A golf course is a frontier. A golfer searches for something. A ball, a hole, a score, something more. Maybe they're after something deeper; something they can’t even identify.

It’s an individual game. You may have a coach and a caddie – in some cases, a team – but when it really counts, when you’re visualizing the shot and standing over the ball, it’s just you and the ball. Deepak Chopra wrote, “Don’t punish the ball because it knows everything about you.” My son heard that line at four and still repeats it for laughs today.

The life of a pro golfer away from the course can be draining. Traveling from place to place, hotel to hotel, hoping to win enough money and points to get to another week and, usually, another tour.

Some players, like Jhared Hack, can make the grind appear to be a great adventure. Hack began the year in India, having never been to Asia before, and played well enough to advance to the HotelPlanner Tour almost immediately. Hack joined me on Any Given Monday recently, and estimated he’d played in 20 countries this year. Italy, France, China, Switzerland, Finland, Ireland, the list goes on. But the 37-year-old’s comeback season has been bittersweet.

"It's been the most lonely experience I would say I've had in professional golf, just with the time change from home. It's hard to keep up with home,” Hack says. “I've been in Las Vegas, I think, just under ten weeks this whole year. My wife's gotten to come out twice. That's definitely the part that a lot of people don't see. Don't get me wrong, it's amazing. I'm in paradise right now, but I don't really have my family here with me to share it with."

Golf, at its best, is freedom. Michael Bamberger quotes Updike calling it “freedom of a wild and windy sort.” Golf, in a less desirable form, is isolating. Lonely.

That can be hard to imagine for weekend golfers who love the game. Of course, everyone knows pro golf is unimaginably competitive, but how could playing golf for a living be anything but invigorating? How could seeing the world along the way not be electrifying?

Hack recognizes his good fortune more than most. Many with similar results before the start of this year would have given up.

Hack won dozens of mini-tour events running away, once shot 57, and gained and lost Korn Ferry Tour status a handful of times. In his last year on the Korn Ferry Tour was so utterly lost, so incapable of being competitive, that some pros refused to play him for money in practice rounds because they knew it wasn’t a fair fight. Playing him for money then was akin to kicking a man when he was down.

After years of struggle, he found a swing. He made peace with the worst outcome. He outran the fear. Even when he had $214 in his bank account in July of 2025 and no way to get to Q-School, he still believed. Then he won a mini tour event (beating me in a playoff), earning enough for his Q-School entry fee. He breezed through the first stage, but came up short at Second Stage. In the moments after missing by eight shots, he was already planning his next move: India.

It should have scared him to death: a new husband barely getting by with no place to earn a living. Instead, he sold his car and decided to go where few Americans have.

Jhared paid $225 to enter the Professional Golf Tour of India Q-School and boarded a plane for Delhi. Four and a half hours to JFK, 14 hours to Delhi, a six-hour layover, an hour-and-a-half flight to Ahmedabad, and an hour to the golf course.

"I was pretty apprehensive about getting on that flight from JFK to Delhi,” Hack says. “Like, do I really want to do this? What am I doing?”

He watched the entire season of Apple TV’s Stick, two episodes of Planet Earth and slept. Twenty-seven hours later, he arrived. The golf courses were built for sharp iron play and an imaginative short game. In other words, built for Hack’s strength. The food was vibrant and flavorful. The locals were curious and welcoming. The hazy air couldn’t stop his golf ball from finding its target.

After securing his PGTI status at Q-School, Hack shot 59 in the final round of his first official event to win by five. The victory earned him about $23,600 and validated his decision to travel across the world. He followed that up with a top-five, two top-10s and a runner-up finish at a co-sanctioned HotelPlanner Tour event, which earned him points and another start on the DP World Tour’s feeder circuit. He credits his perspective for the success.

"I'm really far away from home. I have a lot of people that want me home but are supportive of me being here, and I miss my dog, my wife, all the simple pleasures we take at home,” Hack says. “So don't waste anything on the golf course by beating yourself up or being angry or any of the little stuff that I've probably done before that has really held me back."

He finished T-9 in Italy in his next HotelPlanner Tour start, making a nervy 12-footer to secure the top-10 finish that earned him another shot the following week.

"I was like, what can I do to make myself proud?” Hack says. “My thoughts on that putt were stay in my posture, hold my finish. I took a good solid look at the hole. And I mean, that thing went right in the middle. And I was nervous too. My hands were shaking. That was one of those defining moments of like, okay, I can do this even when I'm uncomfortable."

Hack earned enough points to qualify for the remainder of the HotelPlanner Tour season. He made the most of a European summer and arrived in Mallorca, Spain, for the Tour Championship 28th on the Order of Merit. He likely needs a top-four finish or better to move into the top 15 and earn a DP World Tour card.

"Everybody's sacrificed a lot for me to be here. And I have sacrificed a lot too to be here,” Hack says. “Let’s not waste this then."

But Thursday’s opening round on the hilly island course did not go as planned. A five-bogey, two-birdie round left him at three-over and 44th in the 45-player field. In Round 2, Hack again struggled on the front nine, turning in one-over, but salvaged the round with an eagle on 11, a birdie on 12, and a birdie on 13. He signed for two-under, only moving up two spots on the leaderboard.

Hack has an uphill climb ahead this weekend, but it’s a position he’s used to. He’s traveled farther than almost anyone in the pro game this season. DP World Tour Q-School near Barcelona is likely his next stop. Then he can return home, reflect on his year and rest.

Until then, he’ll continue searching.