Stories of The Q at Myrtle Beach: Fat Perez, the Ultimate Underdog

Fat Perez:
I think for me, I’m certainly probably the underdog in this whole thing and I don’t mind that I’ve kind of been that way in my golfing life forever.

Ever since I could stand and walk I had a plastic golf club or a super cut-down club in my hand. It’s really big on my dad’s side of the family.

My grandfather was very involved in some Ryder Cups and US Opens, US Amateurs at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester. Played a lot of junior golf tournaments, high school golf, a couple years of D-III college golf as well. So tournament play for me, that’s what kind of golf was.

Went to school for accounting, so I was an accountant, public accounting, and then really during COVID I got introduced, a buddy of mine showed me kind of Bob’s Instagram page and some of the comedic stuff that he was doing that even at that time didn’t have anything to do with golf.

They started doing Zoom happy hours during COVID and I was bored, couldn’t go to my own happy hours down the street at the bar after work. So I just hopped on, just sort of started talking to these guys face-to-face over the internet. Kind of a start to a friendship I would say. And I noticed that they were coming to Pinehurst one weekend and I just happened to be down there with my wife on what I told her was a couples trip, which was really just a golf trip and bringing her along.

And so I just hit Cold Cuts up in the DMs and said, “Hey, I’m down here If you guys want to grab a beer, we’d love to, if not, no big deal.” And I just met them on the putting green at Pinehurst right there by The Cradle. That intro led to kind of drinks and apps on the back porch, which led into dinner, which led into them finding out really that I played golf. They had an extra spot at Pinehurst to the next day, and it’s sort of just kind of one thing after another. And yeah, now I’m here I guess.

I wouldn’t even say I really watched YouTube golf until I got to know Bob and Joe, even before they got into it, right? So it was knowing them that got me watching Bob Does Sports, which introduced me to the Bryan Brothers and Grant (Horvat) and Good Good and all these guys.

Everything’s wild. I mean, filming videos with them is wild. Certainly sitting here one round away from the PGA TOUR is, it’s crazy. Anything can happen in one round of golf. And I think there’s a reason that the eight guys that are here from the creator space … George Bryan is a guy that I think about immediately as somebody that’s shown themselves capable of not only playing in a PGA TOUR event, but making a cut and finishing pretty highly. He did that this past season.

Luke Kwon’s a great player who’s kind of grinded on the pro scene for quite some time, and Grant Horvat is one of the best ball strikers I’ve ever seen.

If 15-year-old me heard that I knew that I was sitting here one round away from the PGA TOUR, that guy would’ve thought, all right, you’ve kind of completed the goal and things are going the right way.

I’m going to give it my best shot. I just want to put a round up that I can be proud of and feel like I did my best, and I think my best is right there.