July 20, 2023. That’s the day when Adam Barkow, son of noted golf journalist and author Al Barkow, officially became sober. For years after graduating college in 2011 and becoming estranged from golf, once a huge part of his identity, Adam felt aimless. To fill the void, he started abusing alcohol and drugs, which only got worse when his older sister, Deborah, passed away in 2020 from cancer.
“I was drinking myself to death,” Adam said. “It got to the point where I was getting heart palpitations and I had to go to the ER a couple of times because I thought I was having a heart attack. The doctor said if you keep drinking like this something bad can happen.”
Now, almost three years sober, the 37-year-old has reunited with the game he loves. He caddies at a multitude of clubs in northern California, including Cypress Point and California Golf Club. Adam also plays competitive mid-amateur golf, which has played a big part in his sobriety. Not only is he having more fun than ever before, he’s also playing better golf.
“My attitude has gotten a lot better over these past few years,” he said. “It’s what I’m most proud of honestly. And now I’m playing the best golf of my life. A large part of that is because I’m sober and I don’t have to deal with the ups and downs that come with [substance abuse].”
Born in New York and raised in New Jersey, Adam had a golf club in his hands almost from the minute he was born. His dad has taken many photos of him through the years hitting out of bunkers, and the first one captures Adam in a diaper.
“Golf was born and bred into me,” Adam said. “My love of the game came from being around it with my dad.”
One of the many things Adam appreciated about his dad was that Al was very encouraging and never forced him to do anything. This only added to his enjoyment of the game.
Al just gave his son the opportunities.
“He was a gifted athlete and played all sports,” Al said. “But I never pushed him on anything or said he had to do something. I just made golf available to him and he was good at it.”
When Adam was 12, he became fascinated with Tiger Woods, who won 17 times on tour in 1999-2000, including four major championships.
“When he went on that run I was like OK, this is what I want to do,” he said. “That’s when I really focused on playing golf.”
But it was also around this time when Adam’s mother – who was bipolar and struggled with alcohol herself, according to Adam and his father – fell out of his life when she moved away. He was 13 years old.
These events had a profound impact on Adam.
“I started adding too much pressure to myself and anger issues started stepping in. If you can think of the most embarrassing person to watch play golf when he’s in a bad mood, that would be me.”
Adam Barkow
“I was always kind of an angry kid and had an inability to control my anger,” he said. “I had admittedly an embarrassing temper.”
But Adam still had golf, and he was starting to win tournaments. Then, in the winter of 2001, when he was in eighth grade, his dad asked him if he wanted to move to California and pursue a professional career.
“Without hesitation I said yes,” he said.
Before he entered high school, Adam and his father moved to Albany, California, right outside of Berkeley. Adam attended Chabot College, a community college, starting in 2006. After redshirting his freshman year, he played well in 2007, helping his team win the Coast Conference championship.
He transferred to Fresno State for the 2009-10 season, but his form had started to dip. So too did his attitude on the course.
“I started adding too much pressure to myself and anger issues started stepping in,” he said. “If you can think of the most embarrassing person to watch play golf when he’s in a bad mood, that would be me.”
Adam remembers the 2010 Cal Poly-Lamkin Grip Match Play tournament in particular, when he was in the anchor match with the chance to win it for Fresno State against Sacramento State. He didn’t play well all day, and remembers throwing tantrums on the course.
Still, he reached the 18th hole only 1 down with the chance to extend the match. He made birdie, but his opponent nailed a 20-foot birdie putt to win the match, 1 up.
“I remember tossing my ball and glove into the water left of the hole,” he said.
A week later, Fresno State coach Mike Watney called Adam into his office. Watney told his player that another coach told him he shouldn’t be playing college golf with that attitude. Watney also showed him a video he secretly took of Adam’s tantrums from the previous week.
“The word cringe is probably not even strong enough to explain the emotions of how I felt,” he said. “It stays with me to this day.”
When Adam graduated in 2011, he was completely burnt out from golf. He technically turned professional when he checked the “pro” box for a U.S. Open qualifier but never tried to play any mini-tour golf.
“I was honestly just really burnt out and struggling mentally,” he said. “I struggled with depression and anxiety stemming from my childhood.”
Adam didn’t just give up on his professional dreams, he put his clubs in the closet for a decade. He didn’t know what to do next.
“Golf was always my direction and without it I felt lost,” he said.
He tried to fill the void by getting into the bar and restaurant scene. He became a bartender and started drinking and doing drugs.
“When you get into bars and those worlds it starts off fun,” he said. “You have a few beers every night but then it can spiral and spiral and spiral the more you do it.”
Then, in 2016, Deborah, who was 19 years older than Adam, was diagnosed with cancer and he truly did spiral, drinking more than ever before.
“When she passed, that’s when my drinking became a serious health concern,” he said.
After multiple trips to the emergency room and warnings from doctors, Adam thought back to what his sister told him a few months before she died.
“She said, ‘Adam, please take care of yourself; you have too much talent and you can live a full life,’ ” he remembered. “She didn’t say stop drinking, but she basically said you know what you need to do.”
It was time to sober up.
“I decided I’d rather live than not,” Adam said.
But it was a tough road. For three to four days after quitting alcohol, he had delirium tremens, a form of alcohol withdrawal that can be life-threatening.
“It was one of the worst physical and psychological ordeals I’ve ever gone through,” he said. “I couldn’t get out of bed for three days. I couldn’t eat. Going through that was one of my biggest motivations to not drink again.”
Then, after a few months of sobriety, he felt great.
“I felt my energy level pick back up,” he said. “My body felt better and my mind was clearer.”
After about 10 years away from the game, Adam returned to golf. “The bug just hit me hard and it’s all I really want to do now,” he said.
In 2024, Adam qualified for his first USGA championship, the U.S. Mid-Amateur at Kinloch Golf Club in Virginia. After advancing to match play, he was eliminated in the round of 32, but his victory in the first match-play round yielded one of his favorite moments ever. Specifically, the moment he shared with his dad after the match.
“I remember our hug after that,” Adam said. “The look of joy on his face was very special.”
Al was so proud, overjoyed that his son was sober and having fun playing golf again.
“I don’t usually cry, but I might have had tears in my eyes,” Al said.
Adam loves mid-amateur golf, and says it has completely changed his view on the game.
“You’re making connections and I think that’s what mid-amateur golf ends up being, that camaraderie,” he said. “We all know we’re not going to be pros. We create good friendships and enjoy the competition. That takes a little pressure off what I used to think about the game.”
But Adam, who failed to qualify for match play at last year’s U.S. Mid-Amateur at Arizona’s Troon Country Club, still has things he wants to accomplish. At the top of the list is to win the U.S. Mid-Amateur and earn an invitation to the Masters.
“I know I have the talent and the game,” he said. “I’ve always had the physical ability but mentally now I’m getting stronger and stronger.”
“I’m proud of him more for [his recovery] than his golf. He did it on his own, he said that’s enough and he has kept to it. It’s a terrific thing.”
Al Barkow
In addition to working on his own game, Adam takes time to give golf and life advice to junior golfers. He loves teaching, and says he could see himself committing to it more in 10 or 15 years.
“One of the things I want to pass down are the mistakes that I made,” he said. “Control your emotions. Don’t get too down and try to enjoy it. I put so much pressure on myself that I didn’t enjoy it as much as I should’ve.”
He also still works part-time as a bartender, something that could be dangerous for an addict. But he says it isn’t hard.
“Once I quit alcohol, I knew how bad I felt,” he said. “I have absolutely zero interest in drinking alcohol in any way. Bartending doesn’t bother me one bit.”
Adam still has his vices. He’s not proud of it, but he smokes cigarettes despite trying to quit as recently as two months ago.
It doesn’t change the fact that he has come a long way, and his dad couldn’t be prouder.
“I’m proud of him more for [his recovery] than his golf,” Al said. “He did it on his own, he said that’s enough and he has kept to it. It’s a terrific thing.”
Top: Adam Barkow has found joy in golf after a long struggle with substance abuse.
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