great golfer. Depending on who the data comes from, 20%-30% pass. For context, a quick search shows that roughly 26% of people hoping to become surgeons ever make it. So, yeah it's not easy.

PGA professionals are not strictly teachers.There are 3 paths to class A PGA membership. Yes, one is teaching and coaching, but golf operations and executive management are the other options. I wouldn't get hung up on the teaching part, as it's really only one path.

Many also seem to misunderstand how handicaps work. You won't see any high single-digit handicappers passing the PAT. Here's a good article explaining average scores by handicap. Even a 4 handicap averages nearly 9 strokes over par.

https://mygolfspy.com/news-opinion/golf-performance-by-handicap/