For these guys, turkey day means a round of golf

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Ted Purdy (left) and David Berganio Jr. celebrate on the 18th green after successfully navigating q-school in 2008.

I love Thanksgiving. As a kid my father, brother and I would sneak out and play an early 18 before heading back to the house to attack the bird and watch football. Golf and family, not necessarily in that order, were what Thanksgiving was all about when I was a kid. Some years later, though, Thanksgiving took on a different meaning and it has never been the same since.

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One of my first trips to the finals of the PGA TOUR National Qualifying Tournament was way back in the dark ages when players wore metal spikes and titanium was only used on the space shuttle. The finals were in Palm Springs, Calif., but I couldn't get out there until the Sunday before the finals started on Wednesday.

My old college roommate was getting married and had asked me to be the best man. As bad as my career record was at the finals (two for nine, if memory serves me) my record as best man is worse. None of the marriages for which I have donned the monkey suit and given a toast ever stood the test of time. Come to think of it, neither did my career.

I learned a lesson that year. If you are going to the finals you need to get there early and play as many practice rounds as possible. The six-day marathon that is the finals is tougher than you can imagine. But to make matters even more difficult, it's played on two different golf courses, three rounds on each. So you have to learn each golf course -- and not just learn them, memorize them.

You have to know them as well as the members who play there every day. You have to know which direction the wind tends to blow and hopefully play a round or two with the wind blowing from the other direction just so you don't get caught with your pants down.

You have to do all of this preparation over the Thanksgiving weekend. I have always felt like they should move the finals back a week. If you have ever had Thanksgiving dinner in the lobby of the Embassy Suites on Donald Ross Blvd., you will undoubtedly agree with me. There is something depressing about spending a holiday in a hotel room hundreds of miles from home. Of course, if you are around the corner from family that same hotel can be a welcome respite from the ones you love but don't necessarily want to spend every waking minute with.

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But to be away, working voluntarily on Thanksgiving is depressing no matter what. On this Thanksgiving and Black Friday there will be guys playing practice rounds at Bear Lakes in West Palm Beach, Fla., and the whole time they will be asking themselves if being there five or six days early is worth it. After all, the first round isn't until Wednesday. So to show up nearly a week early is totally their call. But it is the right call if you are going to earn your TOUR card.

I know what the buffet at the Embassy Suites has to offer because a few hundred years ago, I ate Thanksgiving dinner there. The turkey was dry, the stuffing was bready and the pie was below average. The worst part was that a couple of hours later there were no turkey sandwiches. There was some chipping and putting around the practice green, and horror of horrors, I may have gotten a Big Mac on the way back to the room.

I am not looking for sympathy here. Actually, the next week, I earned a PGA TOUR card for the first time. Getting to the finals and being successful there is all about sacrifice. It is all about putting the game in front of everything else -- including family, holidays and tradition. Selfish? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely.

Of course you can always have dinner at home and fly to West Palm on Friday. That still leaves four full days to get ready for the finals. Two practice rounds on each course would seem like plenty of time but it's not. There are guys who will show up early this week and start playing practice rounds and getting to know the tricky coastal breezes. If you are not among them then you are falling behind.

During the course of a PGA TOUR career a player will miss all kinds of things from his kids' birthdays to his wedding anniversary and various holidays. But for me there was always something about missing Thanksgiving that left remorse around a little longer. Maybe it was the fact that I made the choice not to be at home. After all I could certainly rationalize traveling on Friday. Or maybe it was the fact that later on in my career a trip to the finals meant that I had not done my job on TOUR that year.

So remember while you are stuffing yourself with turkey and pie there will be some poor guys down in Florida excited about what lies ahead, but miserable for the moment that they are not home for the holidays.

Former PGA TOUR player John Maginnes is a columnist for PGATOUR.COM. His views do not necessarily represent the views of the PGA TOUR.