The Hustler

When Peter Lansburgh tees it up this week at the Valero Texas Open on the PGA Tour, he will be worlds removed from his regular day job of playing money games in Sacramento, Calif. Lansburgh hasn't had a real job in 10 years; hell, he hasn't had a not-so-real job in 10 years. That doesn't mean he doesn't work. Oh, he works, all right. Six days a week, Lansburgh shows up three hours before the game begins at one of several courses around Sacramento. He heads to the putting green and works on his short game for more than two hours. Six-foot circles, then 10-foot, again and again each day. Then he heads to the range for an hour. Not a glamorous range like the ones found at swank private clubs; it’s the kind where one ball might be a scuffed-up Wilson and the next a battered Top Flight. As he wraps up his practice session, the guys from the group start to show up. It’s time to go to work. It's time to hustle. 

Not in the shady, dirty, or sandbagging sense of the word. Everyone knows Lansburgh, so these guys know what they’re getting into. In the hustle to make ends meet, rent and other living expenses have to be paid. And these games are his meal ticket. Each game costs from $30 to $60 for the main pot, skins mainly, but a small portion goes toward low net or low gross. Then Lansburgh will work the group for as many side games as he can. He and Loren will play their usual $10 auto two-downs with $2 junk. They wrangle up three other guys and play a fivesome, three versus two, Lansburgh on one side, Loren on the other. This isn't a Venmo-type crowd. Cash is exchanged. On the spot. Lansburgh's story is another reason why I love Monday qualifiers. 

Lansburgh grew up in Woodland, Calif., and although his uncle was a teaching pro who counted PGA Tour winner Nick Watney among his students, he didn't want much to do with golf. Baseball and basketball were his games, and he did both pretty damn well. But as he was nearing high school graduation, standing just 5-foot-8 and weighing 145 pounds on a good day, Lansburgh knew he wouldn't get drafted, so during his senior year, he finally joined the golf team. His uncle had given him a cut-down club at the age of 3, and although he had a good swing, he only played seriously during that senior season. He was like a million other high school golfers—not very good. His best score was 77, but he often posted rounds in the high 80s or low 90s. 

After high school, he worked hard on his game. That’s because Lansburgh did nothing half-assed. He became good enough to make the team at American River College, a community college in Sacramento. That lasted just a year. "The coach and I didn't get along," he says. Back at home, Lansburgh went to work at a golf course, toiling in the cart barn, behind the counter and anywhere else he was needed. In between, he practiced and played in as many amateur events as possible. He was good enough to advance to the U.S. Amateur Publinks Championship three straight years, although he never made it to match play.

That’s when it hit him. "Why am I doing this for free?" Lansburgh thought, so he turned pro in 2012. Not in the press-conference-turn-pro type of way, but rather by entering a one-day Pepsi Tour event and clicking the box marked "pro." He shot 67 and won the $2,000 first-place prize. "I thought I was rich," he says. A few weeks later, he played in his first Monday qualifier, losing in a playoff to get into the Reno-Tahoe Open. I asked if he thought he would waltz out on Tour at that point. He chuckled. The kind of chuckle that could write a book. That was a decade ago. 

That summer, he went to the Dakotas Tour, one of the most challenging mini-tours. After winning once and turning in fifth-, seventh- and eighth-place finishes, a breakthrough appeared around the corner. While in North Dakota, he met a bunch of players and moved into a house in Arizona with fellow pro Tyler Weworski. 

While there, Lansburgh met future PGA Tour winners Joel Dahmen and Nick Taylor, among others. The days were filled with grinding on mini-tours, and the nights were spent playing the board game Settlers of Catan. "I can't believe he is still playing,” Dahmen said this week in a text to me. Dahmen tracked down Lansburgh's number for me. Asked what he remembered about that time in Arizona, Dahmen replied, "Peter always loved action and wasn't afraid of who he was playing against. I remember him not always dressing perfect or having the newest or best clubs, but the dude loved to compete."

Nothing has changed. Lansburgh is still hustling. 

After Arizona, Lansburgh headed to Asia for two years but never found success. He played a few events on the Asian Developmental Tour and the Philippine Tour but never found his footing. He returned home with more tough lessons and a lot less money. 

There was one successful Monday for the web.com (now Korn Ferry) Tour in 2017. "I thought I had finally made it," he says. Alas, Lansburgh missed the cut by three. Until this week, that was his only start on any tour under the PGA Tour umbrella.

Lansburgh settled back in Sacramento in 2018, and if you thought he might get a job, you would be wrong. He instead found his way into money games around town and made a name for himself in the local golf scene. He played money games six days a week. Along the way, he set the course record at seven courses. Seven! 

He soon settled into a routine: Sunday at Bing Maloney, Monday at Haggin Oaks, Tuesday back at Bing, Wednesday at Bartley Cavanaugh, Thursday at Bing, and after a day off, Saturday at Haggin Oaks. He has done this for basically five years running. "I have to put groceries in the fridge and pay rent," he says. Asked if he had paid a lot in cash over the last 10 years, he chuckles. The weekly goal: $1,500. 

A bad day meant more pressure the next day, perhaps even finding an extra side game. There are bills to be paid, after all. And he is paying the bills. He has lived like this for 10 years. Friends have floated him a few thousand here and there, but he has always paid them back. It's not an easy life, but when asked if he ever considered quitting, he quickly replied, "Never."

Lansburgh has gone to Q school only three times in 10 years as a pro; when you don’t have a day job, the $10,000 or more it takes to play three stages of Q school isn't readily available. He has yet to advance past the first stage. "Are you going to get a real job now?" a person he knew would ask after his failed attempts at Q-school. "Those comments give me a chip on my shoulder, I hope he reads your article. No, he wasn't going to get a desk job, but he had a real job. Lansburgh would settle back into his routine in Sacramento, looking for a game, looking for a hustle. 

In 2021, he played for the first time with Sam Flores, the owner of a cement and sewer company. Flores took quick notice of Lansburgh’s smooth swing, and a few weeks later, after Lansburgh had shot 60 to set yet another course record at Bing Maloney, Flores agreed to sponsor him. 

For the first time in his career, Lansburgh has financial help, so he has played in more tour events and fewer money games. He finished third at the Reno Open and 15th in another Golden State Tour event, and in January he got through the Farmers pre-qualifier, one of the deepest and most competitive on the PGA Tour. At last week’s Valero pre-qualifier, Lansburgh missed a six-foot par putt that he thought had knocked him out. He returned to the hotel dejected and fell asleep, then awoke to the news he had held on for a nine-way tie for the final qualifying spot. (all ties get through a pre-qualifier)

In the Monday qualifier, Lansburgh came to the par-5 15th at just 1 under. The scoring wasn’t particularly low because of the poor greens, but he knew he needed birdies. He got up and down for birdie, drained a 20-footer for another at the 16th and finished off the turkey with a 10-footer on 17. He made a routine par on 18 and signed for a 68, calling the next hour "the longest of my life."

When it became official, Lansburgh called his girlfriend, who said, "Is what I’m seeing on my computer true?" It was. The conversation was repeated in calls to his dad and other family members. There were tears and screams. A money-game player, a Sacramento legend, a dreamer, a hustler will at long last tee it up on the PGA Tour. At the age of 35. 

It was arguably Peter Lansburgh’s biggest hustle of all.

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