Can Jay Jurecic Do It – From the U.P. to PGA Tour Champions?
Came within one stroke of making the cut at Carnoustie
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.
“My lightning in a bottle goal is to win on the Champions Tour, but first I’d like to get on it full time, get in more events each year,” he told me.
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.
