The PGA Tour is in Atlanta this weekend. Tom Auclair is in Rhode Island. You’ll be hard-pressed to find more shocking news anywhere in today’s paper.

Since the opening tournament of the 1997 golf season — the Mercedes Championships at Kapalua, on the Hawaiian island of Maui — Auclair has been at every PGA Tour event, every major championship, every Ryder Cup, every President’s Cup, every World Golf Championship tourney, that has been played.

That’s a total of 434 consecutive events — a streak that makes Rhode Island’s other “Iron Man,” Dana Quigley, who set a Champions Tour record by playing in 264 tournaments in a row, seem like a part-time player.

Auclair, of course, hasn’t played in all those events. He’s covered them for his highly successful Web site, insidetheropes.com.

Although a Woonsocket native, and North Smithfield resident, Auclair has been living out of a suitcase for more than a decade, making his living by chasing around the globe the guys who chase a little white ball for a living.

What kind of dedication does it take to do that? What sort of determination? Or, when you consider the story he tells about chasing down Ben Curtis for an interview after he won the British Open in 2003, what kind of craziness?

“When Curtis won,” said Auclair, “I didn’t know who he was, and neither did anybody else. But I knew his agent, Clark Jones, and when I asked him for an interview, he said: ‘How much time do you need?’ ”

Auclair asked for “just a couple of minutes” and began setting up his video and audio equipment, only to see Curtis climb into a car after completing a series of 90-second interviews with the likes of NBC, ESPN and CNN.

“Ben Curtis, his wife, the agent, and the claret jug — they drove right by us,” said Auclair.

Instead of throwing up his hands in a combination of indignation and exasperation, Auclair and his oldest son, T.J., threw their equipment into their rented car and sped off in pursuit of Curtis.

“We were going more than 60 miles an hour down these narrow roads,” Auclair recalled, “and T.J.’s in a panic. He’s saying: ‘Dad! You’re crazy! Dad! You’re acting like a paparazzi.’ I just told him: ‘T.J., keep your eye on that van.’

“When we finally get to the house IMG (International Management Group, Curtis’ agents) had rented, Clark Jones bounces out of the van, and he is angry. ‘I can’t believe you followed us!’ he yelled.

“I told him: ‘Clark, I’ve interviewed every tournament winner for the last seven years, and I’m not going to stop now.’ He said: ‘I don’t care.’ And I said: ‘I do. This is my job.’ ”

Realizing what he was up against, Jones relented, and Auclair got not merely the 90 seconds Curtis had given the major networks but a 10-minute interview.

“When it was over,” said Auclair, “T.J. looked at me with tears in his eyes and said: ‘Dad, I’m so proud of you.’ ”

Auclair’s tenacity isn’t the only thing revealed by that story.

It also shows the affection and pride with which he’s viewed by his family, and the respect he has earned from people throughout the golf business — especially the players.

First, the family. Because that’s what comes first for Auclair, despite all the time he’s spent on the road.

It’s family that’s brought him home this week. Katelyn, the youngest of his three children, and only daughter, is graduating from Providence College.

“Can you guess who his favorite kid is?” T.J. asks, with a laugh.

A 2002 graduate of URI, where he majored in journalism, T.J., spent several years working with his father.

He’s now an interactive producer for PGA.com. His younger brother, Kyle, a fine junior golfer, who earned an associate’s degree from CCRI, works for insidetheropes.com and travels with Tom.

But, growing up, there were many nights when the Auclair children’s only contact with their father was by phone.

“Before cell phones, I had phone bills of $2,500 a month,” Tom said. “I considered that a cost of doing business. I wasn’t going to stop talking to my wife and kids. I figured, if I couldn’t afford it, I’d have to do something else.

“I think of how much time I missed with them. That’s been incredibly difficult.”

It would have been impossible without the support of his wife of 28 years, Karin.

At times, she has been able to travel with him. Tom remembers a dinner they shared in South Africa, after the President’s Cup in 2003.

“She looked at me and said: ‘It’s so beautiful here. I’d never, in my wildest dreams, ever thought I’d come to a place like this.’

“That,” he said, “is a byproduct of what I do.”

Among the best things Auclair does is air daily interviews with tournament leaders and prominent players on his Web site. As he describes it: “Each interview is exclusive. Rather than watching a ‘scrum’ interview, as you’d see on the nightly news, the goal is to make you feel as if you’re sitting down and shooting the breeze with the likes of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh, Ernie Els, and all the players on the PGA Tour.”

Tour players readily grant Auclair a few minutes of their time because they’ve seen how hard he works. They can’t help but notice how he’s always there, following them to each Tour stop, week after week, year after year. They know that, while they take time off, he never does.

“It’s interesting,” he said, “to see how people have responded to my taking this week off. Some said: ‘Man, I didn’t realize it had been so long.’ Others said: ‘You really are crazy.’

“But the funny thing is, there are people who wake up and go to work every day for 10 years, 25 years. I look at this the same way. It’s different for me, because my office changes every week, and I have to fly to the next one. But I just consider myself to be a guy who went to work every day for more than 10 years.”

Obviously, Auclair is a guy who loves his work.

“I’ve been an entrepreneur all my life,” he said. “A good friend of mine, Alan Zura, once said to me: ‘Tom, if you stuck with just one thing, you’d be dynamite.’ I felt that, whatever I did, I was going to try to be the best.

“What I do isn’t rocket science. I’m not doing anything that’s going to change the world. But I’m doing my part to record golf history. I’ve gotten to cover guys like Tiger Woods — the greatest golfer ever to walk the planet. That’s pretty cool. I’ll take that job.”

And, at least once every 10 years, he may actually take a week off from that job.

jdonalds@projo.com