Funny, but this golf thing almost happened by mistake. “I was a hoops player,” said Eric Dugas.

So, even if he did play for a Nauset Regional High School team that won a state championship in 1999 (Dugas laughs and says it helped to have arguably the best two junior golfers in the state, Brent Wanner and Michael Carbone, as teammates) and even if he followed the advice of Captains GC head pro Jay Packett and went to Methodist for its Professional Golf Management program, “there was never a time when I was thinking about professional golf.”

Naturally, more than 20 years later, Dugas is still immersed in the world of being a golf professional in a most wonderful and colorful way. It is as if his was a journey inspired by T.S. Eliot, who said a lot of interesting things, among them this: “Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.”

It isn’t so much that his passport has been stamped in Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Panama, Guatemala, Honduras, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Bermuda. The game is massively global and the appeal to seize opportunities like the PGA Tour LatinoAmérica, as Dugas did in 2015, is intoxicating to an adventurous spirit.

It isn’t that his passion for the PGA profession blessed him experiences at Captains, Eastward Ho!, Charles River, Old Sandwich, and Old Marsh in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., then swept Hawaii into his life at Kuki’o Golf and Beach Club on The Big Island and Makena Golf and Beach on Maui.

No, what is impressive is how Dugas has seamlessly moved back and forth onto the different paths while maintaining respect for this magical game. “I’ve been very fortunate as a result of golf,” he said. “It started with Chris Dupill teaching me how to play and giving me a chance, then Jay (Packett) writing a letter to Methodist and opening my eyes to the world of golf as an industry.”

If his focus entering the PGA program at Methodist was to embrace teaching to help advance people’s love of golf – just as Dupill had done to him – Dugas got a pleasant surprise that widened his perspective. “I played on a good high school team,” he said, “but it was in college that I started to get good (at golf).”

He made the team at Methodist, a Div. 3 power, and the desire to keep improving burned within after he left college in 2005 and turned pro. Dugas was a member of the staff at Old Sandwich GC in Plymouth in 2008 when he finished sixth in the PGA Professional Championship to qualify for the PGA Championship at Oakland Hills.

What stands out in his mind is not his scores (he shot 87-74 to miss the cut) or that he played with Louis Oosthuizen, who two years later would win the Open Championship. It’s that his friend from high school, Carbone, gave up a chance to play in a minitour tournament so that he could caddie for Dugas.

It made an impact on Dugas. “That is what I love about the golf industry,” he said. “It circles back.”

His circle of friends continued to grow when he went to Hawaii in 2008 and so did his game and his lifestyle.

With island winds – be they Trade or Kona – Dugas polished his ball-striking. With island surf, Dugas rekindled the passion for the ocean that dated to his Cape Cod roots.

Both Kuki’o and Makena, where Dugas went in 2013 as head golf professional, are part of the Discovery Land Company, and the environment surrounded him with supportive members and a warm and comfortable golf community that included Dusty Payne, a world-class surfer.

“He would call me because all he wanted to do was play golf and I would tell him I wanted to surf.”

When Dugas had the opportunity to play the PGA Tour LatinoAmérica for several months in 2015, the membership at Makena gave thumbs up. “I’m not sure they knew the animal they were unleashing,” laughs Dugas, because as he’s gotten older, the desire to compete has increased exponentially.

A shoulder injury sidelined him most of 2016, but six times, including each of the last four seasons, Dugas has earned the PGA Hawaii Section spot into the Sony Open at Hawaii. He’s got Jan. 10 at Hoakalei CC circled on his calendar when he’ll try to qualify for a seventh time.

It fits into a schedule that is all-golf right now because at 38 Dugas has left his job at Makena to quench his thirst to play. Having made it through a qualifier in November to earn PGA Tour LatinoAmérica status for a second time, he recently played in Argentina and Chile. Until the schedule resumes in late February for a run of tournaments in South America, he’s going to chase PGA Tour qualifiers.

Yes, he knows people are going to ask why he would leave a job in paradise to chase crazy travel against deep, competitive fields. “Competitive golf is my life right now,” said Dugas, who is also affiliated with aboutgolf.com and helps the on-line site with their simulators and teaching plans.

“Hawaii was great. Makena was supportive. I can always go back to that side of the work, which I loved. But, right now, I’m chasing something for me. Fortunately, I have good balance and great friends, which (is the essence) of the golf industry.

“They talk about six degrees of separation in life. But in golf, it’s one degree of separation.”