In one of the best human interest PGA Tour news stories for some time, former US Navy officer, Billy Hurley 111 is shipshape to take his place in this week’s Sony Open in Hawaii.

Hurley spent two years on the bridge of the guided missle destroyer, USS Chung-Hoon before turning full time to golf and the realisation at the end of last year of earning a place on the multi-million dollar PGA Tour.

And Hurley makes his debut on the Tour having visited the USS Chung-Hoon in Pearl Harbour on Monday ahead of teeing-up in the $US 5.5m Sony Open.

Hurley was welcomed aboard by the ship’s commanding officer and relived his life on the warship including a visit to the bunk where he slept and the area where he used to store his golf clubs.

“It was like a home-coming,”said Hurley.

“My wife and I spent to two years living in Hawaii while I was in the Navy.”

The invitation to visit the USS Chung-Hoon came from Chris D. Detje, the Command Master Chief of the Chung-Hoon.

Detje, the highest-ranked enlisted person on the ship, reached out to Hurley via Facebook last week.

After leaving the Navy, the now 29-year old Hurley spent his time on the secondary Nationwide Tour and earning PGA Tour membership by securing the 25th and last card from the 2011 Nationwide money list.

“It turned into a way bigger deal that I thought,” Hurley said, “but it was a lot of fun. They did way more than they should have.”

Hurley will need to get used to such bigger deals. After all, he has a story to tell that is unique on TOUR.

While at the Naval Academy, Hurley became an amateur star, earning invitations to play on the Palmer and Walker Cup teams. Just as it did with David Robinson and the NBA, the Navy was set to give Hurley a chance to play full-time on the PGA TOUR; unfortunately, he was unable to earn his card.

Instead, he set about fulfilling his commitment. He taught economics at the Academy, then in July of 2007, he was assigned to the Chung-Hoon. He spent two years on the ship, serving his country proudly but doing no favors to his golf skills. He played just five competitive rounds in those two years, and went months at a time where he rarely even swung the clubs.

Hurley (shown above on the deck of the USS Chung-Hoon): “I’m proud to be the first service academy grad to play on the TOUR full-time.”

Once he stepped off the Chung-Hoon in 2009, he could finally focus on his goal of being a pro golfer. Alas, there was one problem.

The state of his game was bad.

“Really bad,” Hurley said.

“When you take time off, it’s the finesse shots that become tough. Sure, you can go out there and swing 100 percent at a 7-iron and hit it fine. But when you’ve got to take five yards off a 7-iron, you’ve got no chance. Those were the things that were very difficult to get back.”

But he was determined; after all, he is a Naval officer. He played on the Nationwide Tour last year and in 20 starts, he produced nine top 25 finishes, four of those in the top 10. Still, he had to sweat out the last 90 minutes at the Nationwide Tour Championship at Daniel Island, as he sat precariously on the 25th spot on the money list — the last spot to earn an automatic TOUR card for 2012.

The fact that he was pounding balls on the driving range at Waialae this week shows you how that turned out.

Now he can turn his attention to 2012. The Sony Open in Hawaii isn’t his first PGA TOUR start — as you might imagine, he’s received a fair share of sponsor’s exemptions — but it’s the first one that really counts.

Give Hurley credit for carrying realistic expectations, though. He knows winning will be all but impossible this year, and that even being in contention on the back nine on Sunday in a given week would be a surprise.

His goal this year is to use the pristine condition of the courses he will play and the first-hand access he will have to the world’s best players and equipment to improve his game.

Even though he’s 29 years old and has lost two of his key pro golf-learning years, he is not in a hurry. His simply wants to a) have fun and b) improve his game. The fact that he listed those two goals in that particular order should tell about his perspective. Missing a four-foot putt for par doesn’t seem like a big thing when you’ve spent five years defending your country.

“If I can sit back here a year from now or at the end of the year and say I’m a better golfer than when I started at the Sony Open,” Hurley said, “then I’ll have had a good year in the midst of it.

“Sure, you’d love to win a golf tournament and put yourself in contention as much as possible, but really, if I just sit here and try to become better, go through the process of getting better, then I’ll end up contending somewhere down the road.”

While guarded with his expectations, Hurley knows he will receive plenty of attention this year. Navy grads who step off guided missile destroyers to become PGA TOUR pros don’t exactly go unnoticed.

Fortunately, Hurley will gladly accept the responsibility of representing the Navy whenever he tees it up. Not only friends and family are proud of him, but anybody who has a tie to the Navy — Academy graduates, parents of Navy enlistees, even just fervent military supporters — will be rooting him on. He will shake many hands, high-five many others, sign many autographs this year.

“I want to be the guy from the Navy, from the Naval Academy,” he said. “Nobody’s really done it before. I’m proud to be the first service academy grad to play on the TOUR full-time.

“I want to have that emblem on me.”

On Thursday, he will wear it for the first time as a TOUR pro. The USS Chung-Hoon may be just a few miles away, but now it’s time to embark on a new adventure. One with fewer acronyms.