HE had recently won the Bermuda Open at Tucker's Point. And this week Canadian professional Brian McCann was trying to make it two victories in a row at the Gosling's Invitational at Belmont Hills.

But he came up short yesterday finishing well off the pace with a closing round of 75 leaving him eight over for the tournament which was won by Mike Donald and Joe Horowitz who made it through six playoff holes before darkness set in. The end result for the Invitational was an unheard draw!

McCann now goes back to his day job in real estate in the cold winter of Canada.

And yet, when people think of professional golf, they invariably think Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, etc al. And while these players, the ones on the major US and European tours are professionals, they are merely the visible ones.

Scratch the surface and underneath there are hundreds, thousands of professional golfers, eking out a living in far flung corners of the world that don't register with Joe Public.

There are challenger tours, national tours, club events – tournaments that while considered professional have prize funds that the top players wouldn't even get out of bed for.

Sometimes these journeymen pros come to an event like this week's Gosling Invitational, and ply their trade in the somewhat more inviting surroundings that Bermuda can provide. But even then, these are not rich tournaments.

Winning in Bermuda will not set you up for life, nor will it bringing major sponsorship deals, or worldwide recognition.

In the current economic climate the prize money available for winning the tournament – $7,000 for the Bermuda Open, $9,000 for the Gosling's Invitational – is hardly breathtaking.

And yet they still come because the same basic instinct that drives Tiger Woods, drives all professional golfers, all professional athletes. It is a love of the sport, and a desire to win.

That is not to say that the money isn't important, it is, for these players even more so than for the top 50 golfers in the world. But because playing at this level also usually requires another job as well, the money alone is not enough.

"If you're in the top 50 in the world money's not an issue, their drive is to win tournaments, so is ours, but I don't have that financial backing, and 99 percent of professional athletes don't have that, but they love what they're doing, they really enjoy the sport," said McCann this week.

"No one plays professional golf because money isn't a factor period. It's not like you're playing because you just want to win. Maybe that would be the case for a guy who had a silver spoon in his mouth and it didn't matter, but I can speak for us here, that's not the case. We play it because we love the sport, and we just love playing the competition, but we want to make that money as well, there is no doubt about that."

McCann is a prime example of the journeyman golfer; a job in real estate, a teacher, a golf professional. Runner-up at the Gosling's Invitational last year, he came back this year to go one better.

He didn't as he had a miserable time with the putter all week.

The Invitational is only the third four-round event that he has been able to play in all year.

There is no talk of not playing though, it might be a slog sometimes, and it is undoubtedly tough at the lower end of the professional game, but for McCann the adrenaline that comes from playing competitively is enough to keep going.

"I don't think I'll ever stop playing," he said. "I've played tournament golf since I was 10. I know that there is a time when you're not able to play full-time competitively because you don't have status on a major tour, and that's been my case for the last two years, and so I've got to do something for income.

"But I'm still going to be playing tournament golf as much as I can and hopefully I'll teach for as long as I can, unless….. if I was to go back to Q-school this year, and get to the final stage, and the PGA Tour or Nationwide Tour, I'd be playing on the tour next year."

The PGA Tour is the dream, it is the beacon that draws all professional golfers, and while McCann still strives towards it, he is also a realist.

"That's why I got into real estate and teaching all year because there comes a time when you can't continually travel, when you've got the baby, the mortgage payment, etc," he said.

"But, even if I'm not playing on a major tour, I just love playing tournament golf. And I know I'm good enough to still make some money, whether it be $20,000 or $60,000 in the year, I know I can do that.

"If I can supplement that by doing what else I do in the other months, some people might say 'you're not making $150,000, you're only making $50,000'.

"Well, I'm happy though.

"If someone said to me, you can never play another tournament again, and you have to sit in the office, and work 9-6….but if I could never do something I really enjoy….

"Golf to me isn't even fun unless I'm playing competitively. To go out and play nine holes with my dad and two of his buddies, I'll do it because it's my dad, but it's not a tournament round of golf, and from that standpoint there's nothing there. There's no reason, nothing to play for, that's why I love the tournament golf."