Top of the Morning, July 30, 2024

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On Tuesdays, we’ll chop it up with our Golfer of the Week. Email nominations to jrossow@news-gazette.com

Even better than Bruce McNary winning a record-tying 10th Kaskaskia Country Club men’s championship at the Arcola course he grew up on: Having his dad, Jack, by his side for all four rounds.

“It was pretty special,” said Bruce, who edged cousin Clayton Miller by a stroke at the 72-hole tournament.

Bruce, 49, and Jack Timmons are tied with 10 overall titles. Bruce won his first as a 16-year-old Arcola High student and followed up with wins “in my 20s, 30s and 40s,” he said. “Maybe I can break the record in my 50s.”

A crop adjuster living in Gibson City with his wife Nicole and 6-year-old twin daughters Cora and Iris, Bruce only plays two tournaments a year. Kaskaskia “is a tournament that means everything to me,” said Bruce, a two-time News-Gazette All-Area football player and a state-qualifying golfer at Arcola High. “That country club is like a family atmosphere. There’s no place like home.”

How’d he celebrate?

“I came home and had Casey’s pizza with my wife and two girls,” he said.

Here’s more:

Order on the 19th hole: Diet Coke

Favorite golf movie: “Caddyshack”

I root for … Scottie Scheffler

Dream foursome: Jim Thompson, uncle Dan Miller, uncle Terry Miller