The Golf Channel's Pipedream: Off to an Odd Start

I have to admit I looked forward to the Golf Channel's new reality series, Pipedream.

The setup was good: Old golf pro is homeless. Watch as he claws his way back to his profession. The first problem is that it's abundantly clear that, at age 53, Mark Burk never had a profession in golf.

The guy's timeline is pretty ragged, so let's stick to the basics.

He's 53 and said that the money from his family ran out when he was 40. He and his then-supermodel girlfriend moved to the desert in 1995. From then until 2008 we are led to believe the two lived in a kind of golf heaven. But wait a minute. That 13 year period between 1995 and 2008 should have been Burk's glory years as a player. He was 38 when it started and 51 when it ended. Why wasn't he winning big on some tour, any tour, during that time?

Answer? He never had the game or the head to play golf for a living.

Let's give Burk the temporary benefit of the doubt and assume that the domestic abuse issues were false or at least overstated. Why, when he was evicted in 2008, was he penniless? It would seem that he'd had every opportunity attain some level of professional viability, yet he never did.

Finally, this guy's a golf pro in the desert. Why isn't he trying to teach, or seeking work at one of the hundreds of area courses and clubs? Ben Hogan slept in a bunker so he could be closer to the course where he caddied as a boy. Burk sleeps in a pipe so he can what?

It has been over two years since the police dropped him off at Highway 111 & Jefferson.

If Mark Burk is still living his pipedream he has only himself to blame.