It is mystical, really, the ways in which we fall for this game, and how your love story isn’t dissimilar from his, no matter that you and he were born continents apart.

So, when you happen upon the opportunity to meet South African Matthew Kent, you sense a kinship. That his odyssey began at the age of 3 when the swing of a stick connected convincingly with a golf ball and carried through junior years that saw him win a global title in Japan and top amateur honors in his country paint his story with rich flavor.

Matthew Kent had dreams and uncanny talents to make them attainable, which you might think separates him from you.

That would be accurate, only here is why you should relate to Kent: When pro golf didn’t work out, when the brief run on the European Tour didn’t blossom and subsequent bids to play the minitours in the U.S. and get through Q School back in his native South Africa did not elevate his career forward, the bitterness was a temporary stage that gave way to a reality that unites so many of us.

The game will never fail us, but neither does it owe us anything. Which is why we love it.

“My relationship with golf was bad for a few years. But I accept that while it was hard (as a professional), it was meant to be fun. The game of golf had already taken me around the world,” said Kent, “so I am appreciative of it. I feel at home on the golf course.”

As the head of sales in the U.S. for Premier Africa Excursions, Kent, 34, gets “to combine two passions, travel and golf” and to share rounds of golf with amateurs who love the game like he does.

Should you suggest that a prerequisite to work in the business of selling travel is a rich and eclectic resume of diversification, then raise a toast to Matthew Kent. He has lived on three continents and visited more than 50 countries in a journey that has always been extended by the resourcefulness to ask himself, “OK, now what?” whenever his golf career got sidetracked.

Digital marketing? “I’ll do that,” Kent told his friend in Cape Town, South Africa. So, after a fraternity of South African golfers – Tyrone Van Aswegan among them – that was based in San Diego and played minitours through the western part of the country collapsed, Kent helped run his friend’s stationary office supply store.

“Not what I’m supposed to be doing,” he said to himself.

There were stints running his own marketing company, caddying, and even the offer to be a ski instructor in Park City, Utah. One stretch, Kent helped run a friend’s cocktail and coffee shop that featured live music.

“Crazy years,” he laughs. “But I always knew, it was not what I was meant to be.”

He figured he was meant to golf. Kent had honed his game at Clovelly Country Club in Cape Town and received help from South African legends, including Ernie Els. In 2003 and 2004 he was voted his country’s top amateur, then in ’05 he turned pro and was swept into Chubby Chandler’s International Sports Management stable.

“I was a mature young man but going from amateur to pro (at 18) was a big adjustment,” said Kent. He got into a few elite tournaments that year, roomed once with Louis Oosthuizen, played practice rounds with Charl Schwartzel and James Kingston, worked a little with Pete Cowen, and got a $75,000 bonus from Dunlop.

“Good start to my career,” he said.

But momentum is imperative to a young pro and Kent concedes that moving his base of operation to Manchester, England, was a mistake. “Wrong place for me,” he said. “No practice facilities and it was always raining.”

Bad play settled in. So did bad lifestyle choices. “My roommate, Anton Haig (another South African) was a professional partier,” laughs Kent. At an “where I needed someone to knock on my door and kick me in the butt, I was calling the shots.”

The commune in San Diego was great for two years, a positive where Kent played on the Golden State Tour. “San Diego lived and breathed golf. Manchester, it wasn’t.”

The economic crash of 2008 broke up the San Diego experience and Kent was on a beguiling odyssey. He poured his efforts into his jobs, but golf often pulled back strongly. Back in South Africa he devoted a year to a practice and minitours, but when he went to the Sunshine Tour Qualifying Tournament one year, “I was really in a bad mood, mad with myself and with everyone around me.”

Kent figured he was done with the game. “I can’t keep doing this,” he said.

Of course, he did keep pushing, playing in a string of tournaments in 2015 on the Big Easy Challenge Tour. In July, Kent, then 28, broke through and won the IGT Cape’s Mowbray Classic.

One of the competitors in the field was Christiaan Bezuidenhout, who six-plus years later is ranked 48th the world. That opens the door to a sense of wonder, that who knows where Kent may have taken his golf game had things played out differently.

He doesn’t accept the invitation for second-guesses. “I had options. I’ve always been entrepreneurial.”

Kent walked out of that winner’s circle at the Mowbray Classic and into a more comfortable setting. Travel, golf, meeting people, oozing with charm and great manners, and selling the wonder of African excursions.

“I am just so happy in this job.”