A onetime pro, Garrett Jones achieves his biggest golf dream with a Wisconsin StateAm title

WAUKESHA – After a grueling four days of competition at the Legend at Merrill Hills golf course, Garrett Jones of Madison won the 123rd Wisconsin State Amateur Championship.

Hardly a second into his acceptance speech, Jones began to break down.

"I'm a crier," he joked.

The 39-year-old will have his name etched into Wisconsin State Golf Association's history forever, an accomplishment he dreamed of as a kid.

"The WSGA has been so important to me for literally 25 years," said Jones, who emerged with a one-stroke victory over Joe DuChateau. "I think I played my first State Junior when I was 14 or 15. I always wanted my name on their premier trophy: the State Am. I've come close before and haven't done it.

"I tried to go into today and try to diminish what it meant to me, but at the end of the day it means a lot because of the good players you have to beat and because of what the WSGA has meant to me."

Originally from Rewey in southwest Wisconsin, Jones grew up in a non-golf family. He happened to pick it up at age 12 and continued with the sport over basketball and baseball.

After graduating from the University of Wisconsin, Jones turned pro. He battled for seven years with some success but not as much as he desired.

Jones, though, remained dedicated to golf.

"I still had the fire to compete, so I wanted to get my amateur status back and compete against guys half my age," he said. "I think that's what drives me: competitive golf."

Jones has been playing in WSGA tournaments since he was 14 years old. In 2004, he finished second in the State Am behind Pat Boyle.

Twenty years later, he secured his first State Am title. Jones doesn't mind the gap in time.

"I played with Tom Halla and Bob Gregorski in the first couple rounds and, well, that's what I wanna do," he said.

"I want to still be playing when I'm in my 50s. And they're making the cut! They're bulldogs – they just love to compete. That's what I love to do."

Jones had to fight hard for his title.

At the end of the first day, he was five shots behind the leader, Ty Kretz, who shot 5-under 66. By the end of the second round, he had clawed his way into a three-way tie for first place by shooting 2-under 69. He entered the final day neck-and-neck with Sheboygan's Drake Wilcox and Fond du Lac's DuChateau.

DuChateau, Jones, and Wilcox stayed with each other through the front nine, though Jones bought a little breathing room with birdies on the 10th and 11th holes.

Despite being in lockstep with the competition, Jones says he didn't feel pressured.

"Yesterday, I watched the leaderboard quite a bit, but today I didn't," said Jones, who shot a 2-over 73 in the final round to finish the tournament at even par. "I knew that if I was putting for birdies, I was gonna be really difficult to beat. The pressure that I felt was just the fact that I had to quiet my mind and do what I could do to get on the green. I can't control what Joe does, can't control what Drake does, couldn't control what Ross (Thomson) was doing in front of me.

"My boss always said – he's a competitor himself, he played professional hockey – he said pressure is a privilege. If you're feeling pressure that means something's important to you and that you're in the mix to win something big."

Although he faltered on the final hole – the ball landed on a sod-filled drain, he didn't get out cleanly and took a double-bogey six – Jones had held a solid enough lead through much the back nine to hang on.

Due to a rule change, Jones becomes the first Wisconsin State Am champion to receive an automatic bid to the United States Amateur Championship in mid-August.

Next year Jones will be eligible for the Wisconsin Golf Hall of Fame. He took a pause before admitting that he had thought about the accomplishment.

"I'd be lying if I said no," he said. "The Hall of Fame would be wildly unbelievable. At the end of the day you try to boil it down to what you can control. Winning golf tournaments can take care of that. To win golf tournaments, you gotta hit good golf shots, you gotta think you way around the golf course.

"Is it out of my control. Kind of. But is it in my control? Kind of, I can play good golf, I can win golf tournaments.

"But yeah, of course, I'd love to be in the Hall of Fame I don't want to put the cart before the horse. I gotta do what I can do to control it, like winning premier events like this."

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: A onetime pro, Garrett Jones achieves his biggest golf dream with a Wisconsin StateAm title