For Woodmore Pro, a Major Step

David Long had no great expectations when he began play in the PGA Professional National Championship last month at the Reynolds Plantation in Georgia. The director of golf at the Country Club at Woodmore in Mitchellville, Long had qualified by finishing sixth in the Middle Atlantic PGA championship the previous August and was simply thrilled to be there. And then good things started to happen.

By the halfway point of the 310-man, 72-hole event -- with the top 20 players earning a spot in the PGA Championship next month at Oakland Hills in the Detroit suburbs -- Long was in second place and the Golf Channel cameras then followed his group through most of the next round.

By the end of the day, Long had succumbed somewhat to the pressure and "I shot a million" (actually a 78), good for a tie for 33rd. But in the final round, the 41-year-old native of Hershey, Pa., made a spirited comeback, firing a 5-under-par 67 that allowed him to finish tied for 10th at 4-under 284 and advance to his first major championship.

"It's probably not going to hit me until I set foot on the property at Oakland Hills," Long said the other day. "It's not quite nerve-racking yet, but I'm sure it will be."

Long played high school golf in Hershey and had one year of college golf at Methodist College in North Carolina before he decided he wanted to become a teaching professional. He joined the PGA of America's apprentice program, then got his Class A license in 1996 and has been director of golf at Woodmore since 2005. He said he never had any aspirations to play professional golf for a living, mainly because "I really enjoyed the teaching part of it."

But he has always competed in Middle Atlantic sectional events, playing 15 to 20 tournaments a season to keep his game sharp. He played at the Nationwide Tour event at his course in May, the first time he had played against that level of competition, and missed the cut.

Playing in the PGA next month will be "one of the biggest thrills of my life," he said, adding that he expects a number of family and friends to come out to the Detroit suburbs, as well as a small contingent from his home club. "No matter what happens, it's going to be a great experience."

One other player from the MAPGA section qualified. Jim Estes, the head professional at Olney Golf Park, finished eighth in the same qualifying event at Reynolds Plantation at 5-under 283. He's going to have a busy week at Oakland Hills, as well.

Estes has opened up the Olney facility to wounded veterans recovering from injuries in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, holding weekly clinics in the spring and raising money through a foundation to purchase equipment and specialized carts for many of the players. On the day before the PGA starts, he'll conduct a clinic with several of his Walter Reed pupils taking part.

Navy's Hurley Has Eye on 2009

Billy Hurley, a native of Leesburg and one of the finest golfers in Naval Academy history, still harbors hopes of qualifying for the PGA Tour once he fulfills his five-year obligation to the Navy next summer. Hurley, a lieutenant stationed at Pearl Harbor, said in a telephone interview that he has not been able to practice or play much because he's busy fulfilling his duties as a deck officer on the destroyer Chung-Hoon, named for the first Hawaiian-born Navy admiral.

Hurley will be honorably discharged from the Navy next June and plans to spend several months getting his game back in shape for a run at the PGA Tour's qualifying school in November 2009.

"I spent most of this past winter in port getting new systems and upgrades installed," Hurley said. "There hasn't been much time for golf. I'm just trying to make the ball fly whenever I do get a chance to play, which is not very often. But my swing is still holding up and I'm still able to hit it pretty good. I think it will all come back once I start working at it full time.

Hurley had applied for an early release last year to pursue a professional career, but the Navy denied his request. He said he had no problems with the decision but admitted it was difficult to watch young players such as 23-year-old Anthony Kim win tournaments on the PGA Tour.

"You start thinking, 'I wish I was out there with them myself,' " he said. "There's a real ebb and flow to your emotions. I've gone as long as a month without even touching a club or even thinking about golf. But I also love what I'm doing. I enjoy my job and I've got no regrets at all. I'll spend next summer and fall getting ready and I think it will all work out."