Ryder Cup 2018: Tony Finau is the Team US wildcard pick defined by struggles, faith, sacrifices and risk

“It's almost like we can finally be accepted as American.”

Born to Samoan-Tongan immigrants in a deprived Salt Lake City neighbourhood, Jim Furyk’s final captain’s pick for the US Ryder Cup team is a wildcard in more ways than one and a rare anomaly in golf’s middle-class carousel.

But his story began in a kindred fashion, inspired by the first golfer to grace the front of his Frosted Wheaties cereal. Tiger Woods wasn’t just modern golf’s youngest major champion, he was the first non-white winner at Augusta and for families like the Finaus across America, golf became something more than just a privileged pastime.

In a boxy garage surrounded by mid-swing stills of Jack Nicklaus, Tony Finau tethered himself to a dishevelled six-iron his father had brought home for 75 cents from Salvation Army. Unable to afford regular buckets of range balls, year-after-year he thwacked ball-after-ball from carpet sample into coiled mattress as the club’s threadbare grip calloused his palms.

It wasn’t a question of whether he had the talent to breakthrough as a junior golfer, it was whether he could afford to. His father, Kelepi, who moved from Tonga to Utah in his twenties, took Tony to a local course each afternoon where he was allowed to practice chipping and putting for free. Once they’d finished, he’d rush to a nearby airport to begin his night shift as a freight loader.

Finau’s mother would go whole days without eating, only stopping on the drive to his events so he could run into a service station and grab himself a dollar hamburger. Once the pair even slept in their car, unable to afford a crummy motel in Milwaukee.

He may not have had the flashy clubs and couture clothing, but Finau was, quite literally, hungrier than his rivals. The antithesis of country-club propriety, unassuming and unspoiled by its indulgences. He was a lone-ranger but he was special and after victory at the Utah State Amateur Championship, Finau was offered a sought-after scholarship by the University of Nevada.

Finau did go to Las Vegas, but not to study - he’s the only US Ryder Cup player who didn’t go to university - he went to gamble. The Ultimate Game golf tournament in 2007 was the grandiose concoction of casino kingpin Steve Wynn. Anyone could enter the one-off event, as long as they paid the $50,000 invitation fee, and the winner would take home $2 million.

A sponsor approached Finau’s father and offered to finance his son’s entry, but the decision to play had wider odds and a greater cost. Amateur golfers aren’t allowed to compete for prize money so, if he wanted to take part, he’d have to turn professional and abandon the scholarship. Together with his family, Finau took 30 minutes to decide. He went all in.

On the first tee, the 17-year-old exhibited the home-brewed ball-striking which makes him one of golf’s biggest hitters to date. The 380 yard downhill drive cracked like a whip and lingered like a cymbal as spectators strained for a second-glance at the teenager titan.

Finau finished tied eighth in the tournament and won $100,000 and a three-year sponsorship deal with Callaway. The money he earned that week kickstarted a career in which he’s already earned over $12 million. A rare Vegas wager won.

There was another reason Finau didn’t want to go to college. Like the majority of Utahans, he’s a Mormon who attended church every Sunday as a child and still never drinks alcohol to this day. It meant he was often a socially secluded high schooler and a reluctant partygoer so a carousing campus was never an attraction.

Eventually though the $100,000 did dry up and Finau fought to stay afloat on golf’s remedial tours. Just as when he was a teenager, each poor performance wained away his family’s wealth, each victory just allowing them to resurface. But in 2011, Las Vegas, the city which had given Finau so much, took from him what could never be replaced when his mother was tragically killed driving back from a friend’s wedding. She was just 47 years old.

For the first time, he and his father were forced to question their faith as he continued to cling on to his career. Finau failed five years in a row to reach the PGA Tour after turning professional and he already had two children back in Utah who needed his support. Still grieving, a lesser man’s will would have been broken.

But in 2014, on his sixth attempt, Finau became the first PGA Tour player of Tongan-Samoan descent in history. And although it took him a further 18 months to claim his first - and remarkably still only - PGA Tour win, his performances were steady and his family was secure.

This year, Finau has finally matched his prowess with the resilience he showed in the early part of his career. He’s had eleven top-10 finishes, three coming in the majors, climbed to 16th in the world rankings and earned over $5 million. Even if the second Tour win remains elusive, nobody could argue against his Ryder Cup selection.

“It really is the American dream,” he says. Defined by the struggle of his immigrant father, the faith of his family, the sacrifices, the risk, the tragedy and above all the brilliance, Finau will pray in a quiet corner of the locker room come Ryder Cup Friday as he always does before playing. And, in his own way, he’ll be a maverick among 23 other men. The man who infiltrated the elite echelon which he was never supposed to be a part of. The gambler who won.