Adrian Kaczala’s Ridiculous Road to the MENAGOLF Tour
A Polish pro, a rented campervan and a sleepless drive from Marbella to Portugal. This is Adrian Kaczala’s wonderfully unhinged route to the relaunched MENA Golf Tour.
There are two kinds of professional golfers in this world. The first glide around in courtesy cars that smell faintly of leather and entitlement, sleep on hotel pillows with thread counts higher than their wedge spin rate and float through airport lounges like endangered species being preserved. And then there’s Adrian Kaczala.
A Polish professional golfer, Marbella-based coach, former pro cyclist and full-time optimist, Adrian decided the most logical route to MENA Golf Tour Q School wasn’t by plane or hire car, but by campervan – rented, Polish plates, driven from Spain to Portugal. If the PGA TOUR is a corporate boardroom, Adrian is the bloke arriving in a mobile shed, smiling like he’s discovered a loophole in life.
He turned professional in 2015, then immediately detoured to PGA school. “Good for teaching, not good for playing,” he shrugs. And so he taught. For ten years. Built an academy in Marbella. Straightened the slices of sunburnt tourists. Listened to golfers insist their mechanics were perfect and the ball simply disagreed. Then, after a decade behind the lesson tee, he stepped back onto the battlefield. “Now I have time,” he says. “Time for practising, travelling, enjoying golf.” Most people “find time” by meditating or deleting apps. Adrian rents a camper and drives to Q School.
Instagram sells camper life as sunsets and serenity. Reality, according to Adrian, is cold mornings, colder nights and zero sleep. “First night… terrible. I didn’t sleep even one hour.” The second night? “Better, but still terrible.” He falls asleep to barking dogs, passing cars and forest noises that sound like unsolved crimes. “My friend says I need time with the camper,” he adds, like someone trying to fix a broken relationship. “So I trust him.”
Before golf, he was a professional cyclist, which explains the comfort with suffering. Cyclists call vertical climbs “warm-ups” and consider pain a lifestyle choice. Adrian still rides once or twice a week and plans to race with his brother next season. “Small goal,” he smiles. “But the biggest love now is golf.”
Troia Golf Course became his first MENA Tour testing ground. He likes it. “It’s narrow. The greens are soft. A lot of grain.” He says “grain” like a crime scene investigator. The views win him immediately. “Amazing views. Amazing place.” The tee boxes need work, he admits, but with a few days of sunshine, “it will be amazing” – a phrase he seems to apply generously to everything except his camper heating.
If he qualifies, he may take the camper down to the Algarve. “Two or three days I decide,” he says, already sounding like a man tempted by hotel radiators. But when Egypt and four events in January are mentioned, there is no negotiation. “No way. Never. No camper to Egypt. Plane. Hotel. Close to the golf course. No traffic.”
Back in Marbella, his students are following the story – not for his scores, but for the survival diary of the campervan. “More questions about the camper than the competition,” he laughs.
Adrian Kaczala might not win Q School. He might not make every cut. He might spend another night wondering if his camper’s heater is a social experiment. But in a sport polished within an inch of its life, full of perfect answers about “process” and “momentum”, Adrian represents something far more important: the madness, honesty and joy of chasing golf simply because you love it. And sometimes, that’s the best story on the Tour.
