Looking for The Big Break

~ Former Anna, Ill., resident Aaron Wright will put his golf skills to the test in the pursuit of a $100,000 winner-take-all prize on the Golf Channel.

It's not every day a community is able to get to know one of its future residents before the person actually moves into the neighborhood.

But when 32-year-old Aaron Wright moves to Cape Girardeau on May 1, he may have a look of familiarity -- especially to those who watch the Golf Channel.

Wright, a 1994 graduate of Anna-Jonesboro High School in Anna, Ill., will be arriving to television sets in Cape Girardeau before he actually arrives in person. He will be making his grand entrance as one of 12 contestants on the golf reality show "The Big Break."

The 11th edition of the program will begin to air at 8 p.m. today and will play out over 11 weeks. Much like the hit series "American Idol," the program eliminates a contestant each week until a winner is left standing in the final episode. But in "The Big Break," contestants compete in a variety of golf skills, with the weakest participant subtracted from the next show's cast.

Aaron Wright's golf adventures have ranged from a match-play pairing against Tiger Woods in the 1993 U.S. Junior Amateur to an appearance on Golf Channel's reality series The Big Break. (The Golf Channel)

Wright recently accepted a job in sales with Synthes Spine, which supplies equipment for spinal surgeries. While he currently lives with his parents in Makanda, Ill. -- he recently moved from Florida -- he will be moving to Cape with his wife Kelly, who is attending the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Fla.

"The majority of my business is in Cape Girardeau," Wright said in a telephone interview. "That's why I'm moving there."

Wright was the Illinois Class A state champion his sophomore and junior years at Anna-Jonesboro, where he also was a three-year starting point guard for the Wildcats. He played collegiate golf at the Naval Academy, where he was an All-American and obtained a degree in mechanical engineering. He later reached captain in the U.S. Marine Corps and served in Afghanistan.

Off to somewhere

In the 11th edition, Wright competes at Prince Edward Island against five men and six women for the winner-take-all $100,000 first prize.

"When I found it was at Prince Edward Island, I literally had to get on the Internet and find out where the heck I was going," Wright said.

And that was coming from a well-traveled golf professional and military man. Wright attended the Naval Academy on a golf scholarship, spent five years in professional golf -- three on the Hooters Tour and two with the Gateway Tour -- and had traveled the country. His six years in the Marine Corps included six months in Afghanistan.

It turns out, Canada had eluded Wright.

About six months after applying for the show, Wright found himself bound for Prince Edward Island, the smallest Canadian providence located north of Nova Scotia. The show was filmed at the Rod Mill River Resort in a rural, retreat-like setting.

"I didn't know what to expect of it or what I was getting into, but quite honestly, it was one of the greatest experiences I've ever had," Wright said. "It was a lot of work, but it was awesome. I met some great people. It was a lot of fun. I would recommend it to anybody."

The code of silence

While the series was filmed in September, Wright is not allowed to discuss much about the show. He can't talk about the skill challenges, which in the past have included hitting balls through a pane of glass, lobbing flop shots over a wall or hitting shots into scoring circles. All he would say is that he often warmed up at 7 a.m. and had to wait a couple of hours before a competition that was first referred to in clue-like fashion.

"The thing I liked most was the not knowing what was coming next, the unknown, and the pressure that would come along with it," Wright said. "I'd seen reality TV shows, and I'm like 'How in the world do these people get so emotional about something or getting knocked off the show?' But when you start to compete in anything -- everybody on the show are competitors, they have pride and want to win -- and the emotions are real.

"I was kind of surprised how people are effected by it. Because is it a competitive sport? Yeah. Is it a golf tournament? No. Is it life or death? No. It was on a different level. It's a competition and you know you're going to be on national television. I'd never been on anything like that before. It was just constantly the unknown. You don't know what would come next."

The shroud of secrecy is nothing new for Wright, who has been watching his words since July. He thinks he applied for the show last April, and he auditioned in May in Daytona, Fla.

He was driving to a Hooters Tour event in Lexington, Ky., in July when he received a call telling him he had made the final cut from "thousands" that had applied.

"I was kind of in shock," Wright said. "I was thinking I had a good shot at it. Then it was like, 'Wow, I'm actually going to be on it.' I was excited about it.

"I had been talking about it before when I saw it. I was like, 'Man, I could get on there. I could win that show. It's like, 'I need a break here.' And the next thing you know I got the opportunity."

He wasn't allowed to tell anyone outside his immediate family that he was on the show or where he was going.

How he fares is yet to be seen -- by all.

"My wife doesn't even know," Wright said. "The only way you can keep things quiet is to not tell anybody. It's up to the contestants. You can make it as good as you want, but if we leak out information, then who wants to watch it, right?"

Encounter with Tiger

But it will go down with his memories, which includes a round of match play with a guy named Tiger Woods.

That occurred in the 1993 U.S. Junior Amateur in Portland, Ore., where Wright encountered the future superstar in the quarterfinals. Woods was the two-time defending champion.

"He was phenomenal then," Wright said. "Everybody knew who he was. That was quite an experience, for sure. And now being able to say that I played with the best player to ever play the game ... ."

Wright experienced Tiger-mania before most of the world.

"There was probably 1,000 people following our match alone," Wright said. "It was a huge deal. He was the next big one. It was galleries I had never experienced before. I was playing at the top level of junior golf."

And Wright even had the upper hand for a few moments.

"What I remember most is the very first hole I hit it to about 30 feet and he hit to 12 feet, and I was as nervous as could be," Wright said. "I had a straight downhill putt, slick as glass, and I rolled it in. I mean the place went nuts. I was 1-up."

The Golf Channel bio on Wright notes the encounter, saying that Woods won 4-and-3.

Wright takes exception with the bio.

"I lost 3-and-2, not 4-and-3. Not that it matters," Wright said with a laugh.

How the rest of Wright's bio on the Golf Channel reads will play out over the next 11 weeks.