DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — He summed up the recent status of his golf game in a manner relatable to golfers of all levels.
“Sometimes, I’d know bad stuff was coming. Then I just go through the motions, waiting.”
And there you have the recap of Matt Every’s last few years on the PGA Tour.
His next few years might be largely non-existent, depending on whether, at age 38, he can find the desire that made him a two-time tournament winner who once climbed to No. 40 in the world golf rankings.
“I want to be hungry,” Every said last weekend when he came home to play the Riviera Open mini-tour event on the Ormond Beach course where he grew up.
“You know, I don’t live, eat, sleep and breathe it. And you have to, especially these days.”
The former Florida Gator lives about 90 minutes north in Atlantic Beach, where he’s in a bit of a holding pattern both professionally and personally. He keeps tabs on an upstart golf clothing line — Live Forever Golf — for which he inspired the logo and is casually related (“My two buddies run the show”), and also awaits word on whether he has a near-term future on the broadcasting side of golf.
Other than that …
“Just gonna stay healthy. Keep my body good,” he says. “I work out once or twice a day. Keeps me honest.”
Orlando, Florida, USA; Matt Every Putts on the 14th green during the second round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational golf tournament at Bay Hill Club & Lodge. Mandatory Credit: Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports
“It’s just not there”
Every epitomized the old adage of “certain horses for certain courses” in 2015 when he won the Arnold Palmer Invitational for the second straight year. It capped a four-year run in which he earned between $1.1 and $2.5 million each season.
He was still missing cuts here and there, but he played good enough often enough to seemingly cement his status as a capable Tour golfer for years to come. But after 2015, there were just three more top-10s in 135 starts, culminating in this past season’s bottoming-out: 22 starts, 20 missed cuts, two withdrawals.
Bobby Jones famously said golf is played on a five-inch course — the one between your ears. The Matt Every saga is a prime example of that theory’s staying power.
“My physical game, there’s no issues,” he says. “My short game could be better, but as far as length and compression and the stuff that matter, no issues. My bad is not bad right now. It wasn’t bad. It’s not like foul-ball bad. I was just flat.
“It’s one of those things where I”m ready for it to be over as soon as it starts. I’m just not present.”
Where does he go, mentally, during those four hours?
“I don’t know. Just not there. It’s not like I’m blanking out. I just find ways to (mess) things up when the desire isn’t there. It just happens. Just a weird game. It was affecting me a little too much.”
And it’s been going on for a long time.
“Years,” he says. “Yeah, years. Been going through the motions for a long time. A long time.”
He doesn’t know if the desire will return. Following this past season, he no longer has full-time exempt status on the PGA Tour, but as a two-time tournament winner, he maintains enough status to likely get into 8-12 tournaments a year.
If desire pairs with quality play and good results, that part-time role offers enough of an opportunity to work his way back to the PGA Tour full-time, but right now he says that possibility seems distant.
His most recent start came six weeks ago in Bermuda, where he shot 76 on Thursday and pulled the plug Friday after just two holes.
“I’m really not an angry person,” he insists. “I took a month and a half off, didn’t think I was getting in Bermuda, but found out two days before I was getting in.
“I was playing good enough to have a look at the cut. Something went wrong, I got pissed, and I thought, ‘man, I haven’t been pissed in two months — about anything.’ Since then, I don’t get mad about anything.”
A new role?
Two weeks ago, the Golf Channel gave Every a one-day “tryout” as an on-course commentator during coverage of the RSM Classic in Sea Island, Ga. He doesn’t know if that’ll lead to a career opportunity, but he knows he enjoyed it.
Matt Every calls the action for NBC and the Golf Channel during the first round of The RSM Classic on the Seaside Course at Sea Island Resort on November 18, 2021 in St Simons Island, Georgia. (Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images)
“I feel like I settled in nicely and I think it’s something I can do well,” he says.
Every’s easy-going off-course nature came into play in the week or so leading up to the broadcast.
“I didn’t practice calling a shot even once, not even sitting on the couch. I think either you can do this or you can’t,” he says.
“The big thing I was worried about was saying ‘like’ and ‘uh’ too much. I watched it later and don’t think I said it once, ever. There are a lot of little things I know I can be better at.”
There figures to be additional jobs available in the coming years as the Tour and ESPN begin a partnership, through an ESPN streaming app, that will triple the amount of visual coverage of the PGA Tour.
“ESPN is going through a big thing,” Every says. “They’re making decisions now for that stuff. It’s out of my hands. We’ll see.”
The toss
Every’s golfing frustrations in recent years had one positive bit of fallout.
Maybe you’ve seen the logo.
In the world of professional golfer logos, it definitely stands out. Jack Nicklaus has the bear, Greg Norman the shark, Phil Mickelson the “leap.”
Every, and Live Forever Golf, have the heave. Ironically, Every’s famous club throw came during his last quality start — the 2019 AT&T Byron Nelson, where he eventually tied for second. In the second round, after a tough lie in a fairway bunker handcuffed his recovery efforts on the 14th hole, he stepped out of the bunker and into a windup that sent his club flying away.
Matt Every’s 2019 club throw at the AT&T Byron Nelson would eventually spark an idea for a clothing line … and its logo. Michael Reaves, Getty Image
The scene was captured by a wire-service photographer.
Last year, he and a couple of Jacksonville-area friends were killing time during the pandemic, looking at images of his club throw, and laughing, when a thought came to mind.
“We were just sitting around, looking at that image,” Every says. “I remember looking at it and thinking, ‘that’s a really cool logo.’ This logo just dumps on everyone else’s logo.
“So we said let’s give it a go. Started with hats and T-shirts, but now it’s full-on everything. Pants, shirts, jackets. It’s doing really well. It’s a full clothing brand, and it’s awesome. It turned into a nice line. They run the show, I’m just part of it.”
A blast of temper from 2019 inspired the logo for Live Forever Golf.
The logo represents more than just a line of golf apparel. It also clearly symbolizes a golf career that, like all but a precious few, is defined by frustration as much as its glories.
“Golf makes me a different person,” Every says. “I need a break from golf. I needed either life or golf to stop, and life doesn’t stop.”