Parel is taking his best shot at living out his golf career dreams  PGATOUR.com Correspondent ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- Want an intriguing Cinderfella story? Try catching up with a guy named Scott Parel. Never heard of him, right? No matter.  Should Scott Parel win the Xerox Classic on Sunday, the check would double his career earnings. (Jim Rogash/WireImage)
Just check the 36-hole leader board of the Nationwide Tour's Xerox Classic at quirky yet classy Irondequoit Country Club. There he is, hovering very near the top after a 5-under-par 65 in Friday's second round that gave him a seven-under total of 133, just a shot behind leader James Driscoll, who was through 14 holes when weather brought play to a halt Friday at 5:00 p.m. EDT. That's some rare air for a conditional player like Parel, 42, who has worn out several dozen pairs of sneakers chasing his middle-age-crazy professional golf dream. Rocky Balboa was fiction. This guy is fact, sans the raw-egg breakfast buffet and sparring sessions with sides of beef hung in cold storage. A decade ago, Parel was a computer programmer and database administrator who dabbled with golf when he wasn't sitting behind a desk while hacking on a keyboard. He dabbled a little too well, though. Kept shooting 60 and 61 around his home track at West Lake Country Club in Augusta, Ga. He won a city amateur title and made it to the round of 32 in the United States Amateur. Then he took a flier in a TearDrop Tour event and made the cut. That's when all the guys at the club told him he was wasting his time staring at some darned inanimate object like a screen; that he ought to take his sticks to the PGA TOUR Qualifying School just to see how he measured up. They even offered to pay his $3,000 entry fee. With the blessing of his wife Mary, a part-time nurse who had grown weary of hubby's constant moaning about his day job, Parel accepted the challenge. He made it through the first stage, no easy feat. Second stage was another story. Had Parel been able to maintain his amateur status, the story ends then and there in November of 1997. But now he was a professional whom the golf bug bit rather hard. So he hatched a three-to-five year plan that is threatening to turn into The Crusades. Parel, who made the usual mini-tour stops and won at least once each year, was close to packing it in until U.S. Open qualifying in 2002. He shot 66-66 to win the sectional by seven strokes and gave himself one more shot at Qualifying School. He finally made it to the finals, where he gained Nationwide Tour status in 2003. Still it has been a long, strange trip. That's why Parel smiled when asked if he thinks he is nuts. "Sometimes I do," he said, laughing. "But I'm doing what I love the most." Honestly, though, it was a reasonable response from a player who has played in 74 Nationwide Tour events, making just 23 cuts and $112,105 in official earnings -- in his career. So how does he make ends meet when he has a 15-year-old daughter (Kayla) and an 11-year-old son (Cory) at home? "There are ways to do it," he said. Yeah, you win long-drive contests. Not off the tee, though, on the highways. When Tiger Woods was looking for pros to compete in his Monday pro-am at the AT&T National at Congressional Golf Club in Bethesda, Md., Parel stuck his hand high in the air. It did not faze him that he had a 5 ½ hour drive from the Nationwide Tour event in Findley Lake, N.Y., and then a 6 ½ hour ride to Cleveland for the following week's event. There was a $1,500 paycheck awaiting him outside the nation's capital. "I enjoy those kinds of things," he said. "You get to meet some very nice people and no matter how you play they think you're awesome." So it's only natural Parel also volunteers for every Nationwide Tour pro-am and the Tuesday corporate outing the insurance and financial giant holds in conjunction with tournaments. Plus, he gets a little money from Bridgestone and TaylorMade and lots of compassion and support from home. "This," he said of his second career, "is not all the glory it's supposed to be, but I happen to like it better than sitting behind a computer." What's more, don't look now, but Parel may be gaining on it. The Xerox Classic will represent his fourth consecutive made cut, one shy of his personal best in 2006. Plus, he has improved on the money list each of the past two seasons. And how's this for a wonderful punctuation mark for Parel's unique story. He could nearly match his career earnings -- the Xerox offers a $108,000 first prize -- should he catch lightning in a bottle this weekend. Too early for that kind of thinking, Parel, whose best Nationwide finish was a tie for fifth in 2005, cautioned. "It's Friday afternoon and I wouldn't read anything more into (his start) than that," he said. "I just want to try and play golf." |
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