Don't Call Harold Varner the Next Tiger Woods

“No knocks on golf, but it’s very boring,” says Harold Varner III. He’s sitting in the clubhouse of Nicklaus Golf Club at LionsGate in Overland Park, Kan., south of Kansas City. Framed prints of golfers in jaunty pantaloons hang on the walls. A smooth jazz saxophone pipes through the speakers. Varner isn’t talking about playing golf, which he does for a living, but about watching it and also its stuffy, clubby culture. He thinks the PGA Tour is impenetrable for casual fans: “They don’t set it up for people who just don’t give a s-‍-‍- about golf,” he says. He speaks of going to a Nascar race with his dad and enjoying it without knowing anything about the sport. “Why can’t we set the PGA up for someone who wants to have fun?”

Since he graduated from East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C., two years ago, Varner, who just turned 24, has been trying to earn a spot on the PGA Tour. He’s in Kansas for the Midwest Classic, a stop on the Web.com Tour, which is a step below the PGA Tour and the only way onto it for most pros. Of the 156 players in the field at the tournament, Varner stands out for his long drives. At 5 foot 9 he generates a compact, powerful swing and ranks third on the tour with an average drive distance of more than 315 yards. “I hit it really far, really far,” he says, matter-of-factly.