Golf And Darts Now The Last Two Realistic Pathways To Professional Sport After Local Man Turns 27

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There are five major milestones that that every fully grown Australian man will experience at some point in their life.

Firstly, in his childhood, a man's most pivotal memory is the moment he first swims the full length of a pool without floaties.

As a teenager, it is the moment that he realises his short-tempered PE teacher would actually be a great bloke outside of school.

After school, it is when he realises that craft beer is great in theory but it gives him a headache if he has more than two of them.

The fourth major canon event in the average Australian man's life is the moment he realises that fishing is boring.

All of these milestones signify growth and development. There is only one universal right-of-passage for Australian men that represents the changing to a slower gear.

That is, when a man turns 27 years of age and has to rule himself out of ever playing contact sports professionally.

If he hasn't done it by 27 - and isn't on the probables and possibles list for a local state team - then it is officially time to focus on the social aspect of team sport.

Local Betoota Heights horticulturalist, Vincent 'Veggie' Huntley is now at that age.

"Yeah. Guess I can say goodbye to ever playing footy for my state" he says, putting to bed the speculation that has followed him around since his short but explosive stint on the bench for the year 10 Bs.

On top of counting himself out of playing NRL, AFL or even soccer at a professional level, Veggie must also accept that his sporadic boxing classes at the local PCYC probably won't lead to an Australian title.

But there's still hope. Golf.

"You know there's this bloke from America called Allen Doyle who only turned pro at 47. He was a rookie on a PGA tour in 1996"

While Veggie still remains firmly committed to this dream, even going as far as only buying Pro V1 golf balls because that's what the champs play with, he says it's always good to have a back up if golf doesn't work out either.

"You know the average age on the champion darts circuit is like 56" says Veggie.

"I've always had a crazy good hand eye coordination, but that's still plan B for now"

"Just quietly, it'd be a bit of a waste to channel too much energy into a winter sport when I can still see a realistic path to playing off scratch"