SAINT SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. – As Ross Berlin, the PGA Tour’s senior vice president of player affairs, made the rounds on Wednesday at the practice area at Sea Island Resort ahead of the RSM Classic, one player after another stopped him to find out if the rumors were true. Even caddies wanted to know.
“Got a minute?” asked Tony Navarro, the veteran bagman for Nick Watney. “I hear you’re retiring. You’re one of the great guys. I just want to say you’ll be sorely missed but I’m happy for you.”
Berlin, 65, has let it be known that March 13, the final round of the 2022 Players Championship, will be his final day at the PGA Tour, where he’s worked in various stints for a total of 24 years.
“To me, it’s an accomplishment. That’s why you work, right? You work until you don’t have to,” he said. “I’ve achieved a lot of my objectives, financial and non-financial, which were modest and I’m out.”
He added: “It’s the fourth quarter and I’ve got it figured out.”
Berlin attended Wake Forest on a baseball scholarship, but early in his college days he shifted his focus to his future. “I asked legendary golf coach Jesse Haddock for some career advice on how to become a sports agent,” Berlin told the Western Michigan University Thomas M. Cooley Law School alumni publication in June 2017. “He directed me to a gentleman named Vinny Giles, a Richmond, Virginia, lawyer who owned a sports agency representing professional golfers such as Lanny Wadkins, Tom Kite, Jay Haas, and several others.
“He said: ‘If I were a young man, I would get a law degree. I would practice law for about six or seven years to learn how to zealously represent a client. Then, if I still wanted to become a sports agent or manager, I would hang out my shingle and get to it.’ I found that advice to be profound, simple, and direct and that became my focus and the reason I decided to go to law school.”
Michelle Wie announces that she is turning professional in Honolulu, on Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2005. Also seated are Michael Fasulo of Sony, Ross Berlin of William Morris Agency and Bob Wood of Nike. Photo/Jeff Chiu/Associated Press
After law school, Berlin said he was hired for the princely salary of $18,000 a year as an associate at a Los Angeles sports and entertainment law firm, advancing to general counsel of a public works/environmental systems enterprise; then to senior vice president of venues for the 1994 World Cup USA; followed by work as a consultant for the 1997 Ryder Cup in Valderrama, Spain. That served as his introduction to the PGA Tour, first as vice president for sales and marketing for the World Golf Championships and then taking a hiatus to join William Morris as a sports agent for LPGA phenom Michelle Wie when she first turned pro. Ultimately he returned to the Tour in the player relations department.
March will be the culmination of a 45-year career in the sports industry.
“I’m going to evaluate some things, maybe do my own thing. The only thing I’ve given some thought to is I might teach. I’d love to do that,” he said.
Why is now the right time for Berlin to step away from the Tour?
“Five reasons,” he said, “four of which I’ll tell you. One day I just woke up and I was 65. Thirty didn’t bother me, 40 didn’t bother me, 50 didn’t bother me, 60 didn’t bother me. But I think the combination of 65, two, COVID (In April 2020, Berlin was the first Tour employee to test positive) three, my financial objectives were modest and I hit them, and four, I didn’t want to do this and have guys saying, ‘Is he still around?’ I wanted to go out while I still had game. And the fifth one, I can’t tell you because it would hurt some feelings.”