He Quit His Job To Play Golf—Can Timothy Ta Go From A 25-Handicap To Scratch?

Outside of EA Sports’s criminally underrated Tiger Woods PGA Tour franchise, the intersection between golf and video games is often slim to none. Particularly at the highest competitive levels, the two circles of this theoretical Venn diagram may as well be on opposite sides of the room.

One man, however, is seeking to craft an overlap.

Once one of the world’s top pros in Counter Strike, a tactical first-person shooter video game in the professional Esports arena, Timothy Ta has hung up his headphones for a career making content in golf’s social media scene.

Under the pretext of “quitting his job to play golf,” he has retired from Esports and is committed to sharpening his golf ability full-time.

As proprietor of the recently created timtagolfs Instagram page (24,000 followers), Ta has illustrated to his audience how to forge a golf game—attempting to go from a 25-handicap to scratch—through the medium of short, vlog-style reels.

Publicly documenting his journey for improvement, Ta spares no expense for lessons, equipment and effort, all to make a powerful point about dedication: if he can get better, maybe you can, too.

A fire to compete

Growing up in San Diego, Ta was born with the type of competitive personality that made uncovering talent seem inevitable. In anything he did, he wanted to excel. From skateboarding as a kid to playing basketball in high school, the desire to improve and compete at a higher level took root in all of his efforts.

“I guess it only made sense that when I started gaming, I wanted to be a pro,” Ta told MyGolfSpy.

His first exposure to the game that would become his career came at nine years old. Ta recalled vivid memories of playing Counter Strike at his cousin’s house, trading turns at his computer setup. Just as with any of Ta’s other pursuits, the need to be elite soon surfaced.

For those unfamiliar, Counter Strike is one of Esports’ most enduring titles. The game has been played in a competitive fashion almost continually since its humble inception in 1999.

An asymmetrical tactical shooter, CS (as it is often endearingly called) pits teams of five against one another in a round-based competition of mechanical mastery, mental warfare and good old-fashioned guts and glory decision making.

Much like golf, the fine details of the game have shifted over time but its core elements have remained relatively constant over its lifespan. Counter Strike is chess, twitch shooting and Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” bundled together in a polygonal package.

As enchanted as Ta was with CS, for most of his early life there was very little chance to make it a livelihood. It wasn’t until he was a freshman in college that Esports professionals were first paid even a partially livable salary.

“It wasn’t anything crazy back then, just a couple thousand a month,” Ta recalled. “But that’s kind of when I took the leap of faith and tried to make it my job.”

After a brief stint as a digital journeyman, Ta inked a deal with Tier Two organization TSM in 2016. Then playing on what he equated to golf’s Korn Ferry Tour, he led his squad to a win over Tier One team Cloud9, which promptly contacted Ta and poached him for their roster.

Ta soon became a part of one of Counter Strike’s most iconic moments.

A major breakthrough

Although a worldwide Esport, not all of CS’s regions were created equally.

In a sort of inverse of the Ryder Cup’s early history, European teams had long been the game’s dominant competitive force. Heading into 2018, not a single North American squad had ever claimed a CS major tournament title.

Ta and Cloud9 were on a mission to change that.

Fueled by an underdog mentality and carrying the hopes of a continent, Ta and his team pulled off a legendary Cinderella run at the 2018 ELEAGUE Major in Boston. They knocked off bracket favorite FaZe Clan in overtime of a barn-burner championship match, becoming the first North American CS team to etch their name in major glory.

“It didn’t really sink in, what we had just done,” Ta recalled. “But it didn’t really change how I viewed the future, because the goal is always to win.”

Ta continued his career to some success for years after this breakthrough triumph. However, a mix of roster moves, travel demands and blossoming outside interests led him to ponder his future within the game.

“I was in a mental slump, and I never really figured it out,” Ta reflected. “A lot of things kind of led to me to think, ‘You know, do I really want to keep doing this?’”

Changing gears (and games)

It was in this transitional phase that golf appeared on Ta’s radar.

His Cloud9 teammate Jordan ‘n0thing’ Gilbert was a longtime recreational golfer and had been encouraging Ta to give the game a shot for years. However, it took a fateful Uber journey between Ta, Gilbert and a golf-crazed driver to make his friend’s recommendation stick.

“(Gilbert and the driver) were talking about how complex it is, how hard it is, basically all the reasons why you would love golf,” Ta said. “I was like, ‘OK, I need to give this a try.’”

Ta was strictly a range rat at first, enticed by the opiate of flush contact. However, when he migrated to the course, he was taken aback by the oceanic depth of the sport. It was this intricate confluence of mechanics and strategy that truly hooked Ta for the long term.

“That level of nuance is really interesting to me,” Ta stated. “It was something that I loved about Counter Strike.”

Ta’s blossoming interest with the game was deeper than a surface-level tryst. Eventually, he realized the game was a perfect canvas to validate a belief he had held since he first broke into professional CS.

“I really believed that if someone were to work as hard as I worked in the same way that I did, they could make it in Counter Strike,” Ta elaborated. “And because I always believed that, I felt like maybe I could prove that in golf.”

With this goal firmly in mind, Ta decided to make the leap. He officially retired from competitive Esports and took up golf as his full-time passion.

The birth of timtagolfs soon followed this past April and he’s been documenting his journey ever since.

Committing to improvement

The appeal of Ta’s page lies in the simplicity of its primary question: What does it take to get better?

And what does improvement actually look like on the micro, day-to-day scale? If you started from zero with few barriers, plenty of time and fanatical dedication, how good could you get?

For Ta, this answer is still a moving target. However, his initial aims are clear-cut.

“The goal for me is to become a scratch golfer,” Ta stated. “That’s step one.”

To accomplish this, Ta has tapped into the same unwavering commitment that saw him rise to the top of the Esports scene. He practices literally every day, having created a regimen that encompasses mechanical improvement, transfer practice, time spent on-course and even golf-centric fitness. 

“Every day I might have a focus. But I’ll try to touch on everything and make sure that everything stays maintained.”

Even at just over half a year into his journey, this schedule has produced tangible results. Ta’s handicap has plummeted to an 11 from his starting point of 25, with this rapid descent showing no signs of stopping. 

The finer points of Ta’s game may be familiar ground for fellow mid-handicappers. The driver is often his greatest strength, providing distance and accuracy when he’s hitting it well.

“I can carry it pretty far for my handicap and I hit it relatively straight,” Ta said.

Ta has also built himself a nifty short game, which helps bail him out when his approach play occasionally gets wayward. However, by his own admission, things are a bit shaky on the greens.

“My putting is awful, especially my speed,” Ta chuckled.

To help with this, Ta has brought on putting guru Joey Farrow to assist him with the flatstick. He’s the latest in a stable of coaches that includes Ta’s full swing “therapist” Josh Park and Matt Hwu, the same physical therapist he saw while on Cloud9.

Ta looks for expertise anywhere he can get it, often outside of his dedicated crew. He’s always been a sponge for knowledge and his move to golf has only exacerbated his desire to learn.

“I ask everyone I play with a ton of questions. I just try to see whose advice actually works for me.”

Looking to the future

While still firmly entrenched in the daily grind, Ta has no shortage of long-term goals. The first item on that list is tournament play.

Ta’s fire to compete has lost none of its luster since his days in CS and he’s committed to testing his game in a high-pressure environment once he deems himself ready.

Ta believes competition is the area where his developed skills in pressure management, sharp analytical thinking and ability to stay cool under the gun will give him a leg up over his peers.

“Eventually the advantage that I have from playing a game at a really high level will come into play. But right now, it’s mainly about making sure that my technique is improving.” 

As his mechanics continue to trend, Ta is also devoted to grasping the mental component of the game. His course management is admittedly a work in progress.

However, just like his time in Esports, it’s the minutiae that separate the good from the great.

“In Counter Strike, it’s very similar. Everyone at the top level has good mechanics but what differentiates certain players is their in-game IQ.”

Besides providing a new spark for his career, golf has had a deeply personal impact on Ta. Through his single-minded commitment to improve, Ta has reinstilled by force a quality that has carried him through a lifetime of competition: a comfortable sense of who he is and who he can strive to be.

“In golf, it’s only you out there … you dictate everything about your game. That’s what I think golf has brought back in me—that sense of trust within myself.”

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