David Mathis waited a long for this, and the road traveled to get there has been anything but easy.
But the 35-year-old former North Davidson and Campbell golfer, who is a rookie on the PGA Tour, is as pleased as he can be as he prepares to play in the Wyndham Championship starting Thursday at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro. “It’s nice,” Mathis said in a telephone interview Monday. “After all these weeks in a row, I’m glad to spend some nights in my own bed. That’s for sure.” The golfing career for Mathis as a pro has been one of perseverance. He graduated from Campbell in 1997 and turned pro that year. It took 11 years of playing the golf equivalent of the minor leagues to earn a spot on the PGA Tour. Rookies in their mid-30s are not the norm on the professional tour, and Mathis did entertain thoughts of hanging it up five years ago. But his then-girlfriend Chastity, who is now his wife, talked him out of it. “She said, ‘All I’ve ever known of you is playing golf,’’’ Mathis said. “‘If you quit, it will take away a big part of you.’ So, basically, she wouldn’t let me quit.” And so he kept playing.
Mathis played two Nationwide Tour events in 2005 and then played that circuit full time the following season.