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I could not have been more impressionable than when The Big Break debuted. While I was already completely obsessed with golf, the sight of good-but-not-great golfers vying for professional tournament starts reinforced the sense that the veil between the pros and the Joes was tantalizingly thin - enough to give 14-year-old me some dream fodder.
Of course, I would soon find out that the gulf between scratch golf and pro-caliber golf was as wide as an ocean. But by humanizing some of golf's dreamers and even giving some of them a bit of that reality-TV villain sheen, The Big Break tricked viewers just enough to start rooting for certain contestants to defy the odds and break big.
Indeed, some participants did end up prospering in golf. A young Tony Finau competed in Big Break: Disney Golf in 2009, and even though he was that season's runner-up, he has gone on to PGA Tour stardom with six career wins and more than $42 million in career earnings. Other seasons have included PGA Tour winners Tommy Gainey and Matt Every and LPGA Tour winner Ryann O'Toole.
Looking back, my favorite season of the show was the second, held in Las Vegas. It included Dave Gunas, Jr., who hailed from my home state of Connecticut and who played barefoot. But the star of the season was Don Donatello, whose high confidence and occasional odd antics made him the first quasi-villain figure in the show's run.
It's been nearly 20 years since that season. Fans might wonder what Donatello has been up to in the interim. They now have an answer - for Donatello and several others - in the form of GolfPass' newest series Big Break: Where Are They Now?
Though he didn't quite make it in professional golf as a player, Donatello has forged a steady career as a professional caddie, working for players like K.J. Choi, J.J. Henry, Kevin Na and Alex Smalley. He sat down with Big Break co-host Tom Abbott to reflect on his appearances on the show and his life in golf.
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Perhaps the best nickname awarded to a Big Break competitor is "Corporal Clutch," given affectionately to Chad Pfeifer, who staved off elimination in four consecutive episodes of the show's final season, which took place in The Palm Beaches in 2015. Pfeifer, an Iraq War veteran, who lost his left leg as the result of an IED explosion, has become one of America's top adaptive golfers. He finished tied for seventh at the 2024 U.S. Adaptive Open, shooting rounds of 68, 75 and 71.
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Donatello and Pfeifer comprise two of eight segments of Big Break: Where Are They Now. The episodes include two contestants who first met as combatants on The Big Break and are now married with two children.
Watch more Big Break: Where Are They Now? here.
What were your favorite seasons or favorite golfers from Big Break? Let us know in the comments below.
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