Sports, at their core, are a meritocracy requiring a combination of talent and effort that leads to success. Few athletes have applied this with quite as broad a brush as R.B. Clyburn III.
Clyburn, a 6-foot-7, 32-year-old from Cartersville, Georgia, qualified for the first time and competed in the 2021 U.S. Amateur this summer. All the collegiate All-American golfers and aspiring tour professionals there couldn’t fathom the path Clyburn took to reach Oakmont – a route that included playing Division I college football, professional basketball across three continents and a career blowing whistles as a college basketball official.
“It’s insanely amazing,” Clyburn said of his U.S. Amateur experience. “The fact I was there with those guys who are the best amateurs in the world and are about to become household names in a year or five … and I only play golf five months of the year full time.”
Golf was always Clyburn’s first love ever since his late father, Robert Beaty Clyburn Jr., introduced him to the game at Cartersville Country Club. But despite being the 2006 regional medalist his senior year at Cartersville High School – home of the NFL’s latest No. 1 draft pick Trevor Lawrence – golf was unlikely to earn him one of the precious few scholarships to play major college golf. With 81 scholarships to offer at every D-I school, football had better odds, so Clyburn joined the football team as a junior.
“I tried to play football to get college paid for and after college I can pursue golf with the money that was saved,” Clyburn said of the rationalization.
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