For some on the PGA Tour, aviation is as ingrained in their lives as golf.
"My dad is a pilot and used to fly a Cessna 172," said five-year pro Morgan Hoffmann. "My mom is a flight attendant for Delta. My cousin designed landing gear for Boeing, and my uncle flew for the Navy."
The 25-year-old capped off 2014 by earning his private-pilot license in December. He first started taking ground-school training almost six years ago during his sophomore season at Oklahoma State.
With more than 200 hours in the air, Hoffmann has flown his six-seater Piper Lance -- which he bought from his good friend and NHL player David Booth -- to multiple tournaments this season, including the Masters, where he tied for 28th.
Hoffmann joins a long list of golfers who are also aviators, such as Phil Mickelson and Arnold Palmer. For decades, many pros have mixed their job on the tee box with commuting to tournaments by working in the cockpit.
"Preparation in both is significant," said Hoffmann. "Flying has really helped me become more regimented in life, especially golf. My time management has gotten a lot better, and I'm definitely more detail-oriented now."
Before each flight, pilots spend time checking the aircraft, planning the flight, calculating factors such as range and payload -- not entirely dissimilar to the preparation a PGA Tour golfer must go through before each tournament and leading up to each shot.
And then there's the wind.
"When you are flying into the wind, you know how much slower you are going to go, and downwind, how much faster," said Hoffmann -- again, not unlike a golf ball.
Two-time tour winner George McNeill owns a twin-engine Cessna 340 and has had his license for about 3½ years. Like Hoffmann, he comes from a flying family.
McNeill's dad was a pilot and worked with the Federal Aviation Administration, and his mother and grandmother also both flew planes. With about 270 hours of logged flight time to go with his instrument and multi-engine ratings -- he's working on his commercial rating, as well -- McNeill likes to look to aviation as an escape from the rigors of the golf season.
"Golf is very individual," he said. "Flying is, too. When I get up there, I don't think about golf. I just think about flying. That's my focus. So, it really helps. It is a way to get away from everything."
PGA Tour pros Scott McCarron and Cameron Beckman both fly. Charl Schwartzel, the 2011 Masters champion, is one of the bigger golf names to double as a pilot. He started back in 2006 before getting into helicopters in 2012.
"It takes your mind off golf," Schwartzel said.
Golf and flying are a sensible pairing. The vast expenses of aviation are easily covered with a typical PGA Tour golfer's income, and the ability to fly affords them travel convenience from tournament to tournament. But if you look deeper, you'll see both take the same type of person. Golfing calls for a focused and mentally strong individual, as does flying.
Hoffmann is off to a strong start on the course this season, racking up four top-25 finishes, including a fourth-place finish at the Arnold Palmer Invitational -- the namesake tournament of the sport's most famous aviator.
As Hoffmann moved up from his 2014 final world ranking of 124 to his current spot at No. 88, he also continues to advance his aviation résumé. He's 20 hours into his instrument flight rules (IFR) training. That would give him the ability to fly in the clouds, limiting his restrictions and making his hobby that much safer.
As his friend McNeill put it, "You never want to stop learning, especially in flying."
