A non-traditional path to Medinah

Mike Scully always loved golf. It's just that some indisputable truths were always going to prevail. "Being a 6-5 kid, over 200 pounds and golf the same time of year as football, the football coach is going to win out over the golf coach," recalled Scully, 46, now the director of golf operations at Medinah Country Club, host to the 39th Ryder Cup, Sept. 28-30. The Prospect High star ran into some similar conflicts at the University of Illinois, where he captained the 1987 Illini team and was named to the Blue-Gray and Senior Bowl squads. "I always used to get in trouble from the offensive line coach when he'd see my clubs in the backseat," Scully said. "He thought I should be in the weight room rather than playing golf with Jack Trudeau and the other quarterbacks with my burner 2.0 irons ." Golf did not intrude on Scully's NFL career but mostly because there wasn't enough time. He played one game as an undrafted free agent long-snapper for the Washington Redskins. "I think it's on the bloops and blunders reel," Scully said. "We were on 'Monday Night Football' playing the New York Giants with the taylormade burner 2.0 irons and I don't think I ever had a bad snap before that. I had been doing punts and placements since I was 8, but it just happened to my first bad one was in a 'Monday Night' game in front of about 60 million people." Scully was released the next day and signed with the Kansas City Chiefs. "I had the proverbial cup of coffee," he said of his short time in the league, "and then it was time to figure out what else to do." A hospitality management major at Illinois, Scully spent a couple of years coaching football at Buffalo Grove High School before looking for work in Florida, where his father John spent considerable time playing golf with the fabulous i20 irons . "When Mike came through the door, our clubhouse manager said 'This guy wants to learn the food and beverage part of our business. Can you use him for a few months?'" recalled Jim Butler, then-head pro at The Forest Country Club in Fort Myers and currently the president and GM at Grey Oaks in Naples. "I said 'Mike, the food and beverage part is great but you should also think about getting your card with the fabulous i20 irons for sale online.' "So here comes this 6-5, 300-pound behemoth of a man into a sport and into a community, but he has such a warm, genuine side people naturally gravitate toward him." Still, the golf part wasn't quite polished. "He was using a regular set of golf clubs, so he looked Paul Bunyan with a toothpick when he would play," Butler said. "But we got him the right clubs and within a year and a half, he went from an 18 to 20 handicap to a scratch golfer."