Kyle Thompson's new career, new journey

A journalist called Kyle Thompson earlier this week to ask how things have been going since he left the grind of golf behind and got a 9-to-5 job for the first time in his life.

“Hold on,” Thompson said when the conversation started. “I just have to switch offices.”

Thompson laughed, realizing that was a sentence he’d never said before.

A lot of things have changed for the 39-year-old since last year’s PGA TOUR season came to a close – including where he goes to work every day.

Thompson joined the U.S.-based global insurance brokerage Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. at its office in Greenville, South Carolina, in January after three months of figuring out what he wanted to do next.

Prior to trading irons for insurance, Thompson said he painted both the inside and outside of his home, filled in a ditch in his backyard and put up a fence – now that he’s around at home full-time, his family is finally get a dog – and is in the midst of renovating his kitchen.

“I probably worked harder the last three months than I have in my whole life,” said Thompson with a laugh. “Since my wife loves to cook, I just want to make her happy and do some stuff for her, since she’s been so supportive of my golf career.”

Thompson won five times on the Web.com Tour in his career, including The Bahamas Great Exuma Classic at Sandals Emerald Bay in 2017. But after a lifetime in professional golf that included two U.S. Open starts and a handful of years on the PGA TOUR – as well as becoming the No. 2 all-time money earner on the Web.com Tour – he realized last year that enough was enough.

It was time to provide for his family in another way, and enjoy life at home while his three kids grew up.

“At the beginning of the season I told my wife I couldn’t go back to the Web.com Tour again. I loved it. I love everyone out there. But for a family of five it was too difficult to make ends meet and being away from my kids,” admitted Thompson.

Thompson finished 236th on the FedExCup standings last year after making just two cuts. He said he began to put his performance on the course secondary to his family, who joined him for his last eight events.

“I wanted them to know their father as a pro golfer and I accomplished that for my 9-, 7-, and 2-year-old,” he said. “That was a big part of what kept pushing me to keep going in the game.”

Thompson said there were a few options when he began looking at post-golf careers. He had conversations with people in financial services, real estate, and nearly got a job selling steel for a company based in Cleveland (via a contact he made while playing in a pro-am). But everything kept coming back to Gallagher & Co. and the people he spoke with there.

Despite Thompson diving into the books these days and totally immersing himself in his new career (“I was a pro at golf, and now I want to be a pro at insurance,” he said, as he prepares for two weeks of intensive training coming up in Chicago), he’s not giving up golf entirely.

With a laugh, Thompson said he remembered growing up at his home club and the people who played the most golf were also “insurance guys,” and he said he’ll play in some pro-am events in once the golf season really ramps up in South Carolina.

He won’t have to go far for a game – he said he works with one of the top amateurs in the state, and a female colleague played golf at Furman University before teeing it up at a few Symetra Tour events – and since he’s not giving up his professional status, he said he’ll play both the Rex Hospital Open and the BMW Charity Pro-Am presented by SYNNEX Corporation later this year on the Web.com Tour.

It’s a special year at the Rex Hospital Open in 2019 since, as Thompson joked, it’s an “Olympic” year.

Every four years, Thompson manages to find the magic in Raleigh, as he won the event in 2007, 2011 and 2015. It’s been four years since his last win, so he said he’s due.

“It would be a crazy thing if I could pull off a victory in ’07, ’11, ’15 and ’19,” said Thompson. “But I’d go straight from the office to the winner’s circle, and probably back to the office.”

For now, he admitted he doesn’t feel comfortable playing a lot of golf, as he’s learning as much as he can on the insurance front. But once he’s more settled at the office and the two tournaments are in his sights, he said his company is both aware of what he does and highly encouraging.

The decision to leave the grind of professional golf is still a fresh one, but Thompson recalled fondly a time not-so-long ago – when he had dirt under his fingernails and insurance sales tactics floating around in his head – when his wife told him something that reaffirmed why he was so at peace with his choice.

Thompson said his wife told him she hadn’t seen him this happy in years.

But what about when he’s at home and he comes across golf on television? The PGA TOUR started its year in Hawaii, while the Web.com Tour is in the midst of two weeks in the Bahamas.

Did he get the itch?

“I actually changed my DirecTV package the other day, and I don’t even have Golf Channel anymore,” he said with a laugh. “I know it's kind of blasphemy, but I don’t miss it at all.”