KEY POINTS:
New Zealand golfer Craig Perks has quit his job as a tour professional to work at a performance institute in the United States.
Perks, whose one career title was the 2002 Players Championship, spent eight years on the PGA Tour in the US.
He suffered an alarming form slump from 2003 onwards and made just one second-round cut in the past two years.
He featured on the tour this year only because it was the last year of the five-year exemption he earned by winning the Players Championship.
Perks, 40, is taking up a role with the Titleist company's performance institute in his home town of Lafayette, Louisiana.
Originally from Palmerston North, he ventured to the US on a college scholarship, stayed and forged a career which earned him US$3.36 million ($4.44 million).
"I played as hard as I could for as long as I could and it wasn't working," he told the Manawatu Standard newspaper.
Perks said returning to the second tier Nationwide Tour in a bid to rediscover his game had no appeal.
"I didn't see the point. I wanted to play at the highest level and I struggled playing 15 events this year," he said.
"I had completely lost my game. I pretty much had the yips off the tee."
He is looking forward to a new chapter in his life, working on a new golf fitness programme involving hi-tech video gear tailoring players' physical weaknesses and strengths to their game.
His La Triomphe club is building a facility for him and he would like to conduct seminars around the US and perhaps in Australia and New Zealand.
- NZPA
