U.P. Power – Jay Jurecic Led PGA Tour Champions in South Dakota for 3 Holes Before Zach Johnson Triumphs
Led the tournament with 15 holes remaining
By Tom Lang
“My lightning in a bottle goal is to win on the Champions Tour,” Iron River resident Jay Jurecic told me back in late December.
In the final round of the Sanford International in Sioux Falls, South Dakota on Sept. 13, with 15 holes left to play, Jurecic was ready to grab such an electrifying bolt – a jolt that would’ve shaken him to the core and changed the senior golfer’s life forever.
Jurecic was holding a one-shot lead over eventual winner Zach Johnson as they went down the 4th fairway together, paired up in the final grouping along with Ben Crane.
Jurecic played pretty well the rest of the way, but Johnson played much better, having a Master’s title under his belt compared to Jurecic playing in only his 4th PGA Tour Champions event ever. He Monday qualified this week (like he did here in 2021), which is what he’s limited to at age 55 and having never had status on any Tour. Johnson and Crane each shot 4-under par; Jurecic scored 1-over par Sunday, to finish T8 with a 54-hole run of 68-65-71 for 6-under par.
Who Is Jay Jurecic?
If you’re asking yourself why you haven’t heard Jurecic’s name before, you’re in natural company because neither have millions of other golf fans across the country. A handful of Michiganders know him as the former public school teacher in the Upper Peninsula who won the Tournament of Champions at Boyne with an eagle on the final hole to force a playoff. We outlined his amazingly-unique path to where he found himself in South Dakota in our story from the January 2026 edition. We have most of that original story cut and pasted in below…but first…
What happened in South Dakota:
After Monday qualifying, Jurecic had a nice 68 in the first round (with his sister on the bag), and followed it with a dazzling 65 in the second round, including a birdie on the 18th hole to launch him into a tie with Johnson at 7-under for the final round pairing (with his cousin on the bag).
“I didn’t know Jay’s story, but the more and more I learned about it, I got minimal knowledge, but I got some nuggets,” Johnson said. “No. 1 he’s very classy. Very, very complimentary and very appreciative, which I’m not surprised by that. He’s a Midwest guy. Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
“Quality, quality player. I wanted him to finish in the top 10 so he’d have a chance to do whatever that would entail. But Ben (Crane) and I both told him, ‘you’ve got to keep playing man.’ He’s good, and he’s just got to get in that position more often. I think if he gets in it more often he can see some good results, because he’s a really really good player. And as I could tell, he’s an even better person. I enjoyed my day with Jay.”
In most cases, a top 10 finish gets players into the next event on the schedule, and sometimes more down the road. But in this case, with a three-way tie, the lowest score of Sunday breaks the tie, which went to Darren Fichhardt.
Getting so close to earning another exemption when they are rare for a Jurecic-type scenario would break the will of many people. But that’s not how he acted when we talked a few hours after the tournament ended. Jurecic was on his way to the airport in Minneapolis to catch a flight to Pebble Beach to try qualifying on Tuesday for the PURE Insurance Championship, Sept. 18-20.
“I knew something about the tie breakers, but I wasn’t watching the scores, I was just trying to do the best that I could,” Jurecic told me. “Andy North was telling me, ‘top 10, you’re going to be in Pebble,’ and I thought that was great. But it’s no big deal (I didn’t get in). I’m excited to go out there for another chance. I’m grateful. I had a chance and played well on the biggest stage. I’m learning every day.
“I’m just trying to put myself out there and try to believe – focus in on one shot at a time and see what I can do. I don’t pay attention to the other stuff: who you’re playing with, or status stuff or the money, and just try to really enjoy playing and fall in love with that.
“I felt a little like I was jumping into the deep end of the pool,” he said, regarding earning his way into the final pairing in the final round. “Five years ago I got into this tournament and I think I’ve gotten so much better.”
South Dakota is comfortable for Jurecic. He’s played for many years on the Dakotas Tour to hone his game and try scrapping by on small purses as he grew his game. This week he stayed at a friend’s place he’s used many times before that was about 45 minutes from the tournament.
“I like it out here. The people are really nice, and I’m comfortable because it reminds me a lot of the U.P. I stayed in an old farmhouse. It’s a little home away from home.”
Jurecic will be able to take away multiple positive memories from Sioux Falls, and hopefully more this season. A big one was making a birdie on the 18th hole in Saturday’s second round, that launched him into the tie with Johnson.
“Yeah, that was the biggest roar I ever had,” he told me. “Making a putt like that was special. I really was just in the moment. At the time I didn’t know that put me in the final group. I didn’t even know what my final score was until my caddy said it was a five-under day.”
His only real bump in the road was a bogey on 12, a par 5, when his second shot went wide left and just one-foot out of bounds. He still saved the bogey when he missed the 30-foot par putt by an inch.
“I was just trying to love the battle more than the prize,” Jurecic said. “I got to play with a Masters’ Champion, on the biggest stage, for me anyway. I didn’t even think about the TV coverage. It wasn’t about that. I just wanted to make it about the golf – and for the people at home, in the U.P., in my hometown, for all the kids I taught (in middle school) just to show them, put yourself out there. Keep failing forward and keep learning from it. Failure is not the end – it’s just feedback to tell me what to work on. I’m not going to learn that at home on the driving range. I’m watching all these guys do a great job.”
And for at least a three-day stretch, Jay Jurecic was one of them.
January 2026 MI Golf Journal story:
By Tom Lang
Every golfer that has a dream of making the PGA Tour must start somewhere.
For Jay Jurecic, that somewhere is in tiny Iron River, located in the very remote western Upper Peninsula.
Not exactly Michigan’s hotbed for golf.
For Jurecic, his dream began later in life than most. He never played on a high school golf team, nor on a college team. He took up the game as a high school senior because the local Young’s Golf Course allowed students to play for free. He needed to keep busy.
As a young adult getting better at the game, he thought about teaching in the golf business but eventually turned that into teaching science and math for two decades at his alma mater, West Iron County Middle/High School.
But all along that journey, he’s been carving out options on summertime mini tours that could hopefully get him onto the PGA Tour Champions circuit.
Jurecic, age 55, did play in the 2024 Dick’s Sporting Goods event in New York this past year, shot even par and earned just under $5,000. Every penny is important when you are a golfer paying your own way without fancy corporate sponsorships.
He also reached a playoff for the Ally Challenge Monday qualifier in 2021. That same year he qualified for the PGA Tour Champions’ Sanford International in Sioux Falls, won by Darren Clarke. Jurecic later won the Senior Michigan Open, despite not being a member of the Michigan PGA Section.
One Shot Away at Carnoustie:
A favorite golfing accomplishment to date was being medalist by a whopping four stroke margin in a qualifier for the 2024 Senior British Open. It was played at Firestone Country Club, and he made 29 on one nine for a 9-under par 61 total.
Then off to Carnoustie.
At the historic British club, Jurecic birdied the storied 18th hole on day two, but came up one stroke short of making the cut – despite scoring a 77 in the first round.
“I was so excited to make a birdie (7-foot putt) on the 18th hole, one of the most difficult finishing holes in golf,” Jurecic said. “One of my dreams coming true realizing all the hard work, belief and persistence paid off. This was my first time overseas and I was blessed to play in Scotland. To experience the journey from Young’s Golf Course (where he began with those free rounds) all the way to where golf started was incredible.
“I enjoyed playing links golf with the wind, fescue grass and deep, steep faced bunkers. The course was in great condition; very difficult but fair, requiring accurate shots.”
Since summer of 2021 Jurecic has been chasing the Champions Tour, after he resigned from teaching. He’s still young enough he could go back to that career, if necessary, before fully retiring. He gives a lot of credit and thanks to the support of family, and friends at Young’s Golf Course who helped pay his way to Carnoustie.
Famed Michigan course designer Ray Hearn is helping Young’s Golf Course make some improvements. That’s how he met Jurecic.
“I played Carnoustie three different times through an MSU program, and that’s an ‘eat your lunch’ golf course that will destroy golfers, even professionals, so to be one putt away from making the cut against Sergio and Colin Montgomery and those guys … it’s beyond impressive,” Hearn told me. “It’s not like he’s a former noted college golfer, or one of Michigan’s well-known amateurs ... I mean this guy just comes out of the blue,” after teaching school for 20 years.
“He’s got a math mind, so he’s a numbers guy,” Hearn added. “He looks at the analytics, the launch angle, or trajectory. His analytics are crazy. He studies the game so much, and is very passionate about golf architecture too.
“He’s got such passion and dedication. You watch his ball flight on the driving range, where he says I’ll hit this to ‘X or Y’ position and I think there’s no way this guy’s going to be that close, and then sure enough. And watching him on the golf course, attacking really tucked pins to landforms is just incredibly impressive. But to do it at a later stage in life is like bizarre, we all know that.”
Closer to home, this past summer Jurecic eagled the final hole of regulation in the Tournament of Champions at Boyne Mountain, to force a playoff, which he won over mini-tour player, Grant Haefner, age 27, of Bloomfield Hills.
In the playoff, Jurecic’s third shot, a 45-yard pitch shot from the rough right of the green rolled to within five inches, and with the tap-in birdie he won the 33rd Tournament of Champions at Boyne Mountain Resort.
“I kept thinking all day, even when I was struggling there in the middle of the round a bit, that I still have a chance, I can still eagle 18,” he said that day. “I wasn’t banking on it hitting the flag and sticking it to a foot. But that was my hope, the miracle finish.”
Jurecic shot a final round 5-under 67 for a 13-under 203 total. With his miraculous finish Jurecic took home the $10,500 first-place check, the historic Walter Burkemo Trophy, and the traditional green blazer emblematic of his membership for life in the Country Club of Boyne.
“I know I’m blessed to be able to still chase my dream,” he said. “I think I’m playing the best golf of my life at 55 to be honest. I’m going to just keep going and keep trying to get better.”
That’s all any golfer can ask who loves this game.
