Will Lowery is on a 5-year track which he hopes will successfully lead to his ultimate goal of playing on the PGA Tour. In an opportunity of a lifetime, Lowery was selected as a cast member on Big Break Indian Wells that aired on the Golf Channel during 2011.
Season 15 derived its name from it being taped (in January 2011) at Indian Wells Golf Resort in Indian Wells, Calif. Competitors began the series with $5,000. The objective was to knock everyone else out and take their money. The prize: A minimum of $55,000 (it’s winner-take-all), plus an exemption into a 2012 PGA Tour Zurich Classic of New Orleans. Lowery played strong and hard–put his heart into his game, but was eliminated in Episode 9. In the final outcome: Winner David Byrne defeated Kent Eger in the championship match.
The series was a professional highlight of Lowery’s golfing career and likely to remain a part of his legacy. However, Lowery’s journey to play golf professionally was not the straight and narrow course that many competitors experience. Growing up in an urban Charlotte, N.C., community, he admits to starting out with the “wrong crowd,” and “initially going down the wrong path.” At the age of five, his father put a golf club in his hand as a way to teach him life lessons. Will had no idea of its value at the time.
As he grew older, he knew he had to do something positive in his life, and he focused on sports as a positive outlet.
“Growing up in the inner city, it was all about survival and looking out for one another,” said Will, age 26. “I saw the road that a lot of my friends were going down, and I chose to take a different path. I wanted to make something of myself. Make my family proud. Tennis, and later golf, were the outlets that allowed me to do that,” says the Christian, Liberal, who sports beautiful dreads he has been growing for years.
Will excelled in competitive tennis during his teenage years. Golf was merely in the background until his senior year, when he started playing regularly and consistently beat more advanced players, all the while playing with a unique reverse grip swing style that has become his signature.
“My father taught me how to swing the golf club and I chose to keep the cross-handed grip because it felt natural, said Will. “It was a result of all of my years playing tennis. I guess you can say that I’m playing golf by hitting backhand shots.”
After high school, Lowery focused full-time on golf. He also discovered a new passion, the desire to give back to others. Under the tutelage of chapter director, Vince King, he volunteers at The First Tee of Charlotte – teaching life lessons and core values on and off the golf course to youth of similar backgrounds and frequents his home course, Northstone Country Club.
“The First Tee has been such a rewarding experience for me,” said Will. “When I hear these kids say they want to be successful in life, it drives me to be the example they seek.
Will, a mortgage specialist by trade, believes that as a professional golfer he has what it takes to compete on the PGA TOUR. The opportunities, he says, just have not presented themselves.
