14-05-2025
I am an alcoholic golf star who woke up in hospital fearing I'd killed someone but now I'm playing in PGA Championship
PGA Championship club pro fought off drink demons to change his life and now stars in the Quail Hollow championship
Proud PGA chief Don Rae Jnr says reformed-alcoholic Rupe Taylor's inspirational story offers the essence of the 2025 Championship.
The 35-year-old is preparing to tee it up in the strongest field in golf at Quail Hollow alongside the game's elite after completing an incredible turnaround in his life. A dozen years ago, Taylor admits he was at rock bottom with his addiction having woken up in a hospital with restrains on his arms and legs following a road traffic accident and fearing he'd killed someone with his mother at the bedside.
But that was a turning point for the Virginia Beach-resident who has straightened out his life and will now peg it up alongside the likes of Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy.
Rae Jnr is proud of such stories within his organisation and said: 'Rupe Taylor is, I think, the essence of a PGA golf professional. He had a horrible situation happen to him, but he turned it around. He's married, he's got a young family and he's playing in a major championship. If that isn't the essence of the PGA Championship, I don't know what is.'
Taylor has recounted the anguish of the past and his transformation as he recounted the blackest moment when he was arrested for drink driving and plunged into the hospital situation.
He explained: 'I was blackout drunk. I woke up in a hospital with restraints on my arms and legs and my Mom was just sitting there with just her head in her hand. The first thing I asked her was: Did I kill someone?
"I don't like feeling like part of my identity is that I'm an alcoholic. But at the same time, if I don't acknowledge that it is, at some point I may slip."
In Golf Digest, he added: "I can still kind of picture, just laying there in bed, not physically being able to move, but my head just spinning around me wondering if the worst had happened. I could see the fear in her eyes for me that like, this is real now. I should have been dead. I easily could have taken someone else's life. That was a wake up call I needed, to get my act together."
Taylor plays alongside 19 fellow PGA professionals and they will mix with the elite as Rae Jnr extolled e virtues of the Championship. He said: 'We've got 20 PGA professionals here who love to play this game, and they play it at a high level. I mean, Tyler Collett, you know, it's amazing. He wins the PPC and now he's here playing in a major championship. We can talk about Michael Block. I mean, he's amazing.
'This is his seventh one. Bob Sowards, this is his twelfth. I thought he was old until I found out I'm older than him. He's 56, I'm 58. But there's a story, Eric Steger I think is a great story about his dad.
'But, by the way, this is still the strongest field in golf. 99 out of the top 100 players are here. If you're going to be the best, you have to beat the best.
'Everybody's asking about who we are and what we do, but rest assured, when you have 99 out of the top 100, when you have the variety of golf courses that we provide on a yearly basis and then knowing that we have the strongest field and you have to be the best to beat the best, I think we're in a perfect spot. And that's why I love this championship.'
