Swinging for a dream: Treadwell tries to make a go of it on the pro circuit

One of the earliest memories Trey Treadwell has of playing golf is receiving his first real set of clubs.

They were a present from his parents, Jim and Pam, for his fifth birthday and he spent the rest of the afternoon hitting golf balls in his grandparents' backyard.

He was no longer playing around with plastic facsimiles. That day is one of the his most vivid memories in golf -- he couldn't have been happier.

From that day on, Treadwell fell in love with the sport, playing in high school, college and then as an amateur. In the back of his mind was always a desire to do more, to play professionally.

That dream started to be realized about four weeks ago when Treadwell, a Haymarket resident, decided to join a pro tour and pursue his goal of making the PGA Tour.

"I've been playing high-level, competitive golf, national-level golf really since col-lege," said Treadwell, who attended the Air Force Academy. "All through junior golf and growing up I thought about becoming a professional golfer."

There isn't much to turning pro, Treadwell said. All it takes is for a golfer to decide that he (or she) will start playing for money and join a tour (and own at least a 3 handicap, which Tread-well does). The real challenge is sustaining your career as a professional once you go that way.

Coming out of high school in Oklahoma, Treadwell was looking for a college that could offer him a chance to eventually accomplish that goal. He wasn't recruited by top golf programs in Arizona or Texas or like Oklahoma University, but the Air Force Academy was interested in bring-ing him onto their team. That allowed Treadwell to continue playing golf against Division-I talent and receive his education.

Treadwell had always planned to turn pro after graduating from Air Force Academy in 1996, but a service requirement -- and eventually life -- slowed his progress toward that end.

He met his wife, Marianne, while he was at the academy, and the two eventually transferred to Haymarket in 2003, extending his service requirement to the Air Force to 2007 and making it an 11-year commitment.

While earning his master's at George Mason University, he played in numerous amateur events from 1997 through 2007, winning the U.S. Armed Forces Golf Championships three con-secutive times and the U.S. Air Force Golf Championships twice in a row. His game had changed once he wasn't competing on a team -- he could focus on his own play and abilities.

Now was the time to make the first step toward his dream.

"There's always going to be an excuse not to do it, whether it's the Air Force active duty, getting married, starting a family," Treadwell said. "I couldn't look at all those reasons not to do it; I had to say, 'What's really going to make me happy?' I didn't want to have this regret of not trying it."

So Treadwell joined the Tar Heel Tour -- at the expense of a $22,050 membership fee. In fact, he'll be playing in his third tournament of the year beginning on Monday in the Savannah Quarters in Savannah, Ga. He even updates his progress on his own Web site, www.treytreadwellgolf.com.

"I have to do a Monday qualifier to get into that," he said. "I go down to Bluff-ton, S.C., just across the border, to get into that event and I plan on being there throughout the week to play that tournament."

In order to qualify for the PGA or Nationwide Tours, golfers can take one of two paths. The first is Q-School, a grueling four-step process that lasts a year and tests players' abilities and mental toughness.

The other option is to win a PGA tournament after qualifying for the event on the Monday before it opens. Treadwell, while planning to enter Q-School in October, says this road is the "easier way."

"My entire season is set up around getting to and through qualifying school," he said. "I'm trying to gear myself up for that at the end of the year."

With a budding family at home, Treadwell is actually more free to spend time with his 15-month old son, Parker, and Marianne (expecting the couple's second child) than when he was a senior program manager with General Dynamics. The company has placed him on an unpaid leave of absence while he pursues golf. He is still available to General Dynamics on an as-needed basis.

"Balancing golf with family was a discussion I had with my wife and that was the most im-portant one for me," he said. "Before, a lot of times I didn't see my son before I'd go off to work or getting home.

"The beauty of what I'm doing now is I can get up in the morning and go work out, come back when my son wakes up," Treadwell said. "I can do my work at the course and come home in the evening when I want to and have dinner with my wife."

Treadwell says he is still refining his game in an effort to reach the PGA, particularly working on his short game and putting.

"It's been a good year and a half since I played competitive golf," said Tread-well, who spends upwards of nine to 10 hours a day at Haymarket's Piedmont Club playing or reviewing his past performances. "Getting back into the game competitive-wise, I'm shaking some rust off. I missed the cut in my first two events [this year], but I was able to evaluate my game and what areas I really need to work on.

"I'm a very strong irons player," he added. "I need to bring the rest of my game up to that level. I hit the ball solidly consistently. But everybody can hit the ball. The differ-ence out on tour is your short game and putting."

He's also improving the mental side of his game, one of the biggest differences between the top players and the rest of the hackers on local courses every weekend.

"At the different levels of even amateur golf and when you get to the professionals, that's very true," Treadwell said. "Part of it is learning how to think your way around the golf course. Not taking risks where they're unnecessary or unwarranted. You don't take a risk that the reward doesn't justify.

"The goal is to learn from my mistakes. So after every round I do a full round analy-sis."

But no matter how much time he spends on the course, Treadwell says his new life chasing his dream is all he hoped it would be.

"It's a blast. From a professional standpoint, this is the happiest I've ever been," Treadwell said. "Playing in high school, college as an amateur -- that was all work. This isn't work."