Well, that didn’t last long.

John Peterson, the former NCAA individual champion and PGA Tour player who last year retired from pro golf at age 30, has decided life in real estate isn’t as exciting.

Peterson told ESPN Radio Baton Rouge on Wednesday that he was inspired by watching the Masters, particularly Tiger Woods’ victory and Patrick Cantlay’s strong play, and quit his job immediately. He teed it up in a Monday qualifier this week for the Web.com Tour’s Dormie Network Classic at Briggs Ranch in San Antonio but didn't qualify.

"Sometimes you've got to take a step back to realize what you had," said Peterson, who was a three-time All-American at LSU and won the 2011 NCAA individual title. "I was in an office for seven months, and it was fine when I started, I was paying the bills. Then the Masters came along, and I'm watching this kid Patrick Cantlay, who in 2011 finished second to me in the national championship when he was at UCLA, and he's finishing ninth in the Masters. It's on TV, and I beat him, and I beat him a lot, and I'm just like, 'Man, that could be me.' And then Tiger wins, with his story, it was just so inspiring, honestly.

“And I quit my job, seriously, the next day after the Masters.”

Peterson played last season on the PGA Tour on a major medical extension. He failed to fulfill the requirements and then couldn’t keep his card via the Web.com Tour Finals.

“It’s been a hell of a ride,” Peterson tweeted back then. He earned just more than $2 million on Tour while notching just two top-10s in 93 career starts.

Initially, Peterson appeared to enjoy the new career. He tweeted about how he was able to spend more time with his wife and two young kids at home in Dallas, though he irked fellow Tour pros Chesson Hadley and Kelly Kraft after responding to a tweet by Hadley, in which Hadley complained about a flight delay and how he hadn’t seen his family in three weeks.

“Hey man, the money ain’t always worth it,” Peterson said to Hadley on Twitter. “I saw my family today, and yesterday, and the day before that, and that, and that, and that, and that. #fam.”

Kraft rushed to Hadley’s defense.

“Don’t knock us on the @PGATOUR for living our dream of playing golf at the highest level,” Kraft tweeted at Peterson. “Especially when you know damn well you would be too if you didn’t lose your status.”

Peterson said Wednesday that he deleted his social media before his comeback “because of what might come of it.”

“I spent two and a half, three years of my PGA Tour career not really giving it everything I had,” Peterson said. “With life and babies and everything that came with that, I wasn’t able to really concentrate 100 percent on golf, and now that we are done with our second kid, if I’m gonna do it, now is the time. … It’s gonna be a long road back, but I’m ready for it and know I’m good enough to compete at the highest level.”

Peterson has no status, which means he’ll need to rely on sponsor exemptions and Monday qualifiers. There is also the mini-tour route, which is a grind in of itself.

“I’m taking a big risk,” Peterson said. “I don’t really have any place to play right now 100 percent, so I got to qualify and stuff. But I will get back, I know I will.”

AVONDALE, La. – Jason Day will likely be heavily counted on again this December when the Internationals look to end their Presidents Cup woes at Royal Melbourne. Unlike past years, though, Day plans to be mentally ready.

Day admitted this week at the Zurich Classic that he has been guilty of checking out at times in the biennial matches between the U.S. and Internationals. He pointed to the 2015 Cup in South Korea, where he went 0-4-1. Overall, the world’s 14^th-ranked player and former world No. 1 is 5-11-4 in the team event.

“To be able to get the guys together into a team environment can be very difficult at times,” Day said, “especially when some guys are not quite there mentally because it is the end of the season, and I'm the first one to put my hand up in regards to that because unfortunately, it has to start at the top, and I've made mistakes with regards to not mentally being there.

“You can obviously see my results in Korea, and I wasn't mentally there unfortunately with regards to being there for the team when I needed, performing for the team.”

Day did go 3-1-1 in 2013 at Muirfield Village, but he’s collected just two wins otherwise in four career Presidents Cup appearances. Currently, he sits sixth in the 2019 International point standings.

“You know, this guy is a vital part of the team as the best player,” Adam Scott said of Day, “and we need to get the most points out of him that we can every time.”

This week, Day is teaming up with Scott at TPC Louisiana. The duo won the World Cup together in 2013, but the pair have played just one session as a team in the Presidents Cup. That was in 2013, when the Aussie stars halved Phil Mickelson and Zach Johnson.

“I think we're a hell of a team. … You can't tell a lot from one match, but I believe Jason and I are a really formidable pairing,” Scott said. “I don't care who else is on the team and what team we're playing, I think who we play has to turn and take notice of us, and I've tried to push for it to happen more often, but there's a lot of different opinions and things to happen.”

International captain Ernie Els agrees.

"They could playing together in December pretty easily," Els said. "... I mean, those two guys are on their game. They're two of the best players you'll ever see in the modern game.

"I would love to see how they score, how they perform this week."

Playing with Scott at Royal Melbourne could be just what Day needs after a busy, condensed PGA Tour season in which Day has battled a back injury. Day said he understands that he needs to “pick up the slack” for his teammates, especially Scott, a veteran who has passionately voiced his frustration with the Internationals’ 1-10-1 Cup record.

“Scottie, he's been one of the major voices in the team room, and you can see in his emotions and his attitude with regard to losing every single year,” Day said, “and it's disappointing for me to sit there and know that I can do better, and I should be doing better.”

Stacy Lewis is taking care of her baby by herself in Los Angeles this week.

Her mother had to depart after the flight back from Hawaii’s Lotte Championship on Monday, and her husband isn’t due to arrive until Thursday night, so it has been just the two of them at the Hugel-Air Premia LA Open so far this week.

“I kind of just wanted to try it out and see how it worked,” Lewis told GolfChannel.com. “It’s been OK.”

OK? Lewis put up a bogey-free 6-under-par 65 Thursday to shoot to the top of the leaderboard among the morning wave at Wilshire Country Club. It’s her low round as a mom.

“I do feel like I’m running on fumes, though,” Lewis said. “Had a three-hour night the other night.”

Sleep deprivation comes with the territory these days, especially when mama’s flying solo.

There are all sorts of new challenges learning to juggle motherhood and tournament golf in Lewis’ return to the game. Lewis took Chesnee Lynn, her 6-month-old, to the UCLA medical center Wednesday night, worried that an ear infection that struck two weeks ago might have returned.

“She chose to have her worst night in months, right after my mother left,” Lewis said.

It wasn’t an ear infection.

“Teething,” Lewis said. “We’re dealing with two front teeth coming in.

“The last two nights combined, I’ve had about nine hours sleep.”

There are challenges within the game that feel new again, too.

Lewis has slipped to No. 65 in the Rolex Women’s World Rankings, a slide that came taking off the second half of last season to prepare for Chesnee Lynn’s October birth. Lewis isn’t qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open, which is just five weeks away. She needs to crack the top 50 in the world rankings by the Monday of the championship, or make it through the sectional qualifier she is signed up for at Kingwood, Texas, in two weeks.

Or win this week, or next week in San Francisco or next month at the Pure Silk Bahamas. She’s planning to play all three weeks, with Chesnee Lynn in tow, of course.

“She goes wherever I go,” Lewis said.

A two-time major champion and former world No. 1, Lewis isn’t accustomed to worrying about qualifying for majors.

“I haven’t had to deal with this in a long time,” she said.

Lewis, 34, said she asked the USGA for a special exemption, but she was turned down. She is, however, holding out hope that the USGA may amend its maternity policy in a way that would allow her to play this year, should she need help getting into the championship scheduled for the Country Club of Charleston (S.C.).

Brittany Lincicome and Sarah Jane Smith received USGA maternity extensions, but that means they won’t be playing this year. They’re deferring their status until next year.

“I was told they were going to look into the maternity policy again, but I haven’t heard anything back,” Lewis said. “I don’t think you should have to make a choice.”

The LPGA amended its maternity policy this year, giving mothers more options and more time to return after giving birth.

Lewis can make it a moot point if she can claim her 13^th LPGA title come Sunday.

“I feel like I’m playing really good golf,” Lewis said. “I just need more days like today, where ball striking and putting come together, because it’s there. It’s really not far off at all.”

Eleven days after he slipped on his fifth green jacket, Tiger Woods says his Masters win still hasn’t sunk in.

In an interview with Golf TV, Woods says he’s spent the days since his win enjoying dinners with friends, taking his kids to and from school, and otherwise not doing “very much.”

“I know that sounds boring,” he said, “but I really haven’t. I’ve just been home and letting everything thaw out and just trying to understand what I [have] accomplished. But I haven’t – I don’t think – come to grips with it yet.

“It’s very similar to what it was in 1997, and that took me years to understand what I had accomplished, and I don’t think this one will settle in for quite some time.”

Woods during the interview briefly walked through each of his four prior Masters victories – winning his first jacket in 1997, closing out the Tiger Slam in 2001, successfully defending in 2002, chipping in at 16 in 2005 – before explaining what made this one “so different.”

“This one feels special in its own way,” he said. “This year, to go 14 years between jackets is a long time. … And on top of that to actually have won my first major championship coming from behind. It’s so ironic, given my last few years of what I’ve kind of had to battle through, that now is finally the time I finally come from behind when I’ve had more game throughout the years, and I’ve had more runs, and I’ve been in situations where I’ve been in better spots. … For some reason I got it done.”

Although Woods hasn’t even had the time to process major victory No. 15, the golf world has begun discussing the potential for No. 19 – as in whether Tiger can still pass Jack Nicklaus’ all-time major record of 18 wins.

How is Woods looking at the chase now that he’s captured his first major title in 11 years?

“Well, I always thought it was possible if I had everything go my way,” he answered. “It took him an entire career to get to 18. Now that I’ve had another extension to my career, one I didn’t think I had a couple years ago, if I do things correctly, and everything falls my way, yeah, it’s a possibility.

“I’m never going to say it’s not – except for a couple years ago when I couldn’t walk.”

AVONDALE, La. – The Big Easy did not live up to its moniker Thursday at TPC Louisiana.

Severe thunderstorms and heavy rain hit the New Orleans area hard and left tournament officials scrambling after play was suspended less than three hours into the first round of the Zurich Classic. The delay, which nearly ended around lunchtime before more storms moved in, lasted for 7 hours and 33 minutes before play resumed at 5:14 p.m. local time.

Now, the next few days are shaping up to be a marathon as the tournament attempts to finish as scheduled by Sunday evening. The first round will resume at 7 a.m. CT Friday while the second-wave groups will begin their opening rounds at 7:15 a.m. The second round is expected to begin around 1-1:30 p.m. and will extend into Saturday morning.

With better weather on deck, officials are hopeful that they can complete 54 holes before Sunday.

As for the action on the course, just 13 teams finished their first rounds. Scott Stallings and Trey Mullinax were among them. They sit atop the leaderboard after an 11-under 61 in the four-ball format, which was a shot better than the score put up by their playing competitors, Nick Taylor and Martin Laird.

“We played golf like the Japanese, play nine, take a break, come back, play another nine,” Stallings said. “It was kind of an odd day.”

The duo, who decided on this partnership the Thursday of last year’s Zurich Classic (and even rented a house for this week shortly after), made 11 birdies, with Mullinax accounting for seven of them. The strong start came after the two played alternate shot for nine holes in a practice round for the RBC Heritage last week at Harbour Town.

“It's pretty rare to see some guys in a practice round playing each other's ball in a tournament that that's not the format,” Stallings said.

They’ll get to play foursomes in Friday’s second round, though they’ll only get about nine holes in, as Thursday’s morning wave isn’t slated to start Round 2 until around 5 p.m. Friday.

It’s not ideal, but at least the players who finished Thursday evening won’t have two straight early wake-up calls. Ian Poulter raced to complete his round, rushing to the ninth tee and hitting his tee ball right after his partner, Sam Horsfield, putted out for par. The horn blew seconds later.

For Brandon Harkins and Joel Dahmen, who shot 63, being able to sleep in will be crucial after a long, start-and-stop day. The morning-wave players actually had to warmup on three different occasions on Thursday, as a restart expected for around 1 p.m. was scrapped.

“We were ready to go back out on the golf course around 1 o’clock, and then that suspension kind of really set us back,” Dahmen said.

The pair, which made six birdies on the back nine (their first nine), netted only three coming in, though they did birdie Nos. 7 and 8.

“We were rolling, too, so [the delay] wasn't great for us,” Harkins said. “To get ready for a third time is hard. You can do two (warmups), but rarely do you do three. I think it took a couple holes to get going.

“… We'll play nine holes [of] alternate shot [Friday], which is actually better than I thought it would be. But part of waking up and part of the weather is just part of being golfers, and you deal with it.”