Medford Resident Passes Pro Golfer Test

Rick Giovino Passes Playing Ability Test

It is a test of skills that only the best golfers can overcome, and even more difficult to succeed under sultry skies. But on Monday, Medford’s Rick Giovino took the first and most important step to becoming a PGA professional by shooting rounds of 80 and 78 and successfully completing the Professional Golfer’s Association (PGA) Playing Ability Test (PAT) at Meadow Brook Country Club in Reading, Massachusetts.

The golfer’s PAT is a competition against the course, not opponents, that all golfers must pass to become a PGA Professional. It is a one-day, 36-hole event, played from the tees closest to 6,000 yards, and to pass a golfer must shoot a score of twice the course rating plus fifteen. The course rating is the evaluation of the playing difficulty of a course for scratch golfers under normal course and weather conditions. It is expressed as the number of strokes and is based on yardage and other obstacles to the extent that they affect the scoring difficulty of the scratch golfer. At Meadow Brook on Monday, that number was 161. Once passed, golfers never need to “validate” their test, or go through one of the qualifiers again.

The day couldn’t have started any worse for Giovino, as he hit his first tee shot out of bounds into the woods. To make matters worse, he missed an easy tap-in and finally finished the first hole with a quadruple bogey eight. That could have finished his day right then and there, but Giovino quickly regrouped and found his game. He went on to blister the course for the next twenty-four holes, playing them only four over par, until he double bogeyed the eighth hole (his twenty-six hole of the day). He finished the first round with a score of 80, with a 44 on the front and an even par 36 on the back nine.

With a lot of momentum and after a brief break for some lunch, Giovino headed out for his final eighteen. It was more of the same sizzling golf. Having turned around a day that started so dismally, Giovino now believed he had a very real possibility of coming all the way back and passing his first attempt at the PAT. According to the PGA, about 20% of the participants in a PAT event are usually successful. He made the turn on his second round with a 38, the only blemish being a double bogey on the par four eighth. Needing to finish the back nine with a score no worse than 43, Giovino started to struggle. He bogeyed the first three holes and found himself again needing to find his game. That’s exactly what he did. He was able to finish up the last six holes at one over par and a score of 78.

Speaking with him after the tournament, Giovino said, “I’m really proud of the way I was able to come back after such a bad start. This is one of the toughest courses I’ve played. It’s so narrow and there is no room for error. It could have been a real disaster after that first hole.”

But on this day, there would be no disaster, only the thrill of victory.

Giovino, a 2008 Malden Catholic graduate, is heading into his sophomore year at Assumption College and is a member of the golf team.

– InsideMedford.com